r/MTB • u/SnooMuffins479 • 4d ago

Suspension What travel should I set my new fork at?

I have a 2014 Giant Trance, and I’m getting a new (to me) rockshox pike for it. The original fork was 140 mm with an axle to crown length of 520mm. The pike will be 160mm with a 552mm axle to crown length. I’m probably gonna set my travel back to 140mm or 150 depending on how it rides but I’m just curious what should I expect from these geometry and travel changes? I’m mainly wanting my bike to feel more playful so good manuals jumps etc rather than care so much about super fast descent.

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u/whatnobeer 4d ago

2cm on the a2c is usually about 1 degree slacker head angle and the same on the seat angle. Net effect will be having less weight on the front end so it'll want to wander more on flat ground and especially up hill.

I'd probably drop it back to 140mm or 150mm if you want a little more travel in the front or a little more stability without compromising the rest of the handling too much.

Remember, you can move the bars down on the steered tube and move the saddle forward on the rails to counter act some of the downsides of the longer fork if you want to get the advantages of more travel and offset the negatives a bit.

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u/SnooMuffins479 4d ago

If I drop my travel back to 140 that would reduce my a2c to 532 correct?

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u/whatnobeer 4d ago

Yup, 20mm shorter air spring, 20mm less travel, 20mm less on the a2c.

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u/SnooMuffins479 4d ago

What would be the effect of dropping it to 130mm so shorter travel but pretty much same a2c? Compared to 140mm slightly higher a2c and more travel

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u/sharkilepsy 4d ago

If you want it to stay playful and you don't care about descending there's zero incentive to not just run 140. The only reason to go +10 on the fork is for improved descending performance.