Light rigid MTB forks

[battered]

My old MTB is gradually turning into a commuter cum adventure tourer, with panniers, mudguards and semi slicks for touring and light off road use. It has an old Rock Shox Jett 2 fork which is nearly worn out and I want to fit rigids because they will be lighter. The original steel rigid fork weighs 960g which appeared heavy until I looked at some specs on line. Bearing in mind that I do want to retain a light off road capability is there a lighter option available at reasonable cost or am I better just reusing the originals?

 

[mickle]

Whack the old 'uns back in for now.

There are lots of decent forks knocking around under the benches of bike shops up and down the land. Establish a desired 'hub centre to crown race' dimension for you bike's head angle/ bb height - prob 80mm but worth checking. Then ask around your local bike shops in ever increasing circles.

 

[battered]

That makes sense Mickle, I know a few bike shops here in Leeds and buy a fair bit of stuff from their bits boxes. If however I have already got something that's reasonably light I don't want to spend money to save 50g. Is 960g out of the way?

 

[mickle]

Dunno. Haven't weighed a fork for a while!

 

[battered]

It's a new experience for me too! It seems most rigid MTB forks are 1kg or worse, road forks 600-700. I want to retain the MTB capability and I know the original forks are robust enough, I beat them about for 5 years or so without incident. If there isn't anything else about that is significantly better then I may stay with the original. Good old Raleigh Special Products, maybe it wasn't such a bad machine after all back in 1995. Then again, Raleigh do know a bit about making bikes.

 

[mickle]

A triple butted Kona P2 would be first on my list. There are one or two nice carbon forks out there, though I think Pace stopped making theirs recently...

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

I am pretty sure you will not get very meaningful weight reduction if at all from 960g with alternative steel forks. My 531 road forks (with steerer for a 25" frame) are 800g.

Last time I looked all inexpensive (~£100) mtb carbon forks were not much lighter as you have found. To cut 300g at that level of spend the best bet is a pair of used RC31 from ebay. New alternatives are available from DT Swiss, but they are not cheap (and have weight limits).

 

[battered]

Thanks for that, it seems that there is little to be gained and Raleigh fitted decent stuff even to midrange bikes then. I loked up RC31 - they sold new for £160 and a set went on Fleabay for £130 - I'm not spending that even if they do come in at about 700g. I think the old stager will go back to original and I'll concentrate on pedalling it.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Realistically only two rigid non-OEM forks that have stood the test of time in the UK are Pace RC31's and Kona P2's. The on-one's are lovely, fairly cheap, but are not light.

I'd stick with the stock forks. RSP knew what they were doing.