Retro mountain bikes

Thanks ! That underlines what I thought too. Yep pretty happy also with that straight fork.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/now-that-was-a-bike-mountain-cycle-san-andreas.html

Anyone had any experience running much newer, longer travel forks on a 90's mountain bike? For reference, I have a '96 Rocky Mountain Equipe that came with Quadra 21r when new. The modern forks I have on another bike are Rock Shox Sektor Gold RL....

It will change geometry but I don't think you will feel much difference. I ran Rock Shox Reba Race on a bike that came with classic steel forks and it performed more than decent.

I thought as much but my theory was completely un scientific or taking actual angles into account. My theory was that by adding a taller fork, it would raise the front end but make the wheel base slightly longer and slacken the angles like modern hardtails. I have no clue whether this is true though.

My theory was that by adding a taller fork, it would raise the front end but make the wheel base slightly longer and slacken the angles like modern hardtails.

Yeah, but no.

It will slacken your head angle and lengthen the wheel base, but it'll also lift your bb, slacken your seat angle and reduce your standover.

I put a longer fork and a 29er wheel on the front of a not so old Genesis IO and it really wasn't as much fun as I imagined it'd be.

I had pretty much zero bb drop which made handling pretty weird and the 3rd or 4th time I cracked my nuts on the toptube I gave in and built something else. A 90s bike will have even worse standover issues as the frames don't tend to be that compact.

Thanks for the feedback. The more research I did and the more I looked at the bike, I'd started to think it probably wasn't going to solve the problem that I wanted it to. I'll go back to the drawing board.

But you combined a 29" front wheel with a 26" rear? No miracle it wasn't a pleasant ride. Is that what you have in mind too, @ricky2slicky ? I thought you wanted to put a 26" wheel in a fork with more travel (100 mm or something) than the original Quadra (that has how much travel? 60 mm)? In the latter case it won't change your ride that way it's ball breaking.

I don't have a photo to hand but I put a straight, rigid fork on a '96 GT Timberline to raise the HT and liven up the handling a bit.

It was 5/6cm longer than the original steel forks and was acceptable.

I'd started to think it probably wasn't going to solve the problem that I wanted it to.

Additionally, the problem of the head-tube departing the rest of the frame due to the increased forces becomes very real.

OK, back to retro mountainbike photos. :-)

Here's my 1991 Panasonic Mc Pro. I posted it here before but that was with an "era incorrect" setup: I putted an XTR M900 on it. Now I stayed as close to the catalog specs as possible.

1 Attachment

Additionally, the problem of the head-tube departing the rest of the frame due to the increased forces becomes very real.

Yup you can check to see if the model had a variant with forks and finding the correct suspension corrected size.

For example, the Timberline I have had an "FS" model which essentially was the same frame and components with a suspension fork.

I would be keeping it with 26" wheels but i'd be going from a frame built with a 60mm Quadra 21 to the Sektors which offer 120-150mm travel.

What @Howard mentions is what worries me the most so I've gone back to the drawing board. The Rock Mountain will stay as is. Thanks for the advice all.

Marvelous @WimVDD

Thanks!

I did but I’m familiar with the handling of differently sized front and rear wheels having ridden several 69ers and a 67.5er.

So long as you keep the frame geometry where it should be (ie substitute a big wheel in place of a long travel fork do the headtube sits as far from the ground as it was designed to) mismatched wheels make little difference to handling other than you getting the characteristics that are in inherent in your chosen wheel size. Ie a 29er wheel rolls over things better but takes a bit more effort to get it up to speed.

Another 1991 steed from my stable.

1 Attachment

Fantastic!

Thanks!

https://factoryjackson.com/2016/06/14/marin-team-dh-1998-bike-check/