Show Posts
1
Gear Talk / Mountain bike forks
« on: April 05, 2012, 05:55:52 pm »
Greetings,
I have a question about mountain bike forks. Specifically, are suspension forks bad for touring? I ask because I've searched and read what I could about touring on a mountain bike. All of the articles that I've found on touring on a mountain bike have some form of the line, "on some suspension forks, it's easy to lock the suspension so that it doesn't move, or if you can't lock your suspension, it's easy to swap out your suspension fork with a rigid fork." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. The thing is that none of the articles I've found explain WHY a suspension fork is bad. It's just assumed that everybody knows that suspension forks are bad for touring and they're doing you the service of telling you how to correct the problem.
I have no idea WHY a suspension fork is bad. I'm sure it's something simple.
FWIW, I'm planning a week or two loaded tour through Kansas this summer. We'll be riding on roads, although it's likely that many of them will be gravel or dirt. I like the mountain bike option because a) we have them, b) I like the low gears, and c) I like the wide tires for dirt and gravel roads.
There are two of us going on the trip. We have one MTB with a suspension fork, one without.
I'm not sure if we'll need front panniers or not.
Thanks In Advance,
Bob
I have a question about mountain bike forks. Specifically, are suspension forks bad for touring? I ask because I've searched and read what I could about touring on a mountain bike. All of the articles that I've found on touring on a mountain bike have some form of the line, "on some suspension forks, it's easy to lock the suspension so that it doesn't move, or if you can't lock your suspension, it's easy to swap out your suspension fork with a rigid fork." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. The thing is that none of the articles I've found explain WHY a suspension fork is bad. It's just assumed that everybody knows that suspension forks are bad for touring and they're doing you the service of telling you how to correct the problem.
I have no idea WHY a suspension fork is bad. I'm sure it's something simple.
FWIW, I'm planning a week or two loaded tour through Kansas this summer. We'll be riding on roads, although it's likely that many of them will be gravel or dirt. I like the mountain bike option because a) we have them, b) I like the low gears, and c) I like the wide tires for dirt and gravel roads.
There are two of us going on the trip. We have one MTB with a suspension fork, one without.
I'm not sure if we'll need front panniers or not.
Thanks In Advance,
Bob