Originally Posted by
letrebici
Clint, are you interesting in upgrading to a longer travel fork or bike or just curious of the pros and cons? I never heard of Your Favorite Cyclist and I watch a fair amount of of YT Bike vids. looking at his videos, I am not seeing any of where and how he rides. The hardtail he upgraded from had an entry level 130mm coil fork SR Suntour XCM34, swapped to the Rockshox Domain 170mm air fork. So, sure, he will see the improvement in performance for fast downhills over the Suntour fork. but how fork weight and travel comes into play when you are just riding rolling and handling on tight trails and also when climbing.
Sierra_rider’s hit the main points. I agree with them. I ride a 120mm air fork,100 air shock XC bike as my go to for green and blue trails. Rarely used my 160mm/150mm trail bike since the XC bike is adequate for my riding...on 10-12mi 1000-2000ft routes.
I haven't watched any of his videos, but that sounds way too over-forked IMO. I imagine climbing on something like that would be akin to steering an overloaded wheelbarrow. The geometry is likely all wrong for that fork...the fork being capable of terrain that the rest of the bike isn't.
When I think of an "overfork" I think of something in the +10 or 20mm range. I changed out the air shaft(Fox 36) on my Santa Cruz Hightower to bump the travel from 150 to 160mm...I almost considered 170mm, but am glad I didn't. As it stands right now, I don't want to go any higher on the front end of that bike...my stem is slammed and I think it's the perfect compromise between getting the weight forward on steep climbs, and performance on technical DH.
If I didn't have to climb up the hills, I'd be all about a 170mm fork with beefy 38mm stanchions.