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Presumably you can get away with rigid because you have enough ability to ride techy stuff without suspension. To be honest I never notice any difference on my little xc races with suss fork vs. without. I seem to crash just as much on either bike.
hippy-
TD doesn't really warrant suspension I think, the worst thing is the relentless washboard. I had 6 months of nerve damage in both hands after. I would add more padding to my grips, get better gloves perhaps. I think a Lauf fork would just bounce around as it's undamped and a normal fork would probably be fucked after 2000 miles in the dust/mud.
I'd also think about having aero bars (but not too low) so you can just rest your hands on the really corrugated sections through CO and NM that go on for hours.
turnpedal
Slacker head angle as I'm going to run a longer travel fork (120mm as opposed to 100mm travel). Generally I ride quite steep technical stuff, TD is the exception to this really. I'll probably run a rigid fork when I ride that again.