# What Does (mm) Travel On Forks Mean????



## chenny (Jul 11, 2009)

On alot of site they tell you like 100mm travel and 85mm travel..... what does that mean?
Does that affect your bike?


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## karpiel666 (Jan 7, 2005)

How much they compress.


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## Spawne32 (May 22, 2009)

if im not mistaken, long travel forks are for situations where you need extreme dampening to prevent damage to yourself and your ride, short travel forks are good for bumps and holes and dampening for trail riding. Typically i think you would see a long travel fork on a down hill ride or something that requires crazy jumps. A situation where you wouldnt want to bottom the shock out real fast.


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## [email protected]com (Dec 3, 2008)

travel is how far down the fork can compress (how much shorter it will get when it is pushed as far as it will go)

like spawne said, short travell (usually 120mm or less) is for cross country, medium (130-160mm usually) is for trail, or all mountain riding. anything 160mm or more will be for downhill or freeride

if you only have front suspension you dont really want a lot of travel, it can make it unstable when you use all the travel (think of landing a drop with the handlebars 160mm lower than normal.... over the bars perhaps or loss of control)

some forks have adjustable travel, so if your doing cross country you can turn it down to say 100mm of travell, or if your doing trails and a few jumps etc, you might be able to turn it upto 140 (an example is the u-turn adjuster you get on some models of rock shox forks)


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## Trek7000rider (Sep 7, 2008)

pretty much what everyone else said- travel is how far your fork will allow your wheel to compress towards your handlebars. 100mm is somwhat standard... 85 is usually for racing/general XC use. 130-140 is pretty much general All-Mountain (little bit of trail riding/some downhill/jumping) Most people will be fine in the 85-100mm range. Longer travel forks do slightly change your position while riding, you bike will be more angled back as the front end gets higher. just a little something to think about, but its not a huge enough difference to base your decision on.


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## Trek7000rider (Sep 7, 2008)

Spawne32 said:


> if im not mistaken, long travel stems are for situations where you need extreme dampening to prevent damage to yourself and your ride, short travel stems are good for bumps and holes and dampening for trail riding. Typically i think you would see a long travel stem on a down hill ride or something that requires crazy jumps. A situation where you wouldnt want to bottom the shock out real fast.


Unless I'm mistaken... do you mean to say fork instead of stem? Stems dont come in various travel distatnces that I'm aware of... just different lengths and degrees of rise to customize the fit of a bike...


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## Chain Brain (Jan 24, 2009)

mm = millimeters


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## chenny (Jul 11, 2009)

*alright*

thank you guys i get it now


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## Spawne32 (May 22, 2009)

Trek7000rider said:


> Unless I'm mistaken... do you mean to say fork instead of stem? Stems dont come in various travel distatnces that I'm aware of... just different lengths and degrees of rise to customize the fit of a bike...


i suppose, im not that up on my technical jargon, i thought the stem was the part that was in the frame and i thought the fork was the actual shock assembly itself


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## snaky69 (Mar 8, 2005)

Spawne32 said:


> if im not mistaken, long travel stems are for situations where you need extreme dampening to prevent damage to yourself and your ride, short travel stems are good for bumps and holes and dampening for trail riding. Typically i think you would see a long travel stem on a down hill ride or something that requires crazy jumps. A situation where you wouldnt want to bottom the shock out real fast.


The stem is what holds your fork to your bike, if you have one that can actually compress, the solid piece of aluminum is broken and I suggest you change it right away before you face plant.

By the way, this is a stem:









this is a fork(a quite crappy one at that):









All seriousness aside:

Travel means the amount in millimeters a fork can compress when absorbing a shock. A good rule of thumb is that the gnarlier the terrain, the more travel you want.


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## Spawne32 (May 22, 2009)

my bad, i mixed up my words a bit :rofl:


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## The Professor (Jun 25, 2009)

If you start talking about 29ers, it seems to me that less travel is thought to be required due to the damping effect of the bigger wheels and slightly better stability. For example, I have a Gary Fisher X-cal and it has an 80 mm fork. I have been told that this is roughly equivilant to a 100-120mm fork on a 26" MTB.

Again, this is all stuff I have heard, but the 80mm seems like plenty for trail riding.


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## dr13zehn (Jun 20, 2009)

I just wanted to add that mm stands for millimeter (as mentioned by Chain Brain) and the conversion is this: 1 inch equals 25.4 millimeters. This means that a 100mm travel fork will compress roughly 4 inches.


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