# touring/road bike with front suspension?



## Kwantani (Sep 26, 2002)

Wonder if such beast exist? Looking for road bike platform with some front suspension, nothing agressive, maybe 1-1.5 travel. Something that can do it all. Still can resonably keep up with the road crowd. Can use to do some touring/expedition type riding, that occassionally need to go off road (some fire road, non technical singel track, trail), still provide comfort for hours of riding. 
Cannondale used to make suspension road bike, but no more. Wonder who else still making such a beast? I imagine this could popular for someone who want one bike do all.

Kwan


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## Spinfinity (Feb 3, 2004)

*Had it been popular Cannondale would have stuck with them*

and others would have followed. I thought it was a good idea and had a bike with a elastomer shock on the stem. It worked great with straight bars but braking from the hoods on drop handlebars felt really weird to me. I found I liked drop bars more than I liked the suspension, so I put a normal stem on it and rode unsuspended.


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## Andy M-S (Feb 3, 2004)

*Suspension forks for the Road*



Kwantani said:


> Wonder if such beast exist? Looking for road bike platform with some front suspension, nothing agressive, maybe 1-1.5 travel. Something that can do it all. Still can resonably keep up with the road crowd. Can use to do some touring/expedition type riding, that occassionally need to go off road (some fire road, non technical singel track, trail), still provide comfort for hours of riding.
> Cannondale used to make suspension road bike, but no more. Wonder who else still making such a beast? I imagine this could popular for someone who want one bike do all.
> 
> Kwan


I've seen them from several companies; Paris-Roubaix seemed to be the motivator for some of them. A couple of years back I talked to a fellow who had one of these forks (I think it was a Suntour) and he said he really, really liked it. I've never used one, though, and I've never felt the lack. Might be a fun thing to try on fire roads, though.


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## biknben (Jan 28, 2004)

*C'Dale Silk Road...*



Kwantani said:


> Wonder if such beast exist? Looking for road bike platform with some front suspension, nothing agressive, maybe 1-1.5 travel. Something that can do it all. Still can resonably keep up with the road crowd. Can use to do some touring/expedition type riding, that occassionally need to go off road (some fire road, non technical singel track, trail), still provide comfort for hours of riding.
> Cannondale used to make suspension road bike, but no more. Wonder who else still making such a beast? I imagine this could popular for someone who want one bike do all.
> 
> Kwan


Cannondale used to have a Silk Road line of frames that were essentially a road frame with a Headshock front suspension fork. It had 15mm of travel and a lockout knob. I took a peak at their current offerings and only see limited use of the Silk fork. Their Ultra Bad-Boy flat bar 700c bike has it along with some of their comfort bikes.

A C'Dale dealer near me still has one left-over from a few years ago in his store. They also made a cyclocross bike with suspension fork within the last two years. That may be a good option for the type of riding you described.

Other options include the Rock-Shox Ruby fork which hasn't been made for a few years. It was a short travel 700c fork similar to their MTB offerings of the time. Good luck finding one of those though.


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## The Walrus (Apr 2, 2000)

*RockShox still makes the Metro...*

...which was basically the Ruby with cantilever bosses. It has only 50mm of travel, and the beast weighs 5.3 lbs. There's _no_ advantage you could get from that thing that would make that weight worthwhile....


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## gogogomoveit (Nov 20, 2003)

*look into ebay.*

there are a bunch of Silk Road Frames.


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## Kwantani (Sep 26, 2002)

Do you know a source where I can find them. None on ebay, I try.




gogogomoveit said:


> there are a bunch of Silk Road Frames.


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## TurboTurtle (Feb 4, 2004)

Kwantani said:


> Do you know a source where I can find them. None on ebay, I try.


Quick eBay search comes up with two. - TF

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22681&item=7108945597&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=22681&item=7108871488&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW


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## rmp (Aug 25, 2004)

I use an old (NOS actually) Allsop aluminum suspension stem on my commuter. It works perfectly, but is too long for me to use with drops, so I use a flat bar.

Not the best solution for hardcore riding, but for commuting it's great. Takes the edge off, and is especially effective on small, high frequency hits. Lack of rebound damping makes it a bit spikey on the big stuff though. For commuting, it beats the pants off a suspension fork.

FWIW, my commuter is an ebay-special aluminum Kinesis MTB frame, built with leftover parts from my toolbox.


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