Diversity is good
One of the things I love about biking is we're not all the same. Some of us are old and some of us are young. Some of us are liberals and some of us are conservatives. Some of us are male and not enough of us are female. Some of us ride geared and some ride SS. Some of us ride FS bikes, some ride hardtails, a rare few ride softtails, and some ride fully rigid. Whatever works for you is good.
Of course the advantages of suspension are self evident: more comfort, better control on rough stuff, higher speed on descents, etc. But here are some advantages of rigid forks:
- Less weight. Easily a pound or two of savings, which would otherwise cost $200-1000 in component upgrades.
- Maintenance. Nothing to leak, need adjustment, wear out, air up, lube or stop working in extreme conditions.
- Efficiency, especially vs. sussy forks without a lockout feature. Try riding a hardtail mountain bike around town on pavement and notice how much it bounces when you're accelerating hard. That's wasted energy. This can especially be an issue for SSers, who stand up a lot while climbing. Again, less of an issue for forks that have lockout, but not all do.
- Money. A decent rigid fork costs well under $100. A decent pogo fork will run you ... what, $400 and up? I don't even know.
- Control, I guess. To be honest, I didn't notice the difference the year I had a front-suspended bike, but a lot of people say they have better control with a rigid fork.
I'm not saying either approach is inherently better. My take is that every component and accessory on my bike has to justify its existence. Any part you add will add weight, complexity, maintenance and cost, and conversely any part you remove will subtract all of those things. The majority of riders don't see the "justification" for singlespeed riding either, and like suspension, gears have their advantages.
For me, I've found that the advantages of shiftable multi-geared drivetrains are outweighed by their weight, complexity, maintenance and cost, at least on a mountain bike. For most of the time I've been MTB'ing, I've found the same is true of suspension. That's for my riding style, which is more oriented towards long rides in the woods than towards big climbs and big high-speed descents. The mix of riding you do and the the sensitivity of your wrists and/or neck may dictate a different answer.
In fact, I may have to switch to front suspension. In May I received substantial neck injuries in a rear-ender car accident, after not having quite fully recovered from a similar accident a year ago. Once I'm riding again, It is not at all clear whether I will be able to do long rides again without at least some neck pain, and it may be that suspension will be necessary for me to be able to do them. C'est la vie.
