[kidwoo]

I have never ridden one and the concept is silly but Lefties are praised as being stiffer than other forks in their market segment.

Yeah square or keyed stanchions on roller bearings do wonders. I'm on team lefty too, those things worked. Heavy though.

One of the best (and stiffest) dh forks I ever had was an old white (there it is again) brothers inverted.

All of the singlecrown inverted ones were dumb.

as any single design parameter determines overall performance.

You're not as funny as you think you are hardtail man

Actually that might not be so bad on a hardtail.

You know I make the joke that the mtb industry just repackages old ideas to sell to a new generation who wasn't around the first time to know their faults. Duh.

I'm sure that push fork is better than the aluminum attempts. But it's going to be twice the price and maybe 2% better with regards to unsprung weight. But that's not entirely why it exists, now is it.

 

[stevew]

New Push upside down forks looks dope as shit.

View attachment 192931

Does it perform though?

@HardtailHack Note the sensible guard design, that actually guards.

the frame material......

 

[maxyedor]

I have never ridden one and the concept is silly but Lefties are praised as being stiffer than other forks in their market segment. Clearly dual crown is the solution as any single design parameter determines overall performance.

The Lefty is honestly a bit of a genius design. I'd wager that Cannondale didn't set out to design an inverted fork at all, instead they set out to design a lighter fork, so they took a ton of shrooms and the Lefty is what they came up with. Pure form following function, the invertedness was only a consequence of a bunch of other super well thought out design decisions.

Everybody else does it backwards, they set out to design an inverted fork, which really only solves non-issues (stiffness, and stiction), and then they spend a ton of time trying to solve all the inherent issues with inverted designs. DVO got close by making a giant set of carbon lowers turning the Emerald into what was functionally a standard fork with huge double walled semi-exposed dampers. It was awesome, so awesome that they now just make a lighter weight, simpler and cheaper traditional fork. They did get a ton of media coverage on the Emerald when it debuted, so there's that.

My Dorado wasn't wobbly and actually had good damping. But I had open bath with the "pro sticker" for regular tuning at races vs. the greased TPC+ system. So... Yeah.

Hex-axle Dorados are as far as the industry should have pushed inverted designs IMHO. After that, things just got fucky, the other suspension companies figured out how to make dampers that worked, and seals that slide, and upsized all the stanchions to make up for the lack of stiffness that the inverted design otherwise solved.

 

[jonKranked]

The Lefty is honestly a bit of a genius design. I'd wager that Cannondale didn't set out to design an inverted fork at all, instead they set out to design a lighter fork, so they took a ton of shrooms and the Lefty is what they came up with. Pure form following function, the invertedness was only a consequence of a bunch of other super well thought out design decisions.

lefty came about once they realized they hit the limit of travel they could get into a headshock

 

[kidwoo]

The Lefty is honestly a bit of a genius design. I'd wager that Cannondale didn't set out to design an inverted fork at all, instead they set out to design a lighter fork, so they took a ton of shrooms and the Lefty is what they came up with. Pure form following function, the invertedness was only a consequence of a bunch of other super well thought out design decisions.

Everybody else does it backwards, they set out to design an inverted fork, which really only solves non-issues (stiffness, and stiction), and then they spend a ton of time trying to solve all the inherent issues with inverted designs. DVO got close by making a giant set of carbon lowers turning the Emerald into what was functionally a standard fork with huge double walled semi-exposed dampers. It was awesome, so awesome that they now just make a lighter weight, simpler and cheaper traditional fork. They did get a ton of media coverage on the Emerald when it debuted, so there's that.



Hex-axle Dorados are as far as the industry should have pushed inverted designs IMHO. After that, things just got fucky, the other suspension companies figured out how to make dampers that worked, and seals that slide, and upsized all the stanchions to make up for the lack of stiffness that the inverted design otherwise solved.

You ever get to ride a white brothers groove fork? It was basically a double lefty. Stiffest damn fork I've ever ridden, inverted or not. I swear that thing had to be keyed, but they said it was just all bushing overlap.

Even the DH3 forks were stiffer than dorados

heavy tho

 

[maxyedor]

You ever get to ride a white brothers groove fork? It was basically a double lefty. Stiffest damn fork I've ever ridden, inverted or not. I swear that thing had to be keyed, but they said it was just all bushing overlap.

Even the DH3 forks were stiffer than dorados

heavy tho

I missed the glory days of oddball suspension by about 5 years. I started working in a shop and having access to cool shit I couldn't afford right before the death of small suspension companies. Never got to ride a White Bros, just oogle them in magazines.

The second Gen Monster T was and still is the stiffest fork I've ridden, but it should be stiff, it was a 12" travel chassis limited to 8" and weighed approximately 7 million pounds.

The Foes F1, not the early one, but the later one, was the best inverted chassis I ever got to ride. The problem again was that it was heavy, expensive, and required a 30mm axle, meaning you had 1 choice of hubs along with 1 choice of brake rotor. It was good though, almost as good as my semi worked over 888, which was almost $2k cheaper, and you didn't need to wait 12 months to get one.


I still want a Lefty, it's what I used to like about Cannondale back in their pre-dirtbike days. Maybe I'll be lame and buy a Scalpel, wear spandex and join Strava.