Posts
8
Joined
6/21/2025
Location
asheville, NC, USA
Edited Date/Time
7/30/2025 10:19am
Hey all. First post here.
Wondering if anyone prefers longer offset forks on their non-DH bikes and, if so, why is that?
A while back I was doing back to back tests with short and long offset and recall much preferring the 51mm when descending. Since I ride mainly fireroads to the top, the flop of the 51mm did not bother me much.
Looking at WC riders, most seem to prefer longer offset. Starting to wonder if we are giving up descending capabilities with short offsets for a bit calmer steering, and maybe a slightly shorter front-center on the way up.
Thoughts on this?
What was it you found you preferred about the 51mm offset?
Comparing to dh bikes, they have slacker HTA’s which helps with the stability, and then having a longer offset helps to keep the trail value in check.
I think the 44mm for 29er forks seems like a good middle ground for enduro and trail bikes. Personally, I’d like to experiment with 37mm offsets on my enduro bike, as I think it would be interesting to add steering stability while improving the FC-RC ratio. I rode a 47mm offset (edit: at 200mm of travel) on my Manitou Dorado a couple seasons back and really liked the steering feel of that, although I didn’t test any other offsets so can’t say with certainly that is why I liked.
Brian Cahal did a good video comparing offsets on the Ohlins DH38 here:
I think it was the fact that it was actually a bit less stable; I liked the lighter/looser feel up front which is all I knew prior to short offset entering the mix. Felt like the front end it would just dance a bit more and I could easily plop the front wheel where I wanted. Also remember feeling like I could dive into sections/corners more recklessly while also being able to tighten up, or widen, my turning radius quicker and easier while the bike was leaned over.
Was riding a previous Gen Stumpy w/ 65 HA during this experiment. Ran a 40mm stem on short offset and a 50mm on the longer FWIW.
Bike was a bit short for me and I wanted a bit longer stem, but hated the handling of the 50mm stem with a short offset.
Always heard that Minnar mentioned matching offset/stem length. Whether true or not I gave it a shot and sure seemed to be a good general rule for me at the time.
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