24theroad

we currently have an rst suspension fork on our tandem, we went from 26x1.95 tires down to 26x1.50 slick tire for more road use, the question is should we change our fork to a stiff or keep with the suspension......

teamcompi

I have a rigid fork on our tandem for the road its fine. I rode the Great Divide (Co, and NM only) with the same setup with travel contacts for tires and had no problems. What is the upside of having a suspension fork for the road?

TandemGeek

That would depend on how much out of the saddle climbing and sprinting you're doing on your road rides, as that's when off-road specific suspension forks will begin to compress and rebound, aka, generate the pogo-stick effect. If most of your road riding is flat and/or you don't experience any pogo effect, I'd leave the RST on the bike to retain it's trail configuration until such time as it does become a problem on the road.

stapfam

We have an offroad Tandem and we do occasionally use it on the road. These forks are set up to be stiff enough for offroad- but they will probably give a bit than most Tandems due to the way we ride. We have Boxers with the stiffest springs on and most of the sag taken out with spacers. Unfortunately- we are aggressive riders and still use the full 6" travel over our Trails. Stiff enough for offroad but no way stiff enough for road use. If we were to do more onroad riding- then I would opt for a rigid fork. Even without Honking, (Out of saddle riding) We get a lot of movement on the forks, particularly at the top of steep hills when we are getting a bit ragged on pedal stroke. Luckily- we only do around 5 or 6 road rides a year so not enough to warrant new forks.