Pretty much the biggest upgrade you can give your mountain bike is a new fork but the installation can seem daunting even to experienced MTB tinkerers. If you’ve been considering a fork upgrade but aren’t sure where to start, you’re in luck: here is the step by step procedure that nearly all shops will use to successfully replace your MTB fork. Once you get good at the procedure you could easily do this task in about 35 minutes but for the first time, allot yourself a good hour and a bit. No need to rush this job -the more care you take the better results you will have.

Read your manufacturer’s instructions

The very first thing anyone should do is read the installation instructions. I don’t care if you are an experienced mechanic or a bike tech, there is always something in there that you may not have know or forgotten, and funny thing it is usually the most important piece of information that you need.

Gathering  all the Tools

To do this job you need to round up a few items and tools:

Bike stand
Shop rags (to clean up remove excessive grease)
Allen sockets 3, 4, 5, 6mm (for use with your torque wrench)
Allen keys 3, 4, 5, 6mm
Side cutter (for removing old tie straps)
Soft face hammer
Chisel / standard screwdriver or crown race puller (Park tool #CRP-1)
Tape measure or ruler
Hack saw
Half round file with holder
Pipe cutter with new blade
Threadless saw guide (Park tool #SG-6 or similar)
Threadless nut installer (Park tool #TNS-1 or similar)
Tube that will fit over the steering tube and install the lower crown race
Torque wrench
Shock pump (high pressure up to 250psi)

You may need a new brake adapter if you are changing a fork that had IS (International Standard) mounts to one with post mounts but if your forks use the same mounting system you won’t need an adapter.

Warnings

This is IMPORTANT: If you do not feel you can do this, then don’t. Steering tubes are generally not replaceable so if you cut yours too short, then you’re outta luck. As always, MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE! When in doubt, read the last sentence again.  When cutting you should wear safety glasses and you should never use a file without a handle. Be careful not to nick the side of the steering tube with any sharp object.

Removing front wheel and top cap

The very first step is to remove the front wheel. Next, release the top cap, take it off, and put it aside in a container so you don’t loose the bolt and cap.

Removing the front brake

Most bikes today use post mount brakes and in this case, it’s a simple matter of removing the two bolts that secure the caliper onto the fork. If you have an IS adapter, (International Standard) remove the brake from that point. Make sure all the hardware is placed in a small plastic bag (these use different bolts and should be kept separate).

Removing Brake Hose

Most bikes have the brake hose attached to it in one of two ways: a small plastic mount or a plastic tie wrap. If your fork uses a tie wrap, carefully cut it off, avoiding touching your brake line. Otherwise, simply remove the hex bolt that holds the clip in place and move the brake hose and caliper away. Under no circumstances should you be removing the brake line from the caliper.

Removing Stem Assembly

Use the series of photos below for the following instructions.

With one hand on the lower crown, hold the fork in position while loosening the stem bolts. The moment the bolts are loosened the fork will fall so better to be safe than sorry! Once you have released the bolts enough, remove the stem and bar as an assembly and allow it to sit on one side of the bike. Afterward, remove the spacers and top crown race and place them somewhere safe.

Remove fork

Once you have removed the fork you’ll find the lower bearing race and seal which you’ll need to remove so pay attention to the orientation of the bearing. Your bearing may not look like the one in the picture (this is what is called a cartridge bearing) but bearings won’t stray too far from this design. Keep in mind cartridge bearings are packed with grease so check to see how smooth they are moving (twist them and feel for grittiness, the smoother the better). If your bearings are rough you may want to consider a new headset at this time.

Remove lower crown race

If you plan on reusing your old headset you’ll need to remove the lower race; otherwise, skip this step. There are a two ways that you can remove the lower race: use Park Tools CRP-1 OR if you are careful enough you can use a sharp chisel or a screw driver and gently tap the race off by working around ring, removing it evenly. Just be careful not to hit the steering tube! Wedge the tool between the fork crown and race, prying it upward until it pops off. Once off, put the race with the other parts of the headset.

Measuring Steering Tube Length

Measure the existing steering tube from the mounting face of the crown to the end of the steering tube (you may want to record that number). Next mark the new steering tube with a felt marker.

