Mountain Biking - Long travel on litespeed ?

:beer: Have a LS Tanasi w/ Marzocchi x-fly 80 (2000). The Zoke is a little harsh to me. Thought about a longer travel fork. Will the taller profile negatively effect my bikes handling. The front is already very light on climbs and requires a gentle touch to keep the wheel down. Help before I make a mistake. Also any suggestions on a good fork.

If you go from an 80 mm travel to 110mm you will change the effective head tube angle by almost one degree. This will slow down the steering of your bike and it will "feel" less responsive. This is fine if the majority of your cycling is downhill. From what you've described about your riding and the fact that your front end is light already, I would advise against this. You also want to check with Litespeed because a long travel fork may void the warranty.

As far as forks, a lot of people say good things with the Rock Shox Sids. They allow fine tuning with the negative pressure. I personally prefer the Marzocchi's. I've also heard very good things about the new Manitou Black's. If you want to stay with Marzocchi, their new Marathon fork is a shorter travel fork that seems suited to your application.

If money is no object the new Fox fork has been getting great reviews and very positive feedback. I personally not used one, but if you give the magazine editors any credibility, it's a good fork.

Good Luck
L8R

I'd suggest a Marz with the ECC/MCR system. You can lock the fork down for uphills and then unleash either 4" or 5" of travel. A friend of mine on campus has one and it is nice. He is running with 4" travel springs and likes it quite a bit.

thnx.