EB14: Chris King Lefty Front Hubs Get Official, Plus New Threadfit Bottom Brackets

The German market is a HUGE Crack-N-Fail market. On any given outing I see a couple of Leftys… sadly. I can’t imagine why anyone would want one though. To each his own I guess. I do love the Candy Apple Green on the CK stuff though.

Advantage of a Lefty? True 2.5lb XC fork, no/minimal stiction due to needle bearings, One of if not the stiffest XC fork available, it is also a upside down fork which minimizes unsprung weight (like the new Rock Shox and every modern motorcycle), IMO they are even prettier on the inside with the Anodized Al dampening cartridge, and to top it all off I think they are still Made in the USA (check me on that).

A properly functioning Lefty is about as good as it gets on a XC bike.

will this work with a 205 rotor?

I have a Cannondale R29 (the hardtail carbon 29er) that I purchased through my team’s sponsor shop. I was a little skeptical of the lefty after hearing bad things about past versions but the new ones are pretty nice. Big advantages are:

– Weight
– No stiction and great dampening
– Stiff (no really, it tracks awesome)
– Local shops can now service them easily

The big downsides are:

– The proprietary front hub
– Mounting it on your car/truck

I had to buy a stupid fork mount adapter from Thule for $75 so I could use my roof rack tray. It also kind of sucks to need an allen wrench to remove your wheel and front brake caliper every time you need to transport it. My current car doesn’t have a hitch mount but if yours does it’s massively more convenient.

I do get a little nervous traveling to races without a backup wheel because you know that finding one is going to be difficult, but overall I have raced the crap out of it for the past year and I’m not a small guy (6’1″, 190lbs) and it’s held up perfectly.

The CK hub may be a slightly heavier, but with my size I would have confidence in knowing how well they are made and also that they have a great warranty.

Indeed, Lefty’s are great and I love mine. As you go into higher travel their appeal diminishes though. The Supermax doesn’t have the big weight advantage that Lefty’s have had in the past plus axle-2-crown dimensions are what they are. Adjustable travel is something they don’t have. It will be interesting to watch the future unfold since conventional forks keep getting better.

No, my criticism is this (deleted)

I’m surprised that no one has commented on the fact that they have now increased cost of the BB while making it worse in my opinion. Now not only do you have to purchase a BB if your running shimano but the adapter as well. This same adapter also now leads to more chance that youll develop a creak as there is now another metal to metal contact point. I used their adapters when I ran gxp and still had creaking issues after about 2 weeks of use, and had to constantly remove the crank to adjust and clean them which ruined the extractor bolt in short manner. Now Im not saying they are bad as its honestly the best BB Ive ever had once I went adapterless with shimano and that goes for all of the other chris king parts I use which includes their hubs and headsets.

I’m a little confused about the new bottom bracket. Is there any difference between the old and new version other than now always having to buy a conversion kit? For example isn’t the new threadfit version with a #10 conversion kit exactly the same as what you got before with the old threaded mountain version?