Hi thorn forum!
Been a passive reader for a while, but brace yourself - meteorite shower of questions is coming your way (in other threads)!
Just to follow up on my original posting of taking suspension forks to South America: we're going to do it! Just got the email from Thorn that both our bikes are built and ready for collection (we're picking them up en route early next year)! Whoop! The price-tag is a bit nauseating, but hey, life's too short to ride sh** bikes.
So we'll be having a Magura Menja each (from my understanding that means there is one single one left in Thorn stores). When we ordered there weren't any V-brake compatible ones left, so we've succumbed to the disc brake world (Avid BB7 cable operated). I had a good chase around for V-brake forks and Magura (as well as some of the Fox/ Marazocchi gang) does still make them, but then you have to find a distributor/ shop that has the three of them - pretty tiring work. Of course there are cheapy RST ones, but really not sure about their durability. In the end, what the hell, why not go the full hog with discs brakes. Neither V-brakes nor disc brakes are going to take kindly to a truck going over them. And to ye old moan of 'what do you do with bent discs?!' - well, you bend them back of course! There is special tool for that (steel with a groove of the exact diameter as the disc, bit like spoke key), but a pair of pliers can do the same job. Won't ever be perfect again, but straight enough to keep going nonetheless.
In short: we'll be taking air-sprung forks and disc-equipped (front and Rohloff back) Nomads for a year down the Andes. I'll post here either way (trouble-free or cursing, we'll see). Having read/ watched a lot of South America touring blogs/ videos, etc. there's heaps of people taking suss forks and disc brakes and I'm yet to come one complaining about having done so.
All that's left to figure is were to get the Magura spare seals from...
After umming and ahhing about the Tubus Swing option (and firmly deciding against a trailer), Tubus sorted that problem by stopping to make them. I presume because they we're sick of people complaining that they couldn't mount them properly? Another nail in the coffin was the mention that it doesn't fit the Magura Odor, so I presume the Menja neither. As we weren't keen to fork out cash for a new set of (Carradice) panniers given that we already have the ortliebs, we are going to go with Ortlieb handle bar bags (on the T-bar accessory), rear rollers and a big rear bag (also Ortlieb, the one that clicks into the roller closing straps). With two people (i.e. half a tent, stove, pot, etc. each) that should be plenty of volume and a good incentive to keep unnecessary stuff to a minimum. That's down on the front rollers we had in Africa, but up on the big rear bag, so total volume up. Beyond that the 3 bottle cages on the frame plus 2 on the fork, mean that won't need to carry water bottles in the panniers (as we had to in Africa), at least when around human settlement.
Ah, and more point on suss fork steerer length: from chasing around various Magura contacts - they do indeed make a 300mm XL steerer, which would would fit the 620L Nomad frame head tube, but you'd have to find out where Magura sent it after making the two of them. And in the end Thorn recommended that the 590L frame would be better for me (6'3''/ 190cm height) with a suss fork to keep some 'clearance' between a rebounding top tube and some delicate rider parts.
Just a few more months!!! :-)
