PVD 5.5" Fork Hardtail

Riding mountain bikes in Marin is awsome. The climbs are big enough to be real and the trails are very challenging (especially at speed). Hardtails make everything really fun. A long travel suspension bike is pretty much wasted on the riding here and almost makes the trails boring. About 3-4" of rear travel would be perfect but this is commercially unavailable and I'm not ready to do suspension bikes yet. My aluminum welding needs to get a bit better.

A long travel fork is always a charm, but you can't just slap one on these into any hardtail frame. This frame is going to be designed around the longer 130mm and 140mm forks with traditional quick release dropouts.

The Print

26" Wheels, Fork Sagged 30%.

The Fork

This bike is being designed for use with a Fox Float 140 (140mm) or a Rock Shox Revelation 426 Dual-Air (130mm)

Both forks have a 39mm offset and relatively the same axle to crown dimention (fully extended) of 510.9mm for the Float 140 and 508mm for the Revelation. Either fork should produce the same feel with the 71 degree head angle, 70mm of mechanical trail.

The Tubes

I'm keeping this bike cheap in case the geometry doesn't work out quite right.

• Down Tube - Nova 29er DT 35 x 8/5/8 $16.20
• Seat Tube - Columbus ZONA 28.6 X 8/6 X 635 $22.51
• Top Tube - Columbus NEURON 28.6 X 7/5/7 TT $20.00
• Chain Stays - NOVA CRMO 22MM OVAL 425 - 12 DEGREE BEND $18.50
• Seat Stays - DEDACCIAI 12.5 16mm X 0.6 SINGLE TAPER 560 $18.71
  
  

• Independent Fabrications Dropouts (PVD Designed)
• Paragon 1.5" BB Shell
• Pacenti SS StampedHydo Stops:Bikelugs.com
• PVD Integrated IS Head Tube

• 27.0 Seat post

Fork Clearance

This bike was designed to give full clearance for a spinning fork.

Paint

Again with cheap powdercoating. RAL 3005 Wine Red or RAL 5002 Ultramarine Blue.

The bike will be painted after test riding.

Testing

The bike is rattlecanned and preped for test riding.


IS Headtube is sick!


Sano disco drops.


Seat cluster, clean.


Clearance for a 2.4 maybe even 2.5" tires.


On the scale at Fairfax Cyclery.


26.5 lbs without trying.

The Ride

While I wait for the correct length seat post to arrive, the bike was tested with the seat about 3/4" too low.

The ride is comfortable. Very comfortable.

Handling is amazing while traversing and climbing. The front wheel is solidly planted at all times.

I'm not sure about superfast decending yet. I have to get a little more used to the difference in handling from a jacked out bike to a properly built bike. The 71 degree head angle may have to come down to 70.5 or 70 if things don't come together at speed.

The RS Revelation is awsome. Light, stiff and plush. RS is killing it lately.