All

After 4yrs of faithful service I am retiring my '04 Spesh s-work HT and going to the dark side,  I've bought a mint '06 Spesh s-works fsr frame in black and will be starting the build/swapping components over shortly.

However I need some forks.

I think I need 130mm, which is what the bike would have become spec'd with, according to the Spesh archive on their website.  Could I/should go 140mm, I see the '07 models did?  My riding is typically welsh trail centres, the brecons etc.

I am light (62kgs) and have a pref for air forks as I find they are easy to adjust for my light wieght.

 As such I am thinking Fox talas or Rockshox revelation air u-turns.   Coming from 80mm of front end travel I am assuming some form of travel reduction or lock-down will be useful for climbing

 I would appreciate any comments/recommendations and has anyone seen any good deals anywhere recently?

Ideally I would spend £200-300 so I am keeping an eye on ebay. Black or maybe a white finish.

Thanks

Dave

Mike

Thanks.

I am assuming TALAS forks are totally air-sprung, looking back over the last few model years, are other models also air-sprung?

I am not to fussed about adjustable travel, a lock 'down', like I have on my Marzocchi marathon would be perfect; but I've never had a long-travel fork, so I don't really have any experience.

Dave

I run a pair of Marzocchi 700 XC ATA on a spesh 120 frame and they are v good, v light white, adjustable 100-140 and you can get them cheap

here

They were a lot cheaper when there was $2 to the £ but with tax's and postage should just come in at £300 and thats new.

fox 32's are known to be a bit on the flexy side

No worse than the RS Revs.

Travel adjust is good if you like stupidly steep climbs but if you want a plusher fork then get the 140mm RLC Vannila's and more fit and forget.

Rev's and Pikes are likely better forks though.

None of the Fox Forx lock DOWN, just lock OUT. I don't think fork flex is going to be an issue under a 62kg rider coming from a lightweight hardtail!

I'd say Revalations or Fox 32s. All Float forks (including TALASs) are inded air sprung, but there are some TALAS Vanillas which are coil sprung.

Travel adjust is a personal thing, does nothing for me personally, neither do lock outs!

I've run Rockshox Pike Airs for nearly three years now and have nothing but praise for them.  The internals are pretty much standard fare for high end Rockshox stuff, so you can't really go wrong.

If you're after a lockdown feature then it might be worth seeking out a set of Pace RC40/41 forks, which have a trigger threshold to activate the suspension if you hit a bump.  They're light but very pricey.

I had a pair of RC40s, to be honest they were fragile and not in the same league as the Pikes I currently use.

The Fox and RS lockouts are all Max travel aswell,  which is just where you don't want them,  I can climb 1 hill just with my forks active cause of the sag but forks locks no way I can keep the front down,  I just increase the compression damping to tame them.

Get the Mazzies same weight as the Pace

Drop them to 100mm for climbing and lock em outthreshold setting with the TST 2 they will react to a big hit, then wind em out to 140 mm for coming back down

but dont forget to unlock them.

All

Many thanks for your many responses, I have been reading, rather than posting hence the delay.

I have lock 'down' on my 80mm Marathons which to be fair I don't use but they are only 80mm! I don't want lock out particularly as I don't ride on the road, I have road bikes for that.  I can understand why travel reduce when climbing Whytes level at Afan say could be handy, but I'd rather avoid extra things to go wrong if poss.

Still you have made many helpful suggestions and to be honest it's a matter of which ones I can find on ebay/in the sales, be it Revs, talas, floats. 

 Thanks for your help

Dave