Going rigid

I got to sneak out to Quiapo the other day (Saturday) and go shop for a replacement of my Marzocchi MX Comp on Ruth. I'm slowly converting Ruth from a mountain hardtail into my full-time commuter.

I'd previously consulted with a fellow mountain biker who'd converted his hardtail into a single speed (SS), changing out his fork to a rigid one in the process. He said he got his fork at King's in Quiapo, one of my favorite bike shops (got Ruth's frame and some drivetrain parts there, as well as Matt's helmet). I found the same fork he got, still for sale at King's, with a minor price increase (surprisingly, not by much, considering he got his fork over 2 years ago).
The "Kristel" (not sure about the spelling) brand rigid fork, is aluminum with a faux carbon finish and is disc-ready (has cantilever studs). I'm not so sure if it's mountain-specific though, as the axle-to-crown (A2C) is very -- and visibly -- short at 360mm (it probably is for MTBs, but for old-school, non-suspension corrected frames). That immediately took it off my list as it would steepen Ruth's head angle too drastically. My current Bomber has an a2c of 478mm. Going by the 1 degree head angle change per 20mm of a2c rule, Ruth's head angle would steepen by almost 6 degrees! That just wouldn't do.

So on I went, scouring the other shops, which, while not as upscale as King's (and whose staff aren't as friendly as Jane, its proprietor), still had the potential to have good, undiscovered merchandise. My patience paid off when, after entering every bike shop along Quezon Boulevard, I ended up in the one just beside King's, a bigger (but not really better) shop. The bike shop, called Sym, had a good selection of both road and mountain rigid forks, and I was pleased to find they had several models by major Taiwanese frame manufacturer, Kinesis (UK site here). After examining a couple of forks, including Kinesis' own X Max (they had both the faux carbon and carbon versions), I settled with the straightforward Maxlight. Strangely, the Maxlight was lighter than the carbon X Max, and much nicer looking to boot. The cool thing is, the Maxlight I got is disc-specific, i.e., it has no canti studs, making for clean, slick lines. For some strange reason, this model isn't listed in either the UK or Taiwan Kinesis websites.

Nevertheless, the Maxlight ticked all the boxes for me: light, cheap, disc-specific, reputable brand. I hope it stands the test of time when I get it mounted on Ruth, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Left leg with disc mount


Steerer tube gradations


Heir apparent