Front fork

A front fork including a fork main body constituted by a vehicle body side tube and a vehicle wheel side tube, comprising:

• a damper that is built into the fork main body and generates a damping force when the fork main body expands and contracts;
• a cylinder body that stands upright in the vehicle wheel side tube and houses the damper;
• a reservoir formed on an exterior of the cylinder body to store a working fluid used by the damper;
• a rod body that stands upright in the vehicle body side tube and is inserted into the cylinder body to be capable of advancing and retreating;
• a piston portion that is held on a tip end portion of the rod body and housed slidably in the cylinder body so as to define an upper chamber and a lower chamber within the cylinder body;
• a through hole formed in an interior of the rod body to allow the working fluid to flow from the cylinder body into the reservoir through the through hole when the rod body expands and contracts relative to the cylinder body;
• a flow rate control mechanism that is disposed in an upper end portion of the vehicle body side tube to face an upper end opening of the through hole, and applies a resistance to a flow of the working fluid flowing toward the reservoir from the upper end opening in the rod body;
• and
• a driving mechanism that drives the flow rate control mechanism to adjust an expansion side damping force and a contraction side damping force generated by the damper.