Fox 38 on Orbea Wild collides with down tube

Patrik

New Member
Oct 10, 2022
4
0
Slovakia
Hey guys, I recently got myself an Orbea Wild M20, which comes with Fork 38 fork as standard.
The frame has bumpers on the down tube and the headset has some sort of steering limiter built into it.
Unfortunately, it seems that neither of those are working correctly and the fork collides with the down tube.

The steering limiter, even when fully tightened, slips when pushing onto a grip with just one finger - it's useless, the part that clamps onto the fork doesn't have enough surface area to actually be able to properly grip the steerer tube, so the fork rotates within that clamp/limiter...

The bumpers on the frame are positioned too high, the fork just slides right underneath the bumper.

Since none of those two mechanisms do anything to prevent the fork from rotating beyond design parameters, the fork collides with the down tube, hits the super-fragile battery cover locking mechanism and it snaps right off, permanently separating the battery cover from the frame.

I brought the bike to a shop I purchased it from, and they offered to refund the bike, but I would like to keep it.
They are trying to resolve it with Orbea, but the response they got is that Orbea is not aware of such issue, yet all the Wilds in the shop have the same problem, so I'm not sure I believe Orbea really isn't aware of such a design flaw... It's even worse with smaller frame sizes.

Since it looks like Orbea won't do shit about it and my choice is to either keep the bike and fix it myself or look for another bike (not an option, everything else has either shitty suspension, or an internal headset routing, not to mention the lack of piggyback battery supprot), I would like to ask for your advice.

Is there something that could possibly lower the fork's crown enough that it wouldn't collide with the bottom of the down tube?
Or maybe another fork that has lower-profile crown? Would Lyrik or ZEB be better in this regard?

Thanks!
 

Paulquattro

E*POWAH Master
May 7, 2020
1,779
959
The Darkside
Hi
I ended up putting a 180 zeb on it clears no problem (i had one already)
Its a rubbish thing to have to do thou
Another person on here as i recall put a different lower headset bearing and race on to stack the bottom to give clearance.
 

Mikerb

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
May 16, 2019
6,103
4,632
Weymouth
Crown race spacer? Look up knock block on the Trek section to see what others have done.
 

MikeL_mtb

Member
Feb 15, 2022
62
12
New York
The YT decoy also has this type of headset, but I don't know if it limits more or less than what orbea uses. I wonder if they switched from a 36 to a 38 and never fully checked clearance?
 

Patrik

New Member
Oct 10, 2022
4
0
Slovakia
Or maybe they just decided they could get away with it, since most people wouldn't go as far as to claim a regress.
Many manufacturers seem to be doing half-assed job lately while putting more and more ridiculous price tags on their bikes...
 

Mikerb

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
May 16, 2019
6,103
4,632
Weymouth
I am constantly amazed by such glaring design errors. It has already been said above but worth repeating that a knock block is incapable of preventing over rotation of the bars in even the mildest of crashes. Adding to that that there is no additional frame strength gained from having a "straight" downtube. In fact it makes the joint to the headtube weaker and that is a highly stressed part of the frame. Personally I would discount any bike with that design from my wish list.
In this case I would treat it as a learning curve....take the bike back and choose another bike.
 

Patrik

New Member
Oct 10, 2022
4
0
Slovakia
take the bike back and choose another bike.
If there was another option with decent 160mm+ suspension, without headset cable routing (this kills most options), and an option for ranger extender, all under 7000 euros, I would gladly choose it over Orbea, but there isn't it.

Alternatives are either ridiculously expensive, come with shit components, or don't meet my requirements.
Sometimes several of the above mentioned at the same time (Yari and Deluxe Select shock on a 10k bike?!!!).
 
Last edited:

mtb-steve

Member
Nov 4, 2021
112
97
Cumbria
My knock block seems to work Ok, I've not actually tried to break it but I've been off a couple of times and it's still good.
XL frame and Fox 38s.

Steve
 

Mteam

E*POWAH Elite
Aug 3, 2020
1,780
1,718
gone
I've fitted a -2 degree Angleset ,this changes the headangle such that the fork crown doesn't touch the downtube any more when it rotates. This is with a fox 38 and size large carbon wild FS.

I didn't fit the angleset to fix this issue, but noticed that it does also have this effect.
 
Last edited:

hainman

Member
Apr 8, 2021
72
41
Glasgow
I had a crash and the forks ended up jammed under the downtube
Knock block and bumpers done nothing
Was an excuse to get the headset changed for Hope
As for the Zebs mine still sticks slightly under frame but not as much as with the 36’s I had before
I remember a dude made a external bearing cup that helped
 

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