Reba- How low can you go?

[Pogo]

I've got a pair of Reba forks and have just set them up with 80mm of travel, they aren't yet fitted to my Dekerf Mointain '96/7 and wondered if there was any reason why I couldn't reduce the travel down to 65mm, which would give an axle to crown measurement of 435mm (currently 450mm). I can't see any issue but wondered if anyone had an alternative opinion.

Merry Christmas.

 

[suburbanreuben]

Sounds like a perfect plan!
Light forks that are way stiffer than Sids and much better than anything dreamed up last century...
Rock Shox spacers come as narrow as 5mm so you can fine tune to perfection!

You could try them as they are first. In my experience Dekerfs are easily capable of taking a slightly longer fork than recommended.

 

[Pogo]

Thanks for the encouragement, I'm looking forward to putting them on and trying them out set to 80mm. It's also good to know that if it screws up the handling I've got a fall back.

It's all well and good riding retro but only worth doing if you can hold your head up and sometimes embarrass the full boingers!

 

[JamesM]

I've shortened the travel on RS Dukes and instead of buying the RS spacers I used a stack of nylon washers with the correct ID and OD. Bought a pack of 100 from ebay for a few quid and they were around 2mm thick meaning I could fine tune the fork length.

 

[mattr]

I'm running 80mm forks on a 65mm corrected frame. Thanks to the fact that the forks actually work far far better than the elastomer forks the bike was originally designed around. The nominal axle to crown when riding is probably bang on 65mm anyway. The old elastomer jobbies had no sag worth speaking of and needed a fair belt to actually get them to move........ the current forks sag into their travel and cycle through their travel pretty freely as I ride along.

 

[foz]

I have rebas set to 80mm on my parkpre, I haven't ridden it since the summer, but then it felt a bit "light" at the front end - not sure if that's due to the longer forks (it used to have a set of 60mm (?) 1995 Judy XCs), or having a 110mm stem instead of the previous 135mm. I now have a 130mm stem on it again, but have had no chance to ride it. If you do manage to reduce the forks down below 80mm then I'd be interested to hear about it, I think I looked into it when did mine but can't remember why I didn't in the end (maybe I just didn't have enough spacers)

 

[Pogo]

I like the idea of the nylon washers as spacers, I'm currently getting spacers machined up by a mate but for fine tuning I won't want to bother him for every adjustment. Saying that there is going to be a limit to how many times I'll be prepared to split down and then rebuild my forks!

The bike originally had some Pace RC-35's, and I think they struggled with 60mm of travel. I have been using Z2's recently but the handling isn't as sweet that's why I'm considering taking the Reba's lower. Hopefully swop the forks over later but with the storm currently blowing I'll hold of taking them for a spin up the hill. Thanks for all your comments, I'll report back with what happens.

 

[Pogo]

Well I've given it a bit of thought and eventually left the forks with 80mm of travel and then set the air pressures so that when mounted the sag brought the forks down to 65mm travel and 435 mm crown to axle.

As regards to the forks performance it's brilliant, really compliant and smooth yet rigid and good in the turns. They have definitely changed the geometry of the bike though but I reckon that after a few weeks I will have adapted. In the meantime ill be messing about with air pressures with my current set up my baseline. Very happy.

 

[suburbanreuben]

With 80mm forks you should have about 20mm of sag (25%) anyway so 65mm sagged may be a bit high. Try dropping them to 50mm sagged.
Are they dual air or single? If they're dual you can really go to town getting them exactly how you like them.

 

[Pogo]

Thanks for the advice SReuben, it's good to know the parameters I can work within. They are dual air so plenty of fettling ahead methinks. I've also got to sort out something for the motion control as the forks didn't come with a poploc but that seems to be pretty straight forward once I've got the air setup sorted.