Have you ever watched the insanity that can be downhill mountain biking?  Massive drops, huge gap jumps and terrible terrain over a short prtiod of time.  Downhill forks can have massive amounts of travel (10 inches isn’t unhead of) to allow for the stress a DH bike is put under.

Downhill forks are usually coil spring to take on big hits but are also double crowns; this is where there are two legs of the fork near the top where the fork joins the handle bar.  Double crown forks offer double the suspension of single crown forks. popularity.

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Big airs, big jumps and big tricks require forks which can take some punishment – forks not designed for this purpose are liable to be damaged, or worse break, causing serious injury to a rider.

A dirt jump (DJ) bike will typically be a hardtail and front suspension, although some riders do still prefer rigid forks.  Suspension forks will have little travel of 80-100mm and are normally coil sprung as well as being much heavier due to the increased strength than those designed for other mountain bike disciplines.

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Although suspension forks are more and more a common sight on mountain bikes they are by no means the only option left.

For the die hards, those who do not wish to invest in costly suspension or those who prefer something lower maintenance there are still a number of quality rigid forks available on the market.

Hugely popular in the dirt jump and street MTB scenes as well as singletrack, Rigid Forks offer a viable and often more economical alternative to suspension.

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