Ridged forks instead of springs ?

[Gringo]

I now have the NCX seat post as well and if you are considering getting one stop! Just go and buy

The first thing I put on the bike (2 years ago) it's that good it gets moved between bikes as required

 

[JohnMcL7]

I had a rigid steel fork on the old bike and am loving the change to a cheap spring front fork. I have a condition where my arm muscles "pump up" and become hard as rock with the vibrations and the rigid fork did that to me when I got to about 50 km, I have never had that problem since. Also got the horrible tingling in the hands. I was running 1.95" tyres which isn't exactly skinny, now I am running 2" tyres inflated to 4 bars (60 psi).

1.95" tyres are very skinny these days and 60 psi is huge, my 29er runs 2.4s at around 25-30psi maximum - I will admit I wouldn't last long on sub 2in tyres at 60 psi.

When I'm talking about bigger tyres, plus sized tyres (26+/27.5+/29+) are around 2.8 to 3.2 wide and the fat bike tyres start at 3.8 up to just over 5 wide. The tyres aren't just wider but they're taller as well and you can run them at lower pressures, I have the 29+ at around 8psi and the 26x3.8 tyres at 3psi on the front. Going from that to the 29er with a 120mm air fork was surprisingly hard going on my wrists as the tyres do all the work smoothing out the surface whereas the suspension doesn't work well over small bumps. I wouldn't ride a rigid anything less than a 3in tyre although even then the tyre does noticeably less work than the 4in tyre.

However the tyres can't absorb impacts which is where I find suspension is invaluable particularly as the more speed you carry, the smoother the bike will go over drops and jumps.