Originally Posted by
Amesja
Some (that are capable)+ Most (that are not) = All bicycle forks.
To be "completely" wrong I would have had to say "all" not most. Saying "many" is a joke. Take a look at a modern stock, out the dealer-door* 125cc moto-x fork and then look at all but the most capable downhill forks. They are not even close. Sure an MX bike is a little heavier, but really not all that much when you add rider weight to bike weight for gross vehicle weight that the shocks see.
Reading comprehension. Think about that the next time you call someone "completely" wrong....
*Let's not even compare pro MX kit. You barely get close comparing pro downhill kit to stuff you can buy out the door at your local Honda dealership.
You said "nearly all". That is not the case.
Many forks on low end bicycles aren't off-road capable but, then, the entire bike isn't off-road capable. But if we are talking about quality mountain bikes which start at the level that have a Rock Shox Dart 2 forks mounted on them, we are talking a whole different ballgame.
You are also very, very wrong on gross vehicle/rider weight. Even when compared to a downhill mountain bike, the motorcycle vastly outweighs the mountain bike. Very long travel downhill mountain bikes weigh in at a portly 50 lbs while a small motorcycle is going to be in the 200 lb range. That hardly a "little" heavier. 4 times the weight isn't what I would call a "little". And you certainly don't need a long travel downhill bike to make some "pretty big" drops. A medium travel (100 to 140mm) fork can handle a lot of big hits on a bicycle that is half the weight of downhill mountain bike (or 8 times less than the motorcycle).
Modern downhill mountain bike forks and even modern cross country mountain bike forks certainly
seem capable of handling the rigors of off-road riding. People have been using them and racing on them and I haven't heard a whole lot of clamoring for something like what you would find on a moto-x bike. Sure there are bad forks out there but comparing the kind of fork that you'll find on a $150 Big Box Store BSO mountain bike to a multi-thousand dollar downhill mountain bike is a bit like comparing your "out the door" moto-x motorcycle to a Vespa.