Cheapo 20" suspension forks

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glennb

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There's none of interest locally to me, the half decent ones all seem to be fatties and/or thru-axle, which I can't be bothered building a wheel for ... so, direct Chinese import it shall be.

Again, though, a paucity of options in 100/9mm form factor.

Quick scour of Aliexpress, which ought to be represemtative of what's available, uncovers a crumby looking "Boland" with coil spring, 28mm stanchions, and no damping, for way more than it's worth,.

Apart from that, there only seems to be this:


Any experiences with it? Leaks? Wobbles? Shudders? Stiction? Seals? Servicing?

I hope it's ok, because there's bugger all else on offer, it's cheap, and the axle-crown at 365mm is near enough perfect for me (depending on the fork offset figure, which the Ali seller fails to provide.)
 
That's by far the best looking 20" fork that I've seen (if it's represented accurately). There was a thread on this some time ago, and I don't think the OP ever found anything this (apparently) competent. Probably all steel and weighs a ton, but still excellent for the price.
 
Your forks most important function is to keep your face out of the pavement, and that fork is meant for kids bikes. If I were on 20" wheels I'd be using BMX forks.
2old said:
...Probably all steel and weighs a ton, but still excellent for the price.
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I'm not sure what gave you this idea. The stanchions may be steel, the lowers are clearly not.
 
bengxe said:
The stanchions may be steel, the lowers are clearly not.
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It's AliExpress. They could be cast steel, or cast zinc. They could be plastic. They could be molded bread crumbs. You pays your money and takes your chances.
 
Don't buy too cheap..
Suntour has a wide range of available options.
Give this article a look also: Kids Forks - The Bike Dads
 
Chalo said:
It's AliExpress. They could be cast steel, or cast zinc. They could be plastic. They could be molded bread crumbs. You pays your money and takes your chances.
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I agree that you don't know what you're getting from aliexpress, but my point was that real cast steel lowers would double or triple the value and cost of this fork. What you're getting is some mixture of aluminum, zinc, magnesium, or whatever else is in the pot.
 
glennb said:
Quick scour of Aliexpress, which ought to be represemtative of what's available, uncovers a crumby looking "Boland" with coil spring, 28mm stanchions, and no damping, for way more than it's worth,.
Click to expand...
Yes, knowing the intended usage will help. Just a note about damping. I have a 20" Suntour Mobie A32 on my mini cargo bike, and it's great. It doesn't have any damping, but for just riding on rough roads, I don't think a damper would help much... especially with only 50mm of travel. Some of the new fangled gravel suspension forks do away with dampers, as they found with super short travel and on gravel roads, no damping is really needed.
If you plan on serious trail riding, ignore my comment!
 
While it will affect the geometry some, you can use a regular 26" or whatever fork, then add dropouts at the point the 20" wheel axle would sit along the lowers if it was 20" fork instead.

If it's steel lowers you can just weld them on, but if it's anything else you can weld each of them to half of a tube that then clamp over the lowers' tubes to the other half of the tube.

I did the former here, you can see the added dropouts (cut from the rear of a BMX frame); I started witha 24" fork so the 20" dropouts are only a couple inches higher than the originals. a 26" fork would have placed them 3" above that point. I used really shitty forks because it was what I had, and I might as well've used a solid fork :lol: but the same thing could be used to modify a *good* fork.
1744771562456.png

I built the fork for ReCycle, my first recumbent, which I chose not to use because it was too low for safety in traffic here, and instead I went with the Crazybike2 design (not shown here; CrazyBike1's beginning is shown above; it rapidly evolved into the v2 I did go with).
1744771811714.png
1744772415595.png
 
Thanks guys.

Sure, the "Kube" fork was specified for a kid's bike, but there's nothing kiddie about 32mm stanchions with corresponding crown and lowers.

Ultimately it's the materials and engineering that determine strength, like Chalo points out. And that's a huge unknown with any fork, because there's no data for any of them, rock shox, suntour, whatever.

That said, of course I prefer a reputable manufacturer, so I'll revisit the Suntour line-up. I can import a Mobie 32 from Germany as long as Suntour isn't enforcing restrictions to protect the local distributor.

The bike's a little unconventional, not sure how to describe it. Easier if I post pictures. Working on it today and it'll be back in one piece tonight.
 
Amberwolf, i wouldn't have thought of those types of fork mods, but will seriously consider it for this bike, because it's already ugly as sin.
 
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