Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
Canyon has a neat solution for reach adjustment on the Sender/ Strive. To sets of headset "cups" so the reach is 0 or + - 5mm. It would also be easier to make angle sets etc.
Watch the video about reach adjustments here:
https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/customer-service/mountain/sender/#video=adjust-reach-sender-cfr-2023
I stand corrected😉
https://ridegg.com/pages/geoadjust-headset-tuning
Guerilla gravity had some as well. And there is the Specialized Stumpy Evo / Levo etc one for angle adjustment, and Trek has something similar I think.
Swedish squish for your dirt jumper: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/ohlins-launches-rxfdj-m-1-dirt-jump-fork
FTFY: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/ohlins-launches-rxfdj-m-1-d…
These work fine. I use them for making A2C longer or compensating for smaller wheel diameter when fiddling with 27.5 wheels in MX or full 29 setups. They are a super tight fit though, and I am not sure if they can ever be removed after installed and fully seated.
cane creek still offers a +3mm and +6mm crown race.
someone else use to make a 10mm, but my google-fu is failing me. i'll try again after more coffee.
the GG ones were a little different - since the frames had built in reach adjust - which means they are only compatible with the GG revved frames. it was an extra widget that went into the frame/headtube, and the headset bearing went into that.
Any Rocky mountain dealer should have dozens of lower cups that came with every instinct to allow them to be converted to pipelines for the 2017-2020 generation.
Cane creek also makes an extended crown race but its like 6mm.
Yes, all the current ones are like that, only compatible with the frame they are made for. A standardized size that does this would be nice. In a way, all headsets except IS has "an extra widget that went into the frame/headtube"
Chiming in to the running smaller wheels and correcting geo: I've used a Cane Creek Angleset to make a full 29er with no flip chip mullet. The lower cup is 10mm and with it in the +1 steepening position paired with a 10mm longer fork it gets the BB back close to stock. I did this on an ebike and didn't bang the motor up more than usual.
Headset routing is the devil to most people because of maintenance, but giving up these adjustment options, reach and head angle are why it's the devil to me.
New CRAFTY
Depending on your set up, they exist: HS Extension – Production Privée
I'm running one on a 160 Status with a 29er fork. So far, so good. Going from a 29 to 27.5 front likely provided a bigger feel difference than any mm or two difference in front end height did.
Here;s a +15mm one that I use in place of a lock block that was preventing down tube contact. This plus the +10mm from a higher travel fork and I got 1 degree more needed headangle
https://www.ninerbikes.com/niner-headset-zs-lower-cup/
You are correct! As soon as I read your post the memory flashed back into my head.
FSA has a system called the RAS. not a full +/- 10mm (20mm overall) but about +/-5mm. Being shopped to companies right now with an open design so that it can become a standard. Discussions on angle as well (though gets into a MULTITUDE of cup options if you combo it all). We are trying... just need bike companies to buy in. But the designs are out there and being shopped.
Working for FSA I can 100% confirm that there is NO room in a ZS 56 HT to run a reach adjust for tapered. some for straight. The bigger issue for most users is getting the cups in straight (yes this really is an end user/shop issue that has to be heavily considered having dealt with other systems).
The better option is the RAS reach adjust. Luckily MTB companies I think want to go away from internal routing, so more open to this option. We are trying....
Some kind of guiding for it in the system would probably aleviate alignment issues. Maybe a groove in the headtube and a pin in the headset cup to be guided into the groove or something along those lines (if you want to keep an easy to make round headtube).
Said grooves and/or pins could be executed by the use of standard steel pins pressed into a correctly placed hole on either the frame or the headset cup.
oh agreed there are "simple" ways to fix this... then getting then standardized, and correct tolerances around the industry is a different matter... as an industry we can't get a round hole done right... now add a precise pin location to that.....
Yeah I know... Someone somewhere (thoughts on forks thread maybe?) just recently commented that pressfit BBs are, theoretically, the most logical thing to do, but given how hard it seems for the industry to make two concentric holes it was an utter failure. And it's 100 % true.
There needs to be an SBE (Society of Bicycle Engineers, bike equivalent of automotive counterpart SAE) that would define the standards to all things important - interfaces, dimensions, load ratings and tests, etc.
oh the tolerances are there... it's just holding to them.
BB30: 40.96-40.985mm
PF30 (and all equivalents) 45.95-46
HT I have as well. only one that isnt consistently called out is BB86 (I am sure Shimano has the frame tolerance but never seen it posted). Its more as has been discussed ad nauseum.... the cost to hold those tolerances would make frames even more expensive than they already are....
Just going to leave this here...Rocky Mountain Bicycles is using the FSA system on the carbon Altitude and Instincts, and our own designed (FSA made) ZS56|66 round headsets for the alloy models. 10mm of reach adjust possible. The headset guts are just standard components: bearings, races, top caps, etc.

Maybe focus on making headsets that are not made of Swiss cheese with 30,000 different bearing options
>Bike manufacturers spec 30,000 different headset combinations on frames over the last four decades
>FSA makes something compatible
How dare they!
Havnt owned any mtb that hope doesn’t make a headset for and they make 2 bearings. Not sure why FSA needs to have so many. Make finding replacements impossible.
We make them because the bike companies request them. and actually when you start digging into it, we dopnt make a ton of bearings, just combos with bearings for different uses. and we usually have decent stock for our HS. feel free to reach out to us directly and we can usually sort a bearing that works (many are cross compatible). If you have more questions directly related to a HS feel free to DM me.
Thanks I appreciate it but last time I called in somone said you make of 400 different bearings. I just had 3 oem FSA head sets blow up in weeks of use. Same with the crown race. Taken off this cane creek 40 lower about 6 times still is fine. Every time I take off a FSA lower it breaks or bends. Same with hope. Never had any issues. Back to rumors…
Yeah I had a +5mm reach headset from Works like this (EC44/EC56) and while it technically did extend reach by 5mm, you effectively lose some of that with the added stack from going to EC cups from ZS cups. I guess what it really does is slacken headangle without losing reach (from baseline).
I was speaking with some guys in the sram tent at a crankworx event shortly after transmission was released and they said that it was a request from frame manufacturers to go to 55mm chain line in order to accomodate a wider variety of suspension linkages and rear triangle layouts.
The Marin Alpine trail XR has a nifty +- angle cups for a budget frame. So it's totally doable even at low cost.
I really want a Rocky because of the headset adjust meaning you can size it perfectly, just wish it was 6.5k aud and receives mediocre warranty standards in aus.