I rode my '97 RockHopper for a lot of years as a rigid. Then I took this trail that just hammered my arms and hands. I could barely control what was going on and felt on the edge of the envelope even with the tires aired down. I finally found a used Marzocchi on CL that had just been overhauled with the right length steerer. Do you know how hard it is to find a used suspension fork with a steerer that is 9" long!
Changed the head set to one that I could buy an extra crown race for and set up both forks with the same crown race. Change takes about 20 min. I now have a disk wheel that stays with the fork so no more tire changes in the front either.
The attraction for using the suspension fork is the BB-7 disk that is great to use.
don't have a picture with knobbies:
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RKHPRDrivSideW, on Flickr[/IMG]