If you’re placing a new headset and it is not the same as the one that came off, you’ll need to use another method to figure out the steering length. To do that, first measure the head tube of the bike, then check the manufacturer’s info for the stack height of the headset plus the spacers and the thickness of the stem. Add it all up and with that total number subtract 2mm and that should be the length that you need to cut.

Head tube length  +
Headset stack height  +
Spacer stack  +
Stem thickness  +

Subtract 2mm from that total (this is for the top cap clearance and space required to preload the bearings).

Mark and cut the fork

With the correct length marked on your fork you now have two options for cutting the fork. The first method is to use a threadless saw guide and a hack saw. Set your guide so that when the blade draws over your mark it sits just above the cut line - this ensures that the tube extension doesn’t get cut to short. Ease up on the last few strokes before cutting through - this will prevent a large burr from forming at the end that will have to be filed clean. Finally, carefully remove the saw marks off the top and file the edge at a 45 degree angle to ensure there is no burr or edge that can scratch you or components on installation.

The second method involves the use of a pipe cutter with a fresh blade (shown above). Just make sure to line up your pipe cutter just above the cut line and rotate evenly to get a clean cut.

Installing the star nut

This step really is really best accomplished using a star nut setting tool, though you could try to install it by other means (you will have a very hard time doing so). Screw the star nut onto the nut setting tool all the way, then line up the star nut with the steering tube (do your best at lining things up here otherwise you will have issues later). Tap the star nut in to place and make sure you set it in a minimum of 5mm. Some tools have a stop that will set the nut in the right way every time.

Install the lower bearing race

Once the star nut is installed it’s time to install the lower bearing race. You can go and purchase the correct tool from a tool manufacturer such as Park or find yourself a tube that fits over the steering tube.  I fashioned the tube shown here myself and included a small nylon ring to protect the bearing race. Carefully tap the bearing ring in place and make sure the race sits squarely on the fork crown.

Install fork

Once the lower bearing race is installed you can go ahead and replace the fork. Remember to replace the lower bearing and seal, then install the fork. Next, install the upper bearing, keeping in mind the orientation of the bearing, then install the compression ring (make sure flat side up) and the top cover. If you plan on using spacers below the stem, install them now followed by the stem itself. You should end up with 2- 3mm of space. Finally you can replace the top cap and stem bolt. Do not torque anything yet.

Install the front brake and cable

At this point you should be ready to install the front brake. When you have the brake loosely installed, make sure you’re using the correct bolt length (there should be 8 threads exposed past the caliper). Replace the front wheel with disk, being careful not to jam your rotor into the pads. Once the front wheel is correctly installed now you can set the caliper in place. The way I usually set up the brake is to slowly compress the brake lever, keeping the caliper as centered as possible when applying brake pressure. Slowly tighten the bolts down. Release the brake and spin the wheel while listening to make sure that the pads are not contacting the rotor. You may need to re-adjust the brake by loosening the bolts slightly and carefully moving the caliper until you don’t hear it rubbing when spinning the wheel. DO NOT stick your fingers near the rotor while in motion.

Once you are satisfied with the performance of the front brake, apply brake pressure again and torque the caliper bolts to the amount recommended by both the brake and fork manufacturers. If the fork you are installing states a lower torque value, use that one.  The final job is to keep the cable from rubbing on any moving parts. Some forks come with a convenient mounting point, others require a tie wrap.

Now it’s finally time to line up the wheel with the stem and bars. Stand in front of your bike and hold the wheel between your legs. With your hands grab the bars and wiggle them side to side, slowly centering the bars. Once set you can tighten the stem bolts a bit.

Now, double check to see if the bar is straight. Grab the front brake and rock the bike fore and aft while listening and feeling for a light clunk. If the front clunks you may have insufficient pre-load on the stem top cap in which case you’ll need to loosen the two stem bolts slightly and give the top cap bolt a half turn. Keep doing this until the clunk disappears. If the steering suddenly gets too stiff, you went too far on the top cap tension. Once you have the correct tension, line it up and now torque the stem bolts (use the correct torque from the stem manufacturer).

Now - you’re done! You did it!

