Equipping your everyday bike with brand new mountain bike front forks can easily transform it into a dirt-riding, off-roading machine capable of handling the toughest terrain. However, not all mountain bikes are the same, and not all riders need the same type of forks. Bicycle front forks come in a wide range of materials, sizes, and types. The purpose of most aftermarket forks is to improve the control you have over your bike, reduce its overall weight and increase your enjoyment.
Most quality aftermarket bicycle front forks will alter your bike’s suspension, allowing it to absorb harsh impacts easier. Furthermore, they will provide an improved grip and stability as a result of your wheels tracking the ground more accurately. But in order for that to be the case, you need to pick the right model, and the first step to doing that is considering your bike’s wheel size.
Most mountain bikes come with a 26, 27.5 or 29-inch wheels, and each one of these sizes requires a specific fork size. Then, you need to consider the axle standard. You’ll need a bike fork that has dropouts which match the axles used on your front wheels. Most of the bike forks you come across will have a bolt through axle that’s either 15mm or 20mm in diameter.
Furthermore, you’ll need to figure out the diameter of your head tube. This will determine the diameter you’ll need from the forks steerer tube (the metal that goes through the frame). Traditional head tube diameters are 1 1/8-inches, but modern bikes oftentimes feature larger 1.5-inch head tubes or tapered versions that have a wider top (1 1/8-inches) than bottom (1.5-inches), requiring you to match it with a fork that has a tapered steerer tube.
And lastly, you need to choose between air and coil-sprung forks. Air suspension takes advantage of compressed air inside a chamber as a spring, whereas the coil takes advantage of spring for a spring. Air suspension forks can be easily adjusted to suit riders of different sizes by changing the air pressure with the help of a fork pump, whereas coil springs need to be swapped for another coil spring with different spring rates.
Air springs are becoming the go-to for most manufacturers nowadays, simply because they’re easy to adjust, have fewer moving parts, are lighter in weight and are easier to service. However, coil spring models are more affordable, and they’re still an attractive solution for people who know how to pick one according to their weight.