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Old 04-30-14, 12:12 PM
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Dave Mayer
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Originally Posted by Robert P
I find some seem to feel disdain for suspension front forks. Not clear to me why.

Insights?
If you are hammering over head-sized rocks at 20mph, then suspension is useful. Most responses have correctly identified the following negatives about suspension forks:
  • excess weight for a feature that is unnecessary for the vast majority of riders
  • results in energy-sapping suspension bob
  • extra cost and mechanical complexity. Extra stuff to break
  • Sloppy steering that gets worse as the stanchion bushings wear
  • If ridden in the rain, the fork may fill with water and then rust-out and seize-up

Here is another big negative - the almost universal addition of cheap suspension to all mass-market bikes made from say 1995 to current means that there will be a whole generation of bikes missing from the resale market. Used to be that you could buy an old rigid fork mountain bike, put on slicks and have a great beater/commuter bike. Not any more. The first thing that goes on the newer bikes is the cheap suspension forks. Then it is too expensive to change them out for rigid forks, in terms of materials and labor. So they get thrown into the landfill.

Such waste due to a fad requirement.

But then the bike industry is a slave to fads. In 1995 you could not sell a bike unless it was a "mountain bike". At that time it was funny to see old 10-speeds and even older English 3-speeds being retrofitted with knobby tires and trying to be sold on Craigslist as rad and gnarly mountain bikes.

15 years later, every bike had to be marketed as a road bike. So now we see 45 pound full suspension rigs fitted out with 1.5" high pressure slicks and being flogged on Craigslist as "road bikes".
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