Cheers.

Just a quick thanks to the folks at Manitou,Hayes and Opus for their support.

It’s June and things are heating up on the trail AND on singletracks.com. Here’s the new stuff to keep you in the loop:

Video Contest Winners: It was a battle royale and in the end we had 3 clear winners. Devin_P killed it with 1535 points making him the proud owner of a brand new set of Kenda Nevegall 2.35 tires! Maddslacker earned himself a PRO membership and a singletracks t-shirt while Goo is taking home the third place package with stuff from Camelbak, Nite Rider, and Mr. Smith. Thanks again to all our sponsors and everyone who contributed.

Trail Video Comments: Speaking of trail videos, the contest helped us iron out some kinks that were preventing members from rating trail videos. With hundreds of new videos added this month, it’s a great time to post your comments and ratings to move the best trail videos to the top of the list!

New Trail Pages: We’ve been getting overwhelmingly positive feedback on the new trail page design and if you haven’t taken a look yet, check out this page for an example. The new tabs organize stuff like trail maps, photos, and videos and we’ve placed all the “action links” in a convenient dashboard in the right column. With this new framework in place look for more trail page enhancements this summer and fall.

New Forums: Mongoose has been hard at work moderating the forums and he’s adding two new discussions this summer for MTB beginners and folks interested in mountain biking with families (coming soon). We’re also adding more moderators to help out with the avalanche of new posts - stop in and holla!

Gear Reviews: We’re currently testing hot new gear from Easton, Sun Ringle, Manitou, Yakima, and others and will be posting articles and reviews here on the blog in the next few weeks. Want us to review a particular MTB product? Hit us up on the contact form and we’ll see what we can do.

Top Secret Stuff: Yep, there are a few things coming down the pipe that are on a strictly need to know basis right now. One thing I can tell you: we’ve located 1,100 trails for our Google Maps project. It’s still not nearly 50% of the trail catalog but get ready for a new way to search for MTB trails coming soon…

A sampler of MTB news from this week:

Bike rescue team rescues missing hikers: Yet another example of bikers helping hikers, this time in Manchester, NH. A group of 4 hikers became lost on Case Mountain this week during a thunderstorm and after alerting authorities of their situation via cell phone the bicycle rescue team found them within hours. Mountain bikes being used to help people? Who would’ve thought

Photo courtesy Pique newsmagazine | Whistler

Women are MTB’s fastest growing demographic: That’s good news, but what other demographics are we comparing? If we’re talking gender demographics it had to be men or women… At any rate, more and more women are discovering mountain biking every year and Whistler’s newsmagazine Pique has an in depth article about some of the women who put the men to shame at the MTB park. Good one to pass along to your wife or significant other…

Photo embed codes and contest updates: We’ve added an easy way for you to embed your singletracks MTB photos on forums or other websites using the “share” link found in the dashboard on photo pages. Just click, copy, and paste. For MTB photos, it’s time to kick the photobucket

The video contest is off to a strong start and it’s super close among the top contributors. There is still plenty of time left to get your video links in and don’t forget you also get points for rating or commenting on trail videos!

Photos courtesy MTBPursuits.com.

Looking for a way to celebrate the Queen of New Zealand’s birthday in style? Try manning up to the Run 79 Lake Tekapo mountain bike race on May 31. The 90Km (56 mile) undulating course goes around beautiful Lake Tekapo and features plenty of rocky stream crossings.

If you’re planning on heading down for the race remember it’s mid-autumn in New Zealand and race organizers recommend wind breakers, thermal leggings, and extra socks to keep warm on the 4-8 hour ride. The top male and female finisher each receive $1500 and the race is limited to 1500 riders. Just think, you can use that prize money to pay for your plane ticket…

Yep, it’s pretty simple: earn points for submitting trail videos and video comments this month and the top 3 point grabbers will earn free junk! Point values are awarded like this:

• 3 points for new trail videos (must be at least 30 seconds long)
• 1 point for each video comment you post on singletracks

All videos and comments are subject to approval and you can keep track of the standings on the contest page. Videos from nearly any website are eligible as long as we can find a valid embed code - that includes YouTube, Vimeo, BroadBandSports, VHoldR, and others. Videos must be submitted via the proper trail page and videos submitted via singletracks.f5sports.com are not eligible for the contest.

