In this review, I take the Hi Ride suspension fork through its paces. I rode the forks for approximately 4 months with over 5000km of extreme and challenging gravel riding. This included bike packing in Spain, racing the Transcordilleras in Colombia, and finally racing a gravel triathlon.
Link to the website – https://shop.hiride.bike/
If you have any questions about the forks, please ask below.
Now if you’re watching this video you’re probably asking yourself do I need suspension for my gravel [Applause] Bike and hopefully by the end of this video you’ll come to a conclusion now there’s various types of suspension systems for the gravel bike first of all you can have a head stem set and I recently used a red shift about maybe 6 months ago in preparation for the
Badlands now I used that for about 2 months and I have to say I was disappointed with it the internal bolt sheared after about 6 weeks while I was out on a night ride and the other thing as well with the head stem system is that the
Suspension is from the head stem up okay so that the only compliance is in and around the handlebars none of the bite takes any of that Chuck really the other downside to having a head stem system although it’s cheaper is that you can’t lock or I couldn’t lock the red Shi
System so overall I was disappointed so then I started looking around okay what have we got you’ve got the Classic mountain bike piston type uh suspension ition systems which are expensive but also you’ve got the maintenance cost involved and actually the amount of times you have to maintain those forks and also
Aesthetically those didn’t really appeal to me I didn’t want my gravel bike looking like a mountain bike at the front end and that that was purely personal and then I found a fork called the high ride which is on the bike now as you can see so from a distance you
Wouldn’t even know that there’s uh a form of suspension on this bike and high ride if you go on their website it will list all the bikes that this Fork is compatible with and in addition to that they’ll give you spaces and brackets which you can then use for that specific Bike right Ora they kindly allowed me to use these forks for the last four months and I to say the timing couldn’t have been better one because I did a lot of bike packing and two I’ve just finished the trans Calis which is I think for any bike manufacturer or
Component manufacturer Tire Company all that kind of stuff if you’re going to test something then throw it into these types events cuz that was an 8 day gravel event over 1,000 km it was brutal the ground was brutal it wasn’t a quintessential gravel so let’s let’s
Take a look and actually see what the high ride focus on all about now first of all what you’ll see is it it’s pretty much like a conventional Fork uh it doesn’t have Pistons like a mountain bike system and the magic is all in here right and
There’s a little spring and some bushes in here and you get two Springs depending on your weight and also if you contact in fact high ride will actually speak to you about your weight uh and they will calibrate it and soften the spring to Su so everything is in here in
Addition to that all the weight is in here as well unlike your piston system where the fluids and the Hydraulics are all within the fork and lower what this means is that handling is better you have to have some movement in the fork and what they’ve done is come up with
This nice clever flange system okay and I wash my bike every day and this in here works really well you can put a little bit of grease in there if you want but it very very rarely when I’ve looked in here is it full of mck this
Flange system tucks over the top like so and then tucks in under the head stem system here nice and clean and I’ll just show you now how much play we have you can see there the system working voila now with some suspension Fork systems you can’t lock them
Out and that’s the downside because when you’re climbing like this you lose a lot of energy with the play that you get now with this high ride system soon as you lock it off you’re basically back on a normal road Bike [Applause] So what do you get with this Fork well in addition to the fork you get a full tool kit with two spring systems for uh depending on your weight okay and then you can fit that it’s relatively easy and in addition to that you get an FSA
Headset now these Forks weigh 1,250 G which is sort of comparable to some of your more expensive piston mountain bike type uh specific forks and also the price range is very similar uh for the high-end piston system Forks you look looking at the same sort of price as the high rde Fork
Now these retailer not just under €1,000 I think without these forks I would have either had to slow down or to stop to rest my hands cuz the thing I noticed almost immediately is that it took the buzz out of my hands straight away during this sort of three months of
Me riding this uh system on the front end I also took it bike packing so I had two 5 kg bags on each side of the forks and I also had a 5 kg bag on the front of the bike and I went away around Spain
And rode for a week just did some bike packing so at the front end the bike had just short of 15 16 kgs on the front and I have to say actually the fork worked better with the weight on the front end which means probably I’ve not adjusted
The fork system enough for my weight cuz I weigh about 67 kg uh and I found that the the front end worked much better when there was more weight on the front when I was bike packing than I did when I was doing the trans cordialis Now High rde have not paid me
They they kindly sent me these Forks all right to test cuz I told them that I was going to come out to Colombia and take it take them through the trans cordialis so they sent me this pair and I absolutely love them I I think they’re a
Great piece of Kit I think they look great I think the Locking System is fantastic although my my only criticism and and uh High IDE have already got back to me is what I found myself doing during some phases of the trans cordialis when I went to tarmac and then
To gravel rough gravel I would get caught out and because it was so rough I would struggle cuz my hands were wet and greasy and you know uh taking gels all this kind of stuff I had very limited grip on this system at the top so I’ve recommended to them that they either
Make this with rubber or or something has a little bit more friction there’s one other thing I quickly want to try and illustrate um and explain the importance of the front wheel staying in contact with the ground now what I’ve done here is I’ve I’ve slowmo two sets of footage
The first one is the forks are locked and the second image is the forks are unlocked and although it’s over a small section of ground I just want you sort of to take into consideration if you already send in for long periods of time what difference that will Make and as you can see from the footage here it’s quite significant and this is what’s important about descending on technical roof ground if the tires in con out with the ground then you’ve got a much higher chance of being in control of the bike and I experienced this two times on the
Trans Coralis where on two separate occasions I was riding with two very experienced Riders and they both came off yeah yeah yeah I’m ready I’m ready good man now you could say it’s skill level you could say it’s Tire selection tire pressure but I do genuinely believe that
One of the contributing factors for me cuz I consider myself an above average descender I’m not the best I’m certainly not the worst uh but I found myself becoming more and more confident because my front wheel was in contact with the ground so in a nutshell would I recommend these folks
Definitely uh if you’re going to go out and buy some I would stay away from the head stem system you can’t lock them off they’re easy they break it broke on me um short of the Piston system which is high maintenance similar price some of them are heavier as
Well I think this would be a really good option for You