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Travers EVO Prong carbon rigid fork, ideal for weight weenies, bikepacking or your winter bike
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 Travers have been at the cutting edge of carbon fork design for over 7 years. The EVO Prong isn't another cookie cutter rebranded fork like many other companies trot out but a ground up bespoke fork specifically designed for XC/Endurance riding by us, we own the mould, you wont see this design anywhere else! As the name suggests the EVO is a fork that has EVOlved overtime and is the 4th iteration. Travers Bikes are quite confident to say the best rigid carbon fork on the market. The EVO is designed to slot straight into your frame and replace your current suspension fork without any need to adjust your riding style. 99.99 of new bikes are supplied with a suspension forks brainwashing people into thinking they couldn't possibly ride without one but in reality for the majourity of the trails most people ride a rigid fork would be more suitable. The EVO has been tuned to take the buzz out the trail, which would normally pass through a suspension fork and straight into the riders wrist and shoulders, leaving you less fatigued and tired.  The best thing about the EVO Prong is that you can customise it, swap ou the standard cage bolts for titanium, add a Travers Titanium headset cap/bolt to match your bike. Still running 100mm Hope Pro 4 hubs? No Problem we can supply an adapter to allow your front wheel to fit the boost width. The EVO Prong is supplied with a ultra lightweight British MT Zoom axle but if you prefer to use a axle with a handle you can easily swap this out with any Fox boost axle on the market. Price £349
Hub Width: 15x110 Boost Weight: 680g +/-5g 55 mm fork offset 498mm Axel to Crown Carbon threadless steerer uncut length 300mm Tapered steerer 15mm thru axle (supplied) Direct mount disk brake Ideal for 27.5+ / 29er or 29+ bikes (suitable for the RUSSTi EVO 27.5+ or 29+) Maximum Tyre width 3" (76.2mm) Internal front brake cable Matte or Gloss finish With or without “Triple cage mounts" 2 year Warranty on EVO Prong" forks Pete (an owner of a rather lovely Travers EVO with a Pinion gear box) emailed me, would I like to join himself and Stuart on a little bimble over Exmoor and the Quantock Hills? It was going to be a much more relaxed, take in the scenery bike packing trip, rather than the mile munching affairs I had done before! Of course I jumped at the chance to ride somewhere I hadn't before. It was my brother in-law's wedding the night before so, with just 4 hours sleep, I set off in the van from Essex to meet Pete and Stuart in Taunton. They had set off the previous evening and were camped about 2 hours along the trail - no problem I will catch them up! 1 hour in, I get a Whatsapp message, they had packed up camp and would set off and I would catch them (hopefully)! I had the course on my Garmin, so no issues...well, my usual GPS - the Garmin 1030 - was dead (waterlogged from my previous bike packing trip), so I was relying on my Garmin 130 which only had a breadcrumb trail and no base map. Easy to follow on the road, but off-road it's tricky to tell the correct route without the base map context....I got lost! Once I took a near vertical wall that was hardly walkable let alone rideable, but I could see the correct route was running parallel to me so, no problem, I would cut across at the top of the hill and rejoin the route...That was easier said than done but I eventually dragged my bike through trees and brush to make it back on course. Not long after, I climbed a really enjoyable technical hill, half way up I realised the trails had started to diverge from my route on the GPS. I looked over the steep bank to see a trail below me, so I turn around to retrace my steps...nope! I am an idiot as I attempted to descend the 45* slope through the razor sharp waist-deep brush. I didn't get too far before my shins were covered in blood and stinging like crazy, so then I retraced my tracks back down the hill, like anyone else would do! The next bit of track was just amazing, rolling up and down with lots of slippery rock strewn river crossings to negotiate before popping out back into some civilisation (a car park anyway), where I found Pete and Stuart (Known as Cabbage...I didn't ask) eating a late breakfast. After a quick chat and catch up we set off again. I tried to hang back, it wasn't my ride and I didn't want to dictate the pace. We continued for the next 2 hours until we found a nice community run shop where we stopped for lunch. The trails were as I imagined, nice mix of wooded trails, open moorland and rolling hills. This is going to be amazing, we are going to get round in record time!
