Top 10 Best BMX Forks for Smooth Riding and Ultimate Control in 2023

You might overlook BMX forks, but they're pivotal. The right ones offer a balance of lightness, strength, and stability, enhancing your ride. Many riders, however, struggle to distinguish between them.

Different riding styles need specific forks. A dirt jumper wouldn’t thrive with a flatland fork; the mechanics differ. Flatlanders favor forks close to their bars, while dirt jumpers seek broader angles.

While most BMX forks are now Chromoly-made, their construction varies. Differences in thickness, length, and machining lead to diverse weights and shapes. Our top pick after rigorous testing? Eclat Storm.

Our top choices

Our Choice

Eclat Storm Forks

Eclat used their new, revolitionary liquid post heat treatment technique on these amazing street BMX forks.

Check Price

Cheapest

Federal Assault Fork

Federal created this solid but affordable street fork for every type of rider. The price is so much lower than all others on this list.

Check Price

Upgrade Pick

BSD Jonesin'

Signature forks from the great park BMX rider, Sam Jones worked with BSD to create the high-quality Jonesin' forks.

Check Price

The Odyssey R-32 2023 forks are an industry standard for newer or more diverse riders. The 32mm offset is less steep than most forks solely dedicated to one riding style. The steering will be easier to control than steep forks. This head tube angle will give you a much more relaxed feel, perfect for people who like to ride trails or dirt parks.

Made from Odyssey's regular 41-thermal processed 4130 Chromoly, featuring a built-in bearing race, 4mm dropouts shaped to embrace grinding and peg clearance. The seamless, tapered, butted and specially formed leg tube is another method of adding peg clearance and preventing grinding scrapes.

Odyssey's properly designed and tested products often outperform others on the market whilst also being lighter and stronger.

They are a little heavier than some of the other forks, weighing in at 878 grams. They are still relatively light and also very responsive.

 Photo by Eclat

Run by the same guys as WeThePeople, Eclat started back in 2008 with the target of working longer and harder in order to release the highest-quality parts on the market.

Eclat has been cooking up a storm with this new set of forks for over 3 years. A lofty goal of creating the strongest BMX fork of 2023 needed a tremendous amount of research and development.

Countless laboratory and pro rider hours have been racked up in those three years. After Eclat were confident they had a solid product they conducted very extensive tests with their professional riding team, which includes the likes of Sean Burns and Devon Smillie.

An intelligently calculated mix of 4130 crmo tubing, wall thickness and a heat-treating process the company keeps a close secret created this impressive fork. A so-called liquid post heat-treatment gives you next level strength that other companies just cannot achieve.

You may not be impressed by the images of this subtle fork but riding them and looking at the specs are a sure fire way of impressing you.

FELIX PRANGENBERG / STORM FORK 15MM // ÉCLAT BMX

 Photo by BSD BMX

Jones is a very talented street BMX rider working for the likes of BSD, Dub BMX, Junction skatepark and more. He has a popular signature series called the Jonesin' products with BSD, these forks are one of those products.

BSD and Sam worked hard on the geometry and balance of this fork. Sam spends a lot of his riding spinning or on his front wheel. This type of street riding requires incredible balance and a fork that's capable of this.

A short 22mm offset gives the rider a very responsive feel, which might not be great for fast riding like dirt jumping but technical street and park riders will feel the ease at which you can throw your bike around when using this fork.

 Photo by WeThePeople

The Battleship series has been a huge success for WTP. The name spans several product types including a frame and a complete bike.

As I mentioned earlier, Eclat was developed with the help of WeThePeople. This is benefiting both companies. You will see that the Battleship forks are heat-treated with the revolutionary liquid post heat-treating, developed at Eclat!

In my opinion this is up there as one of the best street BMX forks of 2023. A steerer length of 170mm and an offset of just 15mm makes the fork very responsive.

 Photo by BSD BMX

We love BSD BMX. They create some super high-quality parts for BMX bikes. We even wrote a full article to let you know everything about the brand.

The 2023 Acid fork is the second version of this product with some great upgrades. BSD constructed the chromoly tubing with beefed up material around the high-stress areas. Thicker invest cast dropouts have evolved to sit better when riding pegs while the steerer tube is CNC machined from one piece of chromoly.

To put the Battleship fork in perspective, the offset on the Acid fork is twice as large. You won’t feel as much twitchy responsiveness but you can use this fork for pretty much any BMX discipline.

 Photo by Federal Bikes

Another set of forks centred around their target for street BMX. Similar to the Battleship forks, Federal released this with just a 15mm offset. From personal experience I can tell you this is a terrible geometry for fast race or dirt jump riding. The bike just becomes far too twitchy.

Federal also has a 22mm version of the Assault fork for the riders looking for a different feel. The tire clearance is also much better, accommodating a 2.6” tire. There’s nothing worse than really enjoying the feel of a tire but then having to change when your new forks don’t work with it.

 Photo by FitBikeCo

Fit bikes seem like a perfect way to start this top ten list of the best BMX forks. Fit is known for making some great bike parts although they only really concentrate on BMX parts. These forks are actually the third version in the series of Blade forks. Fit bikes have definitely put a lot of time, money and effort into this line of products. They originally set out with the goal of producing an extremely strong fork with a lot of tire clearance.

