When I overhauled Nivea's Rocky Mountain bike I commented that all she needed was a LHT fork and some new bars to make it a pretty nice touring bike. Particularly since she loved it and was comfortable on it. Tom read that post and happened to have a new 26" LHT fork he wanted to get rid of so we made a deal and I have a glossly black 26" LHT fork sitting in my apartment. When I bought it I wasn't actually sure it would go on Nivea's bike as she was resistant to the idea of swapping out her suspension fork for a rigid fork, but her Manitou fork is worn out and has been getting sloppier and sloppier. With her new brakes and tires she is riding more aggressively and has been noticing the poor handling of her sloppy fork more. The day the LHT fork arrived she actually asked when it was going to get here and was looking forward to getting it on her bike. Cool - I love it when a plan comes together....=-)Since I'm putting the new fork on her bike I'll get her a new headset to replace the equally old and worn out stock unit on her bike. The black LHT fork exactly matches her frame which has no decals so I can see she'll be asked a lot what kind of Surly she's riding.
Thanks Tom!
3 comments:
You understand that this fork is going to significantly lower her front end over the manitou, and probably wank up the handling in the process, right?
Nivea's suspension fork is quite old and has a limited amount of travel. There will be some change in handling so we'll have to see what the actual impact is. Given that her current fork is on the verge of being unsafe there is not much risk at all. If the LHT fork doesn't work I'll keep it for another project and we'll get Nivea a different fork.
Haven't found time to mount up the Surly LHT fork, but interestingly I found out that Nivea's bike originally came with a rigid fork in 1998. Looking at photo the original fork it doesn't look suspension corrected. So perhaps the LHT fork won't change the intended geometry of the bike much if at all.
I'll report back when I get it on.
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