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Very gravel and touring/bike packing focused. I really like the look of that Hiride Sterra!
£879 with all headset adaptors. I though it would cost more.
I have a Lauf Grit SL fork on my Seigla and it is really good for only 30mm of travel but the hiride looks good. Never heard of the company though.
The Hi-ride Stera is the least interesting fork in that video its a copy of a Cannondale Headshok from 30 years ago, probably only exists because Cannondale's patent expired.
The Motion La City is the interesting one with a pull leaf spring and zero stiction!
I have always loved the lefty for looks and even usage, but each time i had one i would just end up back in conventional forks for one simple reason, the amount of time i'd want to just take my hands off the bars and stretch or something else.
Always found that Millyard suspension ideas quite good, using i think hydrogas system, think most tech for suspension is now internally utilising proven designs that can be reduced down for MTBs, rather than going fully novel.
"the amount of time i’d want to just take my hands off the bars and stretch or something else." why's that? Does the steering flop to one side due to the one leg?
What happened to the previous Motion fork the E18? Loads of reviews a few years back then it disappeared. Anyone buy one?
£879 with all headset adaptors. I though it would cost more.
That is a lot cheaper than I expected!
the amount of time i’d want to just take my hands off the bars and stretch or something else.
Interesting! Lower stack height, maybe? Or, as it's supposed to be a stiffer fork leg, more vibration through the bars?
That Video was sort of interesting, the 'Hiride' fork is very much like a 90's Headshock, you'd be forgiven for thinking Cannondale were the inventors of gravel suspension, long before there were Gravel bikes to fit it to.
Personally I think the most obvious place to focus if you want short travel suspension to take the edge off on Gravel bikes, is a stem like the 'Kinect' that uses a parallelogram type setup, the tricky bit being how you spring, damp and package it. I don't think the 'Kinect' is the best product out there currently but it would fit 99% of gravel bikes/forks out there today and unlike the redshift isn't as affected by leverage changing with rider's hand positions on the bars, the concept is a good one.
The problem with all the forks discussed in that video is that a suspension fork of any sort is a pretty complex assembly to design, however you do it and the specific application discussed for gravel bikes makes most of them a relatively over-engineered solution, especially if you're having to stuff pretty complex assemblies inside the steerer (a-la head-shock/Hiride/Roubaix).
There's definitely a market there for a better, more adjustable (ideally lock-out-able) linkage type gravel suspension stem, however cool fancy forks might be, the cost and complexity works against them for gravel (IMO of course)...
Does the steering flop to one side due to the one leg?
No experience of a Lefty but I did have a USE SUB fork which was like a Lefty but also had a linkage at the bottom.
Apart from it being crap and the linkage that was supposed to stop brake dive but actually stopped it working it was pretty hard to ride no handed with it.
As soon as you took your hands off the bars it would veer wildly to the one side, I can't remember which way it used to pull but I do remember it took me a while to learn how to ride no handed on it.
Here it is for anyone that's never seen one before.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/2136/2103908722_13a2a82e18_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/2136/2103908722_13a2a82e18_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://www.flickr.com/gp/stu-b/1M03AwV1dG ]2007_1211sub_fork0008[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/stu-b/ ]StuartBrettle[/url], on Flickr
I used to lust after a USE SUB
You didn't miss much.
Worst fork I've ever owned.
There's various RedShift-esque stems on aliexpress if anyones feeling brave (and ebay for more money)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005968327103.html
The Hi-ride Stera is the least interesting fork in that video its a copy of a Cannondale Headshok from 30 years ago, probably only exists because Cannondale’s patent expired.
A very valid point... had Moulton not been doing it in the 1960s, 30 years before Cannondale.
dc1988
Full Member
I used to lust after a USE SUB
Posted 48 minutes ago
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singlespeedstu
Full Member
You didn’t miss much.
Worst fork I’ve ever owned
Ahh, the heady days, before everyone worked what the hell they were doing. USE is the same company as Exposure Lights, I think? I also lusted after one!
Does the steering flop to one side due to the one leg?
My Scalpel with Lefty Ocho certainly doesn't.
no flop with a lefty, i can confirm.
I'd also argue that the Grit SL is a really good gravel fork (unless you want to ride your gravel bike like a full-on MTB, in which case, just ride a MTB), but a redshift stem is a worthy alternative if you don't want to drop many hundreds of dollars on the fork (but, the fork is better in performance terms).
You didn’t miss much.
Worst fork I’ve ever owned.
Should have tried the Amp Research. Nothing says scary than a fork that dives down and seems to tuck under a bit making you think its OTB time. Braking especially.
Now THIS is interesting, bonkers and probably highly unnecessary but interesting.
Fox 36 with 130mm then a linkage with another 55mm
Now
Is that Photo-shopped?
If not, why would you not just buy one of the many 170mm forks already available?
Ah, is it a staggered parallelogram? so the linkage moves the axle forwards a bit Vs the tele fork moving it backwards to create some sort of beneficial wheelbase/axle path magic?
Some People do just have too much time/money/resources...
worst of both worlds surely
the main issue with alternatives to tele forks is that to get all the advantages out of them you need a total frame redesign and teles despite their limitations are very well developed
If you have a wishbone mount halfway down the downtube you canhave much more freedom to design rates curves dive and so on - and also separate out the steering and suspension like the BMW telelever system which I had a bike with and was great. Really soft well damped suspension with incredible small bump sensitivity but no bottoming out and no dive and a rising rate on a J shaped curve
Well yeah if they just wanted a 170mm fork then that would probably make more sense but perhaps if you wanted to change axle path, increasing tuning options or just you know do something different.
the linkage part may give the small bump sensitivity that is missing from teles I guess
When do the key Lefty patents expire?
I've had lots of lefty's and a USE SUB. the lefty's I've always liked as a short (100mm) option, stiff, light, great for xc. I had a lefty max 140 which was a bit rubbish. couldn't get it set up right, and the bearings would migrate which became a pain.
The SUB fork was actually pretty good for what it was. the S.U.B. link did kinda what it said i would, had a degree of anti dive which is weird at first.
However, the flaw was the damper. it used an Englund air cartridge, which was just rubbish. lots of heat build up with successive bumps meant the damping was very inconsistent.
For me, the damper issue was the killer, but also, I realised how little I brake into corners, so the anti dive, which uses braking forces to prop the bike up, didn't really work well as if you did't brake, the fork woud use all of the travel as the damper heated up and didn't damp anything.
it used an Englund air cartridge
If i remember correctly the damper was only physically attached at the bottom and just relied on the fork pushing down on it on the top.
Which only gave any damping on the compression stroke and not the return stroke.
As I said it was bloody awful.
The trouble with stem based suspension is it's essentially a reverse of a URT (a UFT?), for the front wheel to react to a bump the pedals have to be lifted up a little bit too. The upside is the head angle/trail stays constant through the travel.
the main issue with alternatives to tele forks is that to get all the advantages out of them you need a total frame redesign and teles despite their limitations are very well developed
I think that's a solution/problem unique to BMW though, who are using it on ~200kg motorbikes. And the telelever is more like a McPherson* strut than a linkage as they've got a telescopic fork, and a lower control arm, it's not a parallelogram / double wishbone / 4-bar. And the big advantage of the parallelogram** is the 'pivot' can be any where you like. Personally I wonder if it would work best projected down to mid chainstay to reduce pedaling input and keep trail roughly constant.
*it's not because the coilover isn't part of the strut, but it acts like one.
**not a parallelogram, actually a trapezoid