saddlesores

someone had axed about the giant trekking bike. saw one downtown
today. it's a 700c with a suspension fork and disk brakes. comes with
a front platform rack mounted to the canti brake bosses.

the giant branded fork also has dual eyelets at the dropout for racks
and fenders. AND it has a 2/3-of-the-way down eyelet for fenders.
AND it has a mid-fork low-rider mount.

bradtx

saddlesores, While some may poo-poo the idea of using a suspension fork, I think it's a good move by Giant. Any idea if it's able to be locked out?

Brad

saddlesores

i also would poopoo a suspension fork for touring.
i just thought it was a neato peachy-keen fork
with so many braze-on attachments. lotta threads
asking about mounting lo-riders to suspension forks.

anyway....i think this here is the giant "trooper"
comes in various models....3300, 5300, drop bar
or trekking bar, etc. around $500

it's a giant branded fork, i'd guess it's prolly
a relabeled suntour. they come in different
levels. some with lockout, some without.
i'd have to check more carefullyer next time
i'm near the shop.

here's a taobao listing with photos:

GIANT½Ý°²ÌØTrooperµÛ°Ø5500ÂÁºÏ½ðºûµû°ÑÂÃÐгµËͳµÊ×µÆÂë±í-ÌÔ±¦Íø

wow! just noticed the 5500 trooper frame has internal cables.....

Tourist in MSN

I generally have not looked at suspension forks on lower end bikes, but I do not recall seeing one before that was raked with a lower bend in the fork blades instead of or in addition to an offset crown. Is a front suspension fork with curved fork blades as unusual as I think it is?

This summer I plan to do an off road tour and will be using a suspension fork. Food and camping gear for 8 or 9 days is going to be a bit tricky to collapse down to the volume I will have available.

I bought a frame bag and some extra large rear panniers, plan to use my big handlebar bag too. I would like to transfer more weight from the rear to the front wheel, but I want the weight to be sprung, not unsprung weight. Thus, I do not want to use a rack mounted on the front axle/skewer or lower part of the fork. If Tubus still made the swing rack, I would buy it.

I bought some very similar front racks to the ones pictured, picked them up at a clearance table. It never occurred to me to put one on a suspension fork. I might do that as a back up location for overflow capacity of lightweight stuff.

bradtx

saddlesores, The fork looks to have a lock out, thanks for the link.

Brad

fietsbob

Question remains Who is the vendor Giant buys their forks from. the supplier obviously can paint & Logo the lower section for them before assembling it.

My Koga Miyata 04 wtr has a short Travel Spinner made fork, painted to color match the frame ,
and they used a raised boss on the Casting offering a place to bolt on a block machined for the purpose of the top low rider rail mount,Tubus Ergo rack. *

without having the bolt stop the sliding motion.. a custom batch made for the production run of these bikes .

* itself a custom OEM batch made for Koga, with a front kickstand.

saddlesores

bob: i saw some giant msds's with suntour as the fork supplier. canna say for
sure if this one is as well, but assume so.

tourist: the pictured racks are unsprung, but you know that, right?

brad: the link is to the 5500 (with internal cables). higher pricepoint. i think the
one i found is the 3300. doesn't appear from my photos to have lockout.

here's a link to the 3300 model ($400) for comparison:

Ô*×°ÕýÆ·Ðлõ2014½Ý°²Ìص۰Ø3300TROOPER 3300ÂÃÐгµ×ÔÐгµ-ÌÔ±¦Íø

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, if I put much weight on the front I want it to be on the top half of the suspension where the weight is not bounced up and down as much as the wheel. The rack on that Giant will go up and down as much as the wheel. Thus if you add much weight to a rack in a location like that, that messes with the ability for the suspension to work proper.

But, I might use a small rack like that for a convenient spot to strap on small lightweight items when I go on my off road tour this summer. The bike I will be using can use a 100mm travel suspension fork or the solid fork that came with the frame, for this trip I will switch to the suspension fork.

fietsbob

Tubus tried to produce a rack, the Swing, that fit on the fork crown to let the suspension work with minimal unsprung weight,
but too many different forks are made to have 1 product play well with all those forks , so they ceased producing it.

https://www.tubus.com/documents/1322734401_MASwing.pdf

So now a custom fabricator (with good liability coverage) will be needed to make something, similar, for a specific fork.