If you're wondering why you'd want extra tire clearance, it's for riders that are likely to be riding on terrain that needs bigger tires or there's a lot of dirt that can get stuck. Tire clearance is an important aspect for many dirt jump riders.

After two years of effort and getting to their third version of the fork they have produced an outstanding piece of equipment with a 33mm offset and some other great features.

Dropouts aren't always considered an important part of the fork to develop although when you think about it they are the most important welds on the forks they are the only protruding metal from the forks and take a lot of force when landing heavy. Fit Bikes have thought extensively about this and have used left and right specific investment cast drop-outs. This is instead of traditional Cro-Mo plating that's commonly used on other BMX forks. The engineers have also eliminated the weld gap on the inside of the drop-outs, this enabled them to thicken up the material towards the top, giving it even stronger and more reliable connection.

The end of the fork legs is also now seamless without capped ends. Fit now form the legs instead of capping and welding them. This prevents fractures and cracks when riding.

The steerer tube has been made longer, 166mm to be exact and it is also CNC machined. A 24mm x 1.5 integrated compression cap is now also used with a slightly thicker steerer tube. This has been thickened carefully as it is easy to add weight this way. Tapered and butted legs provide more strength than the other versions of the fork with a crown weld surface and more peg clearance.

This is the Odyssey R25 BMX fork. They are one of the most expensive on this list and also one of the lightest (885g). Again they are made from 41-thermal processed Chromoly, just like most other forks. Built into the forks is a bearing race. Having your bearings built in is often debated by all riders, there are obviously positives and negatives to both ways but always make sure you check before buying certain BMX parts.

4mm dropouts have been used again to make riding with pegs easier and less likely to damage the metal. To eliminate the problem of scraping the bottom of your forks on ledges and rails, Odyssey has gone to the trouble of adding extra peg clearance with a seamless, tapered, butted and specifically formed leg tubes. To make the forks even more suited to park riding, the offset has been reduced by 7mm from the usual 32mm down to 25mm. This dimension has been changed to give the bike a steeper, more responsive feel. Perfect for nose and spinning tricks but will be tricky to control in a race or on dirt jumps.

Again the R25's are protected under Odyssey's lifetime guarantee so it doesn't matter how long you've had them, they will always be replaced. Odyssey is so confident with their products it makes them look a lot better. They have also laboratory tested these forks and eliminated any problems that those tests showed. If you can bare the price tag then these will definitely be some amazing forks to ride.

Odyssey Director Fork

You probably didn't need to read this sentence to realise the Director forks aren't like most others out there. The dropouts are placed directly under the rest of the forks. This would generally mean that they would feel extremely weird to ride as the wheel would be in a completely different position and also at a different angle to normal but Odyssey has brilliantly raked the forks forward to give the feel of a normal bike with great rigidity.

The Director forks aren't as light as the brilliant Snafu's but still extremely light, weighing only 890 grams. I think this makes these forks even better. They're obviously very strong due to the fact that they use a lot less material than other forks.

As you can also tell from the image above, the dropouts are much thicker than normal. The extra thickness coupled with the dropouts being formed straight into the legs eliminates any worry of bent dropouts from heavy riding.

Odyssey started making their forks this way due to the high demand for new forks from professional riders. Bent steerer tubes or broken dropouts were plaguing the riders, with some needing new bike forks every couple of weeks. After Odyssey designed and developed the director fork that same rider now only replaces his forks yearly. That's a very good sign of a great BMX fork design.

Frequently Asked Questions about BMX Forks

Are all BMX forks the same size?

All BMX forks follow a very similar design but they all vary in several different geometries. The steerer length, dropout size and offset are the main measurements that differ from one BMX fork to the next.

What is the Geometry on BMX Forks?

The steerer length is the length of the single tube at the top that threads through the frame. Most forks are between 150mm and 180mm depending on how high the front end of the bike needs to be.

Dropouts are the small tabs on each side of the fork. You place your axle into the dropouts and bolt them to the fork. The size of the dropouts can affect your standover angle and riding feel.

Offset is a very important dimension as it massively affects the ride of the bike. This measurement is between the centre of the fork and the centre of the dropout. Basically showing how far in front of the fork the wheel is placed. It affects how twitchy and responsive the bike is. A smaller offset will make it easier to spin the bars and get your weight balanced over the front wheel.

How do I choose a BMX fork?

Street BMX riders should look for a fork with a small offset. This will position you further over the front wheel and make it easier to balance your weight over the wheel. It also makes your bike much more twitchy and reactive.

Dirt BMX riders should look for a larger offset for greater stability and generally a larger tire clearance to accommodate the larger tires usually used on BMX dirt jump bikes.

Taller or shorter riders should look for a different steerer tube length. This can affect how high the front end of the bike is.

How Much Do BMX Forks Weigh?

Most BMX forks weigh around 1kg. They can vary around 200g more or less depending on the quality and intended use of the forks.

   Previous Article
Top Bike Forks

Next Article  
Bike Grips Ultimate Guide

Barspin Tutorial

Tires for BMX

Easy Bike Tricks

Best BMX Detangler