I want to ma a very specific setup… I bought a Specialized Status 160 in S3 which I’m building to become specifically my competition bike…
however I don’t really vibe with the mullet setup because bigger front wheel is an overkill for my bikes intention…
Just putting a 27.5 inch wheel in the front won’t work because I already tested that and the front gets too low… my other idea is to change the fork completely, stepping down to 27.5 inch fork and to accommodate to a lost axle to crown upgrading to 180mm of travel…
now in my limited knowledge I think this could work, but I ain’t no expert on the basics so I’d really appreciate if anyone with more experience could tell me their opinion
(I added a photo of whole calculation in deference on geo that would happen after said change) “photo #2”
thanks in advance 🙂
by Steezzo
7 Comments
Why not just change the travel on the fork instead if replacing it
Should be fine, looks like .3 steeper head angle that isn’t much. Probably would be a fun setup.
Depending on the fork you have already you could possibly just increase the travel. Zeb/38 would be needed I think.
This sounds like a fire idea honestly, do it.
Been there ride that.
Why would you change to a 27.5 fork if it already feels too low with the 29″ fork? It’s only going to get lower.
In rough terms:
* changing to a 27.5 wheel reduces your front end height by 20mm
* changing to a 27.5 fork reduces your front end height by 20mm. (well, 18mm for a fox 38, so a 180mm 27.5 38 is a grand total of 2mm longer than a 160mm 29″ 38, i think your numbers are wrong in image 2).
* adding 20mm of travel does not make up for 20mm of lost ride height. Your static geometry is not the geometry you experience when you actually ride your bike. one way to work it out is with sag, so with 20% sag, adding 20mm of travel adds 16mm of height.
* But that’s not really true. You ride a 160mm bike down hills, and when you ride down hills, you are further into the travel. And due to how your damper is balanced, over rough terrain your bike will ride even further into its travel. this is called “dynamic sag” or “dynamic ride height”, so even on flat ground your extra 20mm of travel will give you less than 16mm of additional ride height.
* In my experience, you should be assuming you’re going to gain only 60%-70% of your extra travel in terms of “felt” ride height when descending.
My recommendation would be to buy a 180mm 29″ fork and run it so stiff that you only use 160mm of travel under most circumstances. That is the way to get a 27.5 front wheel on your bike without dropping the front end.
Yes
Pretty sure some of the Specialized Athletes use that set up. You should be good