It’s 2023 and in my extended friend group, there’s much discussion going on about deals on this and deals on that. Manufacturers from clothing to kickstands were already trying to find ways to convince folks focused on weathering finicky financial forecasts that they should part with hard-won cash or credit to grab a slightly better rig or fresh raiment they didn’t need-need.
[aside/] Apparently many of the same manufacturers were simultaneously right-sizing their marketing and customer service departments [/aside]
I say ‘discussion’ because, as bike brands & bike shops would soon learn, many riders were quite satisfied to get their new-sh*t kicks by, well, kicking tires, whilst at the same time there were selling themselves on riding their current gear. For some folks that meant stitching up worn clothes and servicing bikes they normally would have flipped, and for others that meant just continuing to ride their stuff into the ground.
After all, “SHOE GOO!” is both a product and a war cry.
[Cover Photo: Meg @ Hardtail.Life]
Anyway, there I am trying diligently to convince one of my friends not to buy an Öhlins RXF fork.
Now, before you call the Swedish embassy and they send their top-secret, 79-year-old, super-assassin Björn Ulvaeus after me, I want to say that Öhlins makes awesome mountain bike suspension – forks and shocks. If you’re chasing top performance (speed, support, smoothness, traction) you cannot go wrong. Which, I mean, that’s true of most of the World Cup racing-level squishy bits out there.
But, if you’re the type of rider who treats maximum service intervals like a very loose recommendation (give nothing or take a year or so) and then whines about the cost of a basic service on mid-level RockShox forks and shocks then Öhlins simply is not for you, no matter how good the upfront pricing.
The simple fact is that whatever extra margin of performance a bleeding-edge super fork like an RXF M.2, EXT Era V2, Manitou Pro, Formula, DVO D1 SL, Fox Factory, etc. delivers over a mid-level boinger when it’s fresh, the performance curves meet somewhere in the middle of the service cycle.
Put another way, a fully-serviced but otherwise bone-stock RockShox Select+ fork with a fresh pair of SKF low-friction seals is going to blow any of those forks away when they have six months of hard use on them.
So our conversation is about min-maxing the bike he wants to ride today but also looking at the trade-offs of weight vs. durability and service cost vs. longevity. My recommendation was to score a great deal on an SR Suntour Durolux 36 EQ. There were solid savings available with the Durolux 38 EQ having been recently released. It’s also been my experience that stiffer forks ‘feel’ like they need service sooner. I.E. they rough up my hands more when they’re due for some love.
He wanted something with a bigger marketing budget behind it. Okay, then my recommendation was to look at a clearout Lyrik Select+ with a Charger 2.1 damper (superior to the Charger 3 damper over the recommended maintenance interval, in my experience), or a Foxzocchi Z1 Bomber. Maybe even a Foxzocchi Z1 coil?!?
In the end? It wasn’t much cheaper to a new (silent) CSU, bushings, and a full service for an existing Fox 36 than to buy a new fork of the same level. But, it was cheaper. And I’m told the renewed fork felt better than new. Even in the days of endless sales, the best fork for the least outlay is most likely the one you already own.
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