Rigid forks -what to get???

Rob1

Old School Hero
Evening all.

I've had enough of suspension and would like a rigid fork (Potts or Black Sheep maybe) for my 18" Seven Sola but am puzzled as to what length to go for. The frame is suspension corrected/designed to run a sus-fork and has always looked a little forward tilted with a 26" rigid pace RC31 fork.

I've heard people have run 29" forks on their 26" bikes but this seems a bit extreme to me. My gut feeling is to get a rigid 27.5" fork built as it would approximate my fox forks in terms of uncompressed length.

Anyone got any experience of this?

Also, how do I figure out what rake I need?

Thanks in advance for any info/advice.

R
 
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No such thing as a 27.5" rigid fork is there? I thought they were just 29er.

You want to think of usual axle crown of say a 120mm fork look that up and use that. I would go for some salsa's or similar. Or lovely pace rigid steel forks
 
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Kona project 2's are good and can be found cheapish. Mine are 445mm a-c which are replacements for 80-100mm sus forks!
 
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Thanks both.

Just done a bit more digging and it seems that ~440mm is the going replacement for a 100mm suspension fork (what my frame was set up for). may push it to 445mm.

So how do you figure out what rake to opt for? Any ideas?

Thanks
 
I'm in the same boat Rob, I'm currently building a dialled Prince Albert but quite fancy it rigid... I'm being swayed towards a salsa cro moto but they also do one with a maxle, £200 mind you for the maxle version!

I expect I'll go for a 29er fork with a QR as my frame is aimed towards longer travel... As for rake, as long as your head tube isn't super slack (which if it's a 100mm travel designed frame I doubt it will be slack) , you will be ok with pretty much anything 440-450mm I'd say... Are you planning on straight or curved?
 
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Rob1":dsoao4qj said:
So how do you figure out what rake to opt for? Any ideas?
I'm using 440mm a-c with 45mm of offset. The original forks were 415/40, and the frame was 60-80 corrected. TBH, as long as it's in the ball park it'll not make a huge difference. i.e. as long as you haven't got a bike with genesis geometry or are using something designed around something with an a-c that's 40mm out or something daft, you'll be fine.
 
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Thanks for the advice guys

Looks like I'll go for a Titanium DeKerf fork of around 445mm length....
 
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