How Would Suspension Help?

07-20-2004, 07:46 AM

You all remember my long tribulations with my beautiful Dutch bike,
Behemoth. She is an upright comfort bike with a 7 speed Nexus hub
shifter, a hub dynamo and roller brakes (
http://www.bikkelbikes.com/images/bi.../neerhem-d.jpg
). It was extremely difficult to shop for her, because there are
practically no bikes with this kind of configuration being sold here in
Paris.

When I bought Bethie, the issue of suspension did indeed come up. Rival
models, including the Giant Energy 7, could have been ordered with
suspended front forks and seat-posts. But I decided against it for two
reasons. First, I had a great deal of trouble with my balance,
aggravated on Behemoth by the fact that her headset was initially
screwed on too tight. Whenever I had occasion to try a suspended model
of bike, the bouncy, squishy feeling perturbed me further and I
concluded that balancing would be even harder. Secondly, I'm very heavy,
well over 100 kg, and I had heard that suspension could not be used by
very fat people.

Behemoth is riding much better now that the headset issue has been
sorted. But I begin to notice a problem on bumpy roads. I try to avoid
the bumps so as not to get my bones ground. If I can't, I try to coast
over them, putting more weight on my feet and using my knees for the
suspension. But if I am going fast downhill, this means that I have to
stop pedalling. Restarting to pedal is an issue because I'm spinning out
and, once again, this perturbs my balance.

On a day to day level, this problem doesn't arise, since the ride to
work is a paltry 1.5 km. However, the few times I have attempted longer
rides, I have found myself increasingly phobic of road-bumps and
pot-holes. The trip to the HQ of my firm is about 10 kms, of which the
first 8 are almost continually downhill. Instead of this being a piece
of cake, I found myself constantly obliged to prevent Bethie from
picking up too much speed. The shudder from the road grew so intense it
started causing bits of her to fly off - I lost a clip-on blinkie which
jumped to its death from her front basket - and I was afraid of losing
control over the pot holes, of which there were many. Also, to avoid the
potholes I would try to veer out round them and I realize this is
dangerous with cars behind me that might be trying to overtake.

Recently perusing the site of the German Utopia bikes, which are sold on
a semi-customized, configure-your-bike-to-spec basis, I noticed that
they offered front-fork suspension options for 120, 130 and 140 kg. So
in theory it is possible to acquire a suspended fork that could deal
with my weight, even if I did grow fatter.

So what's the advice of the FOAK? Is it essential that the fork be from
the same manufacturer as the bike? I see that Bikkel does have some
suspended models but there does not seem to be a weight configuration
option.

Is there a conflict between a suspended fork and the hub dynamo light
and roller brake configuration that I have?

Does suspension make the difference that I want it to make?

What is the effect of suspending just the seat-post, or just the front
fork? Do they have to be done together?

Thanks for your thoughts. I will of course also speak to Bethie's dealer
and ask him about costs and options.

EFR
Ile de France