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I am restoring two old bikes a 1996 Trek 8000 and 2000 Fuji Aloha. Both are 21" frames. The problem I am having is getting forks that do not cost $1000 and have steerer tubes with sufficient lengths. I am finding forks with uncut tube lengths of 250mm etc... The longest I have seen is 300mm. I think for the Trek MTB i would need around a suspension fork with around 320mm and for the racing Fuji, I would need a road fork with an even longer tube than that ( maybe 350mm). Do they make forks intended for a certain size bike or one size fits all?

Thanks in advance.

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  • Just found this site while searching for an answer. They seem to have some reasonably priced road forks, but the mountain bike forks are pretty expensive. You may want to try contacting them to see if they have any ideas. With a website name like "bigandtallbike.com" they probably have some experience. Otherwise, talk to your local bike shop. They should have a huge catalog, with much more information than you may find online. If they can't find anything ask them to call their sales rep to see if they can recommend something. – Kibbee Jun 23 '16 at 13:03
  • Just an fyi, i work at a US distributor and looking in our catalog, the longest steerer length we carry is 300mm which is a replacement road/touring fork, most the others are also 250. Including, Suntour, RST, Xfusion, Magura..ect. So it could be tricky! Good luck. What are you basing your required lengths on? a guesstimation or have you done a lot of fit or are you just really tall? – Nate W Jun 23 '16 at 15:03
  • Guesstimate. I have a fork that I measured to be about 250mm. When I slide it in it looks like I could use about 5 more cm. I was looking on ebay could not find anything longer than 9.5". There must not be a market for tall riders. – TheCodeNovice Jun 23 '16 at 15:10
  • You can get extenders to solve this problem which may be a lot more cost effective. (Internet search "Steerer extender") – mattnz Jun 23 '16 at 20:14
  • To clear up some confusion, is the problem that the steerer tube doesn't go all the way through the headtube or that it doesn't go far enough though for your liking? Does it go trough far enough to attach a stem with no spacers? – Kibbee Jun 24 '16 at 12:58
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When I have had this problem I have paid to have extensions welded on to the tube. The welding must be done in a lathe, or a proper rotating pipe welding jig, so it's not a DIY project. Or look for a fork with a removable steerer tube and fit a longer one.

One advantage you have here is that many (most?) steerer tubes are still steel, so it's usually possible to weld them without destroying them. In my case I've used fairly cheap forks, so even if one gets trashed during the process I'm only out $100 or so. Also, with a little work you end up with a tube stronger than the original because you can sleeve a second tube inside the original and weld that at the fork crown too. Or if it's a tight fit, just leave it there.

For my bikes there steerer lengths required have been unreasonable (in the worse case, about two metres for a tall bike), so there was never a question of being able to find one pre-made.

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  • Two meters? Sounds like a chopper mod. ;-) – mootmoot Jul 28 '16 at 7:42

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