The biggest negative aspect would be voiding the warranty. From the warranty policy document
What will void Your Warranty?
• Warranty is not valid for any bicycles previously used for commercial activity
such as rental, courier, police, security etc.
• Installation of components, parts, or accessories not originally intended for or
compatible with the bicycle (or frame) as sold.
• Purchasing a Rocky Mountain Bicycle from an unauthorized dealer.
• Purchasing a Rocky Mountain Bicycle or frame off third party internet sites
(as eBay) no matter what the listing says.
It's a recreational cross country frame so it isn't burly enough to handle the kind of riding a 140mm travel fork would be needed for.
It would also slacken the head angle by about degree and raise the BB by about 10mm, so the front end of the bike would get pretty floppy with a 67.5 degree head angle.
I think the biggest thing you'll notice is that your front-center distance will be a bit longer. That will make it easier to lighten your front wheel, like to pass over an obstacle. You should also get an improvement in stability when you're descending, or if you drop your front wheel in a hole.
For good or ill, your bottom bracket will be a little higher.
You'll suffer a little more wheel flop at low speed.
What's the impetus here? I think people often decide to do this because they have crappy forks, not necessarily too little travel. In other words, I'd rather have a 100 mm Reba (I do) than, say, a 140 mm RST.
Actually, there's a "used parts" bike group page in facebook that I belong. And there's this 5 day old fork that I'm eyeing with very good price vs brand new. The problem is, it has 140mm travel.
It's just a suntour Epixon by the way. I don't have budget yet for better forks. Should I pull the trigger now or just save for solid fork ?
LOL, I'm not sure. I hear conflicting things about the Epicon.
Ask yourself if you need it to get through the season, if you think it will be better than riding rigid, and if you'd like to be riding an Epicon in five years. Or maybe it's cheap enough to take a flyer on, I don't know.
It looks like the Suntour XCR HLO fork is coil with a hydraulic lockout. If you're not getting much travel, confirm that the lockout is not partially or fully engaged. The stock coil is likely optimized for someone in the 150-175 pound range (with the preload adjuster), so if you're a lot lighter than that, you won't be getting much travel. You'd want to see about getting a softer spring.
From the XCR fork manual...
COIL SPRING PRELOAD
The fork can be adjusted to the rider's weight and preferred
riding style via the spring preload.
It is not the coil spring hardness that is set, but the spring
preload. This reduces the “SAG” of the fork when the
rider sits down. A semi-hard spring is used by default.
Turn the preload adjust knob clockwise to increase the
spring preload and turn it counter-clockwise to reduce
it. Two additional spring stiffnesses are available for SR
SUNTOUR suspension forks - softer and harder than the
standard coil spring.
The XCR that comes with it it's pretty good. I traveled well for me while on the trails. Did you adjust the rebound?
More travel will be harder to climb. My Raidon is great, and I use about 80% of its travel. 120 is enough.
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