Prize winners will be announced Monday, June 1:

1. First Prize: Set of Kenda Nevegal Tubeless MTB Tires (retail value: $44.99 each)
2. Second Prize: Singletracks t-shirt PLUS a 1-year PRO membership*
3. Third Prize: Jimi Wallet, Nite Rider Cherry Bomb safety light, and Camelbak Chill Jacket water bottle

Special thanks to Kenda, Mr. Smith, Nite Rider, and Camelbak for donating schwag!

* If you already have a singletracks t-shirt and/or PRO membership you may exchange for any item in our schwag bag

We’re cleaning out our blog queue this month to get ready for summer and we realized we never announced two new features that have been lurking on the site for several months now.

Photo from Sacred Rides’ Awesome Andes Tour.

MTB Tour Reviews: Most of us have never been on a commercial mountain biking tour but if you’re thinking about doing one you’ll want to do your homework. That’s why we added a section where you can find out about the various tours and tour operators, view pics, and even review tours you’ve taken.There are currently 40 MTB tours listed from Asia to North & South America to Europe.

We haven’t had much action on the review side yet (probably since we haven’t promoted the section and only a few dozen riders complete each tour annually) but we hope to get some good tour feedback this summer. Anyone can add tours, pics, and reviews plus you can even create a MTB tour wishlist.

MTB Club Links: Finding local mountain biking clubs can be hit or miss depending on where you live so we recently created a list of MTB clubs around the world. Clubs are organized by state and you’ll find links to the club website and information on which areas the club serves. Anyone can submit a club website for inclusion but all submissions will be moderated to keep the riff-raff out. Dot-org websites are preferred

We’re also still collecting trailhead locations for our Google Map project (we’re at 36% for those keeping track) and we hope to have something up before summer. And don’t forget: singletracks t-shirts are back in stock and are still available for the rock bottom price of $10 each.

Last Friday we mentioned the sale on singletracks t-shirts and the response was clear: mountain bikers love $10 t-shirts. Unfortunately we ran out of size large shirts before the end of the weekend so we had to stop taking orders early this week. The good news is more shirts are being printed as we speak (should be ready late next week) and we’re now accepting orders for all sizes. $10 pricing is still in effect so get your order in now before we run out again!

I also wanted to give an update on the Google Maps trailhead project: after a couple weeks of contributions trickling in you’ve helped us pinpoint roughly 33% of the singletracks trail catalog. Honestly that’s not a great percentage - we need about 80% before the maps become useful - but we’re hoping things will ramp up this spring as people get back on the trails. If you hit a trail page with a map request, take 30 seconds to let us know where the trailhead is - it’ll definitely be rad once we get the Google Maps happening.

One nice side effect of the trailhead project is that it’s helping us identify duplicate trail listings in many areas. We’re serious about keeping the trail database clean and up to date so if you see any duplicate listings, holla at us and we’ll get it taken care of.

Ride hard this weekend and stay off wet trails!

We’re getting ready to do another printing of the singletracks t-shirts so to clear out our current inventory we’re offering the shirts for just 10 bones each. Still on the fence?

• 100% of the proceeds from your purchase will go to IMBA. We print the shirts for about $6-7 each so IMBA gets a few bucks for every shirt you buy.
• Get 2 free singletracks stickers with each t-shirt in your order this month.
• Shipping is still just $3 no matter how many shirts you order.
• No small t-shirts available at this time and mediums and 2XLs are getting low. Order now to reserve yours before we print more (and raise the price).

On Wednesday we announced our project to pinpoint singletracks trails on a Google Map and we’re stoked to report that we’ve received nearly 100 trails locations in just 36 hours - keep ‘em coming! Other cool features that were added this week:

• New trail map interface. Trail maps still look *mostly* the same but we’ve added a tab that allows you to view tracks and waypoints on an interactive Google Map in addition to the topo view (screen shot above). We’ve also cleaned up the look a bit and added a quick link to take you back to the trail listing page (don’t know why we didn’t do that sooner). Up next: improving the trail listing pages and adding more trail map download options…
• Video comments and ratings: Yep, now you can rate and comment on YouTube, Vimeo, and Broadband Sports videos without leaving singletracks. We’ve also added support for more video services like Viddler and VHoldR.
• Good news for lurkers: now you can share your two cents on our MTB gear reviews without signing up for a (free) singletracks account. The tradeoff: guest reviews will be moderated before they’re posted and you won’t receive any contribution points for your efforts.

