Push

I try to do as much to my bikes as I can myself and I would like to put a rigid fork on my mountain bike for a couple reasons, it gets ridden on the road more often that the rail trails since getting a new bike and I tow my daughter around with the bike in question and the idea of the bike being rigid sounds good to me.

1.) If I were to swap a rigid fork onto the bike in place of the suspension fork after removing the brakes and tires is there anything I should know past remove the headset cap, stem, spacers, pull the fork out, pop the race off, put the race on the rigid fork and reverse the process? I have a new star nut that I can use so was going to just leave the one in the suspension fork where it is. I have searched videos etc and that seems to be the process but me being me I like to make sure before I start something and thought asking here before taking anything apart could prove to be a good move.

2.) Are there any issues with putting a steel fork into an aluminum frame? I am thinking about going with the Nashbar suspension corrected fork and will be using WTB Graffiti 2.2 tires.

3.) I am also curious if having a rigid fork will stress the frame more? I am a clyde and worry about these things and just don't know the answer.

Any input or help is mucho appreciated.

jeepseahawk

I put a Surly steel suspension corrected fork on my old aluminum cannondale mountain bike. No problems to report, worked out really good and I am a clyde as well.

commo_soulja

1. correct. measure twice, cut once
2. no issues. Run whatever you want.
3. whether the fork is rigid or not doesn't matter. What matters is the A2C length. Run something too long and you risk overstressing the headtube. To simplify, don't run a long travel fork if your frame isn't rated for one.

kingsting

The key is to be sure to get a suspension corrected rigid fork. A regular fork will lower the front of the bike and throw the geometry off resulting in a strange handling machine.

Push

My bike with me not on it the A2C is about 19 inches, when I am on the bike in a riding position it is slightly more than 17 inches, maybe 17 & 1/8th-ish (was eyeballed by someone else while I was on the bike) inches, The nashbar fork says that the A2C is 453MM or 17.83 inches, will that slight difference be an issue? or close enough to be all good? It seems that since the nashbar fork falls between the travel of the current fork that it would be ok?

Thanks for the input so far guys, much appreciated.

FastJake

I would call that close enough. I've never found an inch either way to make a substantial difference.