The Forks They're Racing in Rio

“We’re overnighting a package to you to arrive on Saturday” came the message from RockShox. What could be so important that it arrives on a Saturday?… the same… Saturday as the first Olympic XC race…

What could it be?

Ooh, interesting. What on earth could it be?

As we suspected (and anticipated) the package that appeared this morning was very much bicycle fork shaped. If our suspicions were correct, then this would have a lot to do with what goes on later today on the other side of the world.

A familiar hue

And, as we unwrapped it, a very distinctive shade of blue was glimpsed. A variation of the SID Blue that’s been a very familiar sight at cross country races since the late ’90s.

One piece carbon crown and steerer

RockShox’ cleverest fork damper so far

And no mud room!

RockShox World Cup model.

Available to mortals too. Only not in this colour…

The message that came with it said:
“This is a very special edition of our RockShox SID fork. This limited edition colour has been produced to celebrate SID’s glorious history of Olympic wins, with gold medals at every edition of the Games since 2000.”

One of the great things about mountain biking is that the level of kit that the pros race, is readily available to mortal riders – and this is true of the SID fork. Although this is a special colour, the actual model of SID World Cup, with Charger Damper, remote lockout, carbon crown and steerer and so on, is available for sale in local bike shops.

Let’s race!

Today is the Women’s Olympic Mountain Biking in Rio. Tune in to see some of these forks being ridden like they’re meant to be.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

Comments (13)

adrian hutchinsonadrian hutchinson August 20, 2016 at 6:46 pm

Wrong timing for their publicity unfortunately. The winners forks seem to have DT Swiss stickers. Maybe I’ll be able to get some sid’s at a lower price.

ChippsChipps August 20, 2016 at 7:26 pm

Well, DT didn’t send us any, so they’ll have to make to with having an Olympic champ. 🙂
It’ll be interesting tomorrow with Schurter (DT) vs Absalon (RockShox)… which will be cause of much fork-brand smugness if either of them win…

bocoboco August 20, 2016 at 8:27 pm

& a 650b fully was quicker than the 29er hardtail?!

rocketdogrocketdog August 21, 2016 at 7:27 am

Are they permanently locked out for gravel path performance?

hamishthecathamishthecat August 21, 2016 at 8:04 pm

DT Swiss win both XC Golds…

adrian hutchinsonadrian hutchinson August 22, 2016 at 7:10 am

What happened to all the RS1 forks? Didn’t see one at the Olympics, I thought they were Rockshox’s top xc fork.

ir_banditoir_bandito August 22, 2016 at 8:16 am

There was definitely at least 1 pair of RS1s around yesterday.
What were the forks with the blue stantions? I forget who had them.

ir_banditoir_bandito August 22, 2016 at 9:51 am

Maxime Marotte. What forks did he have?