We soon realised that we were not making fast enough progress to make it round the route in 2 1/2 days, so drew up a plan to re-evaluate what we should do when we hit Dunster. The trails were brutal - bottom gear (32x52) grinds up and down, loose boulder climbs with slippery rock slabs covered in slimy mud and moss that went on for hundreds of metres. It was fun but tiring, especially with fully loaded bikes. We took a creative view on the section to Dunster and took the road down into the town, trying to make up a bit of time, in search of cream teas before the shops shut. Refreshed after our cream teas, we came up with a plan. Dunkery Beacon was close and, with poor weather forecast for the next day, we decided we would much rather cut some of the course off, climb the highest point on the route and then get down the other side to find a camping spot. We followed the road all the way to the base of the climb before rejoining the course at about 18:00, although not the steepest of the days' climbs, it was mainly loose rock and unrelenting, could we reach the top before dark? Mmmm... just at about 17:00, the weather started to turn as we reached the beacon, with a strong headwind and driving (although light) rain meant we did not hang around long. Just took a few photos, put another layer on and headed off down the wrong track! We soon realised after about 200m and retraced our tracks. The night really started to draw in on us now, so back on track we were ready to smash the descent...but it didnt go down, it dropped slightly then for the next mile or so just followed the ridge along a draggy grassy track before eventually popping out on to the road. We turned left and headed down into Exford to a Youth Hostel marked on the map, to see if we could camp in their grounds. We found the YHA sign, followed it up the hill, nothing, so we returned to the junction to find it was the first house (directly opposite where the sign was pointing) knocked on the door and no answer, so we went round the back to be confronted by a room full of women having a hen party in the conservatory! we knocked on the door and understandably being confronted by 3 sweaty dirty mountain bikers they were wary. I can only apologise that we were not the entertainment they had expected! although I am sure Pete could have cracked out his boom box and we could have had a go at the Hot Chocolate classic to pay for our stay...sadly we were not that quick thinking, so we retreated back to the pub/hotel across the road.
It was now dark and raining, we were hungry and had no camping place, after a hearty meal the owner of the pub dragged the chef out of the kitchen to direct us to a local spot were we could wild camp, it was just a mile up a flat road, luckily he sudenly remembered the campsite just round the courner with warm showers (if you read the sign unlike me and went in the ladies) although these were off course it was a much easier ride to them. The wild camping spot as we were to find out in the morning was about 3 miles away up and very steep road climb. Oddly camping in October isnt that popular in the UK so we had our pick of camping spot with the field all to ourselves. Pete and Stuart chose the flat open area, I went for the slightly sloped patch under a tree, I mean when its raining and forecast of lighting thats the best place to go isn't it? The rhythmical dripping from the tree branches helped me get off to sleep...I was pretty tired anyway with just 4 hours sleep the night before. That was the end of day 22:30 lights out. Day 2 and 3 to come.... Are you looking to upgrade your rigid fork, preparing your bike for winter and wanting something with less maintenance, looking for the ultimate bikepacking fork or simply not falling for all that suspension BS! For 24hrs (until 13/08/22) there is £50 off plus free postage on all flavours of Travers EVO Prong carbon fork. Use code "RigidProng" yes "RigidProng"    BUY EVO Prong
The low down: Hub Width: 15x110 Boost Weight: 680g +/-5g 55 mm fork offset Suspension corrected geometry 525mm Axel to Crown Carbon threadless steerer uncut length 300mm Tapered steerer 15mm thru axle (supplied) Direct mount disk brake Ideal for 29er or 29+ bikes (suitable for the RUSSTi EVO 27.5+ or 29+) Maximum Tyre width 3" (76.2mm) Internal front brake cable Matte or Gloss finish With or without “Triple cage mounts" 2 year Warranty on EVO Prong" forks The EVO Prong forks works with any Boost Fox Axle, it is supplied with a MT Zoom allen key axle Do you have 15x100mm hub/wheels but want you use the XC Prong Boost Fork? You can now purchase an Hope Pro 2/ 4 adapter which will convert your standard hubs to Boost width! No weight limit on the carbon XC Prong fork |
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