zombiess
10 MW
Finally got this fork on to my race bike. Setup is I think Kent Hyper 20" wheel full suspension kids MTB, all steel all kick ass. Rear shock is an ebay special I got for $65 shipped that has adjustable rebound and an 850lb spring, pretty darn nice piece. Stock front suspension fork on this bike was made out of on half about to fail and one half I'm going to die so I ordered up the only 20" fork I could really find. It comes without any steerer which is nice because it give you options of lenghts, threaded, threadless, 1", 1 1/8", etc. The steerers are sold seperately for about $20 and are clamp on style and once clamped in with crown race installed they feel very sturdy. This fork also provides mounts for a disc brake which is excellent because it's very hard to find a fork for a 20" wheel that supports disc brakes. The fork itself retails for about $90 and is a no frills shock. It has 50mm travel and adjustable preload.
Now for the bad, this shock is mainly for kids bikes so eve with the preload set to max it's pretty easy to bottom out by standing up in the saddle (I'm 175lbs) which I thought was going to be a problem at first. The good news is that during my rides I haven't found this to be an issue and it has helped to smooth out the ride quite a bit. I have managed to bottom it out once on purpose by hitting a sharp drainage dip at 40+ mph to see how it would behave and it took it OK. I do get a noticeable amount of nose dive on heavy braking, but I've noticed that even on my 4" travel full size MTB.
If this fork had 3" of travel or the ability to add more preload it would just about perfect for street riding, but as it is now I'm going to give it a 7/10. Too bad there aren't many options out there for 20" susp forks. I might give a 26" fork with 4" travel a go, but have to see how the bike will handle the geometry change. Once I have my 20" wheel with disc hub in hand I'll have a lot more options to try out.
Now for the bad, this shock is mainly for kids bikes so eve with the preload set to max it's pretty easy to bottom out by standing up in the saddle (I'm 175lbs) which I thought was going to be a problem at first. The good news is that during my rides I haven't found this to be an issue and it has helped to smooth out the ride quite a bit. I have managed to bottom it out once on purpose by hitting a sharp drainage dip at 40+ mph to see how it would behave and it took it OK. I do get a noticeable amount of nose dive on heavy braking, but I've noticed that even on my 4" travel full size MTB.
If this fork had 3" of travel or the ability to add more preload it would just about perfect for street riding, but as it is now I'm going to give it a 7/10. Too bad there aren't many options out there for 20" susp forks. I might give a 26" fork with 4" travel a go, but have to see how the bike will handle the geometry change. Once I have my 20" wheel with disc hub in hand I'll have a lot more options to try out.