That’s it for now, thanks to everyone for their feedback and help with all the new stuff. Ride hard this weekend!

It’s the feature request we hear most often: offer a searchable (Google) map of mountain bike trailhead locations on singletracks. We love the idea ourselves but it turns out it’s a little complicated since most mountain bike trails don’t have street addresses (no mailboxes either - strange).

Anyway… We need your help! We just added a function that lets you pinpoint MTB trail locations on a Google Map - it’s simple and should only take a second. The good news is that we already have a head start from the 600+ trails with GPS data plus another 100 trails we’ve located ourselves. The bad news is that’s still just 25% of the entire singletracks trail catalog and we figure it really doesn’t make sense to put up state maps until at least 50% of the trails have been located.

There are no contribution points this time around and it’s not a contest - it’s a goodwill, help out the community kind of thing (though we reserve the right to randomly reward folks with gear from the schwag bag ).  Once we locate 50% of the trail catalog we’ll post new and improved maps for finding and viewing MTB trails. In the meantime you’ll be able to get driving directions and view trailhead maps of those trails that have already been pinpointed.

We’ll keep everyone posted on the progress here on the blog and in the forums - maybe we should get one of those cartoon thermometers and fill it in as we go… Sweet.

On Friday we mentioned that singletracks now supports Vimeo videos but as Steve Jobs likes to say, there is “one more thing…”

In cooperation with Broadband Sports singletracks has just launched a video channel where you can watch and share all your mountain bike videos right here on the site. There are already thousands of mountain bike videos and Broadband Sports updates the most popular video list all the time so you can get to the good stuff quickly. There’s no need to sign up for a separate account to watch videos but if you want to upload your own vids you’ll need to get a free Broadband Sports account first.

You can also embed videos from the new singletracks video channel on your favorite sites like MySpace and we’ve even integrated Broadband Sports video support into our trail video catalog. Just submit videos like always using the “Post trail video” link on any trail page.

It’s hard to believe but there’s even more cool stuff coming this summer - stay tuned!

Just in time for the “unofficial” start to the MTB season (don’t forget to set your clocks forward this weekend!) singletracks is rolling out new features and updates:

Vimeo Video Support

Singletracks now supports Vimeo trail videos! If you’re an online video connoisseur you know Vimeo videos are higher quality than most YouTube fare and now you can share your Vimeo trail videos on singletracks. Just find the trail where you video was shot, click the “Post trail video” link, and send us the Vimeo link. Thanks to ckdake for pushing for Vimeo support, watch this video of Yellow River to see the difference:

Yellow River - Creek Side from Jeremy Bower on Vimeo.

Twitter

Check out singletracks on Twitter! Admittedly we’re a little late to the party but at this point I think we’re still just “fashionably late,” no? Follow us to get the inside scoop on upcoming product reviews, find out where we’re riding, and read about features we’re working on for the site. Now we just need one of those iPhones so we can twitter from the trail

Gravatars

We’ve integrated Gravatars into the comments on photos and bike shop reviews (with even more integration coming soon). It’s simple (and free) to set up your avatar at gravatar.com and the cool thing is that your avatar will automatically follow you to other sites that support Gravatars (just be sure to sign up using the email address associated with your singletracks account).

Over time we’ll start to phase out the avatars currently being used on the site for a few of reasons. First, Gravatar.com provides some great tools for cropping and sizing avatars that we just can’t match. Second, Gravatars are portable meaning you don’t need to update 10 different websites when you get a new haircut and want to change your pic We also really like the simple look and feel of Gravatars. Finally, Gravatars load super fast unlike the avatars created under our current system.

Phew, thats it for now - time to get out and ride in this amazing weather…