Hmmm I’ve never seen this done with modern air forks. Do you have an example write up or video?
I’m sure it’s technically possible but would require fabricating spacers and some specialty tools to disassemble the air spring. Unless you’re trying to go below the available travel lengths (80 or 90mm for example) it would make more sense to replace the air spring.
Removing the air spring shaft is easy and rarely takes more than split-ring pliers. The spacer could be any cylindrical object that fits, even a segment of garden hose if you’re just trying to do some quick experiments.
For example, see pp28-29, you would add the spacer between the red cap and the black rebound bumper.
Many air springs require at least shaft clamps to remove the seal head, although it isn’t totally clear what tools are required for the Sid example that you gave. A 3D printed split ring spacer would work well for this.
You’re misunderstanding how it works, you’re just adding a spacer so it doesn’t return to full travel. You don’t touch the air spring other than removing the pressure. Remove the adjuster knob, unscrew the 24mm(?) hex on top and snap on a spacer to the damper shaft. Reinstall. No need to 3D print anything, they will sell you them for $2-3.
Find me a travel spacer for a modern (high end) Rockshox or Fox product and I’ll believe you!
I see them online for the lower end/legacy stuff, but most new forks aren’t designed to work with those as far as I understand.
Most of the forks I’ve disassembled require a foot stud to be removed from the air spring before you can slide the seal head off.
I assume you mis-typed here, but you definitely don’t add spacers to the damper side of the fork…
For that Pike assembly the piston head looks like it comes off just by pushing out the cross pin. I’ve never owned a Pike but I have seen it on some Xfusion forks I’ve worked on.
I’m not sure why you’re trying to make this complicated unless you have first hand experience on models where it truly is.
Well, a majority of modern mid-high end forks require more tools than your x-fusion fork. You shouldn’t offer your experience on a single brand of fork as a universal suspension modification. It is simply misleading.
I suppose the conclusion here is that all forks are different, look up the service manual for your specific fork before following advice from an internet forum and you end up with a garden hose in your fork.
you can also reduce fork travel by zip tying the fork arch to the fork crown lmao
I’m addressing the picture you posted. It is not misleading to point out whatever you picked out has a more simple solution.
You shouldn’t offer your experience on a single brand of fork as a universal suspension modification. It is simply misleading.
You’re really trying hard to accomplish something here, why?
While for sure there is merit to go into the very depths of front-center and what not I would encourage you to just do try such a conversion.
Why?
Well - those points of bottom bracket height here, balance there and so on are nothing particular to a drop bar conversion of a mtb to a flatbar but a thing you can debate and refine on on any bike category (be it a hard tail, a full sus, a dropbar gravel bike or any other bike).
If you found bikes you really enjoy riding in the past (and why shouldn’t you) then there is really nothing complicated in finding a hardtail platform you really like. How it rides, how it handles, how it turns.
That’s the gist of it. Ideally you should test riding it by yourself or you could go by the recommendation of others. But then - if some very basic requirements are met (a somewhat conventional and not super short stem, no integrated cockpit or special cable routing) then a dropbar conversion is quite straightforward and should lead to a great riding experience provided you already liked the flatbar version.
I would expect quite a bit of a more stable descending feel but at the price of some pronounced wheel flop. You would be able to see if you like it / can live with it already absolutely fine by test riding a stock Epic WorldCup with it’s normal flat bars.
Much of said wheel flop / steering characteristics would come from the (for an XC and certainly for a gravel race bike) slack head tube angle. Alas this is the current trend for XC bikes. Which makes sense if you want / need to tackle ever gnarlier XCO race courses and go for those 120 mm forks.
But therein also lies some sustenance. Since if you pair such a bike with not a 120 but a 100 mm suspension fork you gain degree in head tube angle “back”. You essentially steepen the front a bit again. Not quite into the realm of a 69° headtube, but better (for my taste in any case - since I’m not looking for a down country bike but for a nice overlander marathon mile muncher with also some technical abilities but not a XCO course beast).
For what it’s worth: I recently test rode the new Trek Supercaliber (with similar progressive XC front geo) and I didn’t like it. I already didn’t like it for what it is as a flat bar bike. Thus I also have no inclination to want to use it as a bike to convert to a drop bar.
Chris certainly got inspired a bit by me (I know since he asked a few things) and others (since neither I nor others have “invented” dropbar MTBs and as the contributions here show quite a few people run similar since quite a while already.
My aim certainly isn’t what you wrote but my aim is to get a mountain bike with at least front suspension since this is the most capable bike for “european” gravel or run-of-the-mill forest tracks. I want the squish and tires of a 2020-2022’ies xc mtb (no want that 2.4 inch 120 mm modern xco shenanigans ;-)) but the comfort, versatility and long range capability of drop bars.
Chris’ aim was to get a “gravel bike” of sorts with way more comfort (from bigger tires and from front suspension) since he broke a wrist. And he probably also saw it as an opportunity to do something with the new Cervelo Hardtail they pushed on / graced all their ambassadors with. So I guess win-win for him at that time.
My point was this: if you aren’t using the drop bars to get more aerodynamic and you don’t care about racing, why wouldn’t you just fit flat bars (with or without Spirgrips, Bar ends or even TT Clipons for alternate hand positions?)
That way when you want the control of a flat bar, you have it without compromise.
No, he broke his wrist a good deal before. And had build the bike afterwards. As I just mentioned in my previous post probably also as a way to show off that at this time still new Cervelo Hardtail.
(and as an off-topic note on that forum settings: sigh… again I’m running into the “you can’t post more than 2 consecutive posts…” They do know that threads here are long? That presumably people visit the Forums only once in a while, go through a threat and might want to contribute and reply to quite a few posts of the history they work through? Aggravating…)
I use both. But flat bars really only for really technical stuff. And for shorter stuff. When I want to just ride or to ride long (even if I would and did pair also flat bars with aerobars for events like a long ITT or like Atlas Mountain Race) I simply prefer dropbars so much more. And on top of it I’m also way more aero all the time, even when I’m not in the Aerobars or when I would opt for a absolutely not much controlled gripping the flatbar left and right of the stem or (as you can see XCO riders do on flat finish line straights) even gripping the bridge of the suspension fork.
Looks good in both versions. 
If you would invite me into nitpicking I would touch upon the surplus fork shaft above the stem and the negative stem not playing nice for my eyes with the rising lines of the very sloped main triangle of the frame. But in any case everything is being offset by the fact that you bike isn’t showcasing that hideous crows nest of cables for everything like lockouts, droppers, shifting, brakes… Something which always puts me down and is for my tastes the way greater put off then the maybe not so much used sight of a drop bar above a xc suspension fork.
But - I won’t nitpick since it’s your bike and if that’s the fit and versatility you want with your handlebar and stem option that’s awesome. You do you and again: both versions look good.
Anyone know if you can space out a pair of road disc wheels to boost?
I’ve found 12-15mm adapters, but they don’t deal with the rotor placement or the additional 10mm spacing.
Unfortunately this is for zipp hubs - if it were DT you could start by changing end caps.
yes it was poster earlier in thread. for center lock 12x100/12x142 to boost spacing for brake alignment.
will not work on CK rear hub though, due to preload collar design. works fine on my CK front and all my DT setups though.
