Simon Bar + 140mm

I finally got a chance to convert the Marzocchi TST2 fork to 140mm and try it on the Simon Bar.

With the unsagged fork at 555mm A-C, the measured HTA is 66 degrees. BB height is 13". Sagged 40m or so I guess they would be around 68 and 12.5".

After about an hour in tech terrain on this set up I can say that I [I]really [/I]don't like it.

Too slack
Too high
Too short

I could get the front end lower with some flat bars, but I really did not like the steering. The flop was worst cresting over boulders, I could hardly control the bars. Steering felt okay on flat ground, and steep rollers became brainless, but climbing at all was ugh!

Standing climbing was simply awful. I could make it climb about anything I could before, but it required a lot of muscling the bike around and left me pretty exhausted. The weight bias was just too far rearward with this set up.

The front end pushed excessively in sweeping corners.

In general, the long fork killed all the fun that this bike is to me with either a short rigid or 120mm fork. In my opinion, 140mm is too much, and I would not recommend it with this frame unless you are going directly downhill with jumps/drops and few turns on the way down.

It is hard for me to believe that 20mm made such a dramatic difference but the bike went from super stellar to super sucky with that one little change.

I [I]could [/I]see the utility of an adjustable 100-140 fork.

For kicks, I put the fork on my Zion which is ~2 degrees steeper in HTA, and has a shorter head tube. It measured 67.5 HTA and 13.2" BB. In some urban stuff around the neighborhood, I liked the steering a lot better. I don't have any trail time on it yet.





It is probably over reaching to think that [I]any [/I]frame can accommodate a change in A-C of 75mm and ride well at both extremes.