Max fork length for 2000 Marin Mount Vision

[hawkhill97]

Anyone know what the longest axle to crown length fork out would be sensible to fit to a year 2000 Marin Mount Vision?

I think the OEM 80mm travel manitou's had an A2C around 445mm or so. I'm currently running some 110mm travel RST Delta TL's with an A2C of 455mm and they're great. However, they're developing a little play between the stanchions & lowers, and they've always had an almighty top out clang (even though the rebound damping is actually pretty good).

Anyway I've got a 2003 Marzocchi Bomber MX comp going spare right now (the coil spring air assisted preload model rather than the ETA with adjustable travel). Think they're 100mm travel or maybe a smidge more. A2C length is 485mm though.

Would fitting a 40mm longer fork than the OEM model 1) screw up the handling (I wouldn't mind the slightly slacker head angle, but the BB is already pretty high) or 2) rip my head tube off the frame while bombing a rocky descent or landing a small jump?

At the moment I'm erring on the side of caution, but just wondered if anyone has any real life experience of this?

 

[old_coyote_pedaller]

Re:

No idea of max crown2axle length but I fitted a 130mm Marzocchi Z1 Wedge to a '98/99 Wolf Ridge but I also changed the rear swing-arm to one from a '98 Wild Cat Trail. This arm is 30mm longer than original so it increased rear travel to approx 120mm.

The head tube angle was a good bit slacker, it had a longer wheelbase plus fitting a shorter stem too sort of made it more like a more modern bike travel/geometry wise. Was told I had somehow accidentally built a modernish bike. I definitely had no intention of achieving that outcome. It felt really weird riding it for a while till I got used to it as I normally rode either my Cannondale Super V full suspension or my F800 hardtail, both which I had fitted 100mm Leftys to. Once I got used to this long travel version of the Wolf Ridge it felt really good down steeper stuff.

As to worries of ripping off head tube my thoughts would be that a longer travel fork would lessen the impact of hits to bike/frame.

 

[hawkhill97]

Interesting, thanks for the feedback. More travel would lessen the force on the head tube perhaps, but a longer leaver will increase it. According to tinterwebs it could be a bad idea, but wondering if there might be more real life experience available here.

Leaning towards keeping the current fork at the moment, but it would be good to have a back up option if the knocking in the stanchions gets any worse.

 

[hawkhill97]

Don't know if it's possible to reduce the travel on these forks to lower the A2C length by 20mm or so... I know it's possible on some forks but not sure how easy it would be to source the parts needed to do this any more (guess you'd just need shorter damper rods to pull the stanchions down into the lowers a bit more?).

I also believe this fork came in 85/105/120mm travel variants so will keep an eye out for a shorter travel one as an eventual replacement for my RST Delta.

I've got other plans for the bombers now - intending to use them on a drop bar monster cross build. Just need to give them a good service first!