Got something a bit similar on my Trek, I would say it certainly depends what you have come from. I would imagine there are better forks out there but not at that price. I was riding a 100mm tora sl before that. Night and day difference in performance.

I had some OEM 2013 Fox Float Evos 120mm on my Trek Stache. Very sticky even with new seals. Either soft enough but would blow through travel or no small bump compliance and and not go through travel easily. Can be upgraded at cost to the latest damper by Mojo.

Probably avoid if I were you. Thinks Rebas are better, but ended up with 120mm pikes on my Stache and they’re properly good.

First off, Fox have been making bike suspension for quite a while. These forks went through the same process of design, testing and modification as any other fork. So, obviously, there is nothing inherently wrong with them.

The “problem” was that Fox decided to make a fork for the average punter rather than the hardcore rider. The previous forks had been great for the harder rider, but forums were full of people who clearly didn’t understand how all the adjustments worked and who felt cheated because they could never use all the travel that they paid for. So, enter the 2013 CTD with a simple set of adjustments and a much more linear air spring.

Now, this was indeed better for the average rider (and 32mm stantions are perfectly stiff enough for most normal folk too), but they weren’t as good for MTB journos who ride harder than most folk (or at least like to pretend they do) and who also like to think that they know how all the adjustments work. So, they got slated in the press.

What Fox failed to realise is that most of us think we are better riders than we are and don’t actually want a fork that suits the bimbling around that we actually do.

In my opinion there was nothing wrong with the 2013 CTD forks, they just suited a less agressive rider. If you ride them a bit harder you may find that they blow through the travel a bit too easily, but this is easy to solve. Just unscrew the cap at the top of the air side (taking the air out first of course) and stick in some (say 10ml) oil. You’ve basically created your own bottomless token and you can just vary the amount of oil you add to make them as progressive as you want.

The damper is quite basic, but then so is the damper on any £200 fork.

Roverpig +1

Plus how much time do bike journos get on every single fork, in every model in just that years range? Set up for that Journo? Their tastes?

Its hard for them too I bet as they need to pick good and bad from how long a use/ride? So it aint just the journos fault just time available on which to draw a verdict. Then you get riders who read a review and pedal it out more themselves? (high rollers being one)

I have some shorter travel 2013 Float 32s (100mm I think) and I think they work well in that mode. For general high speed XC thrashing about they do a very nice job. However, I also have earlier 140mm Floats and I would hate them if they behaved like the 100mm ones! They get overwhelmed fairly quickly once the lumpy/steep/fast things get combined too much.

Considering the big chunk of the market that would have been 140mm forks in that year I think it’s a bit unfair to blame the journos – those forks really weren’t well suited to what a lot of riders did or aspired to do. If it gets out of depth as soon as you push your “bimbling” envelope a bit then they’re not going to encourage you to go further.

But they’re not terrible forks and they will do a really good job for you if they suit your riding

Although what you say about the principle of CTD is true, I’m sorry, have to disagree with that last sentence – you obviously don’t know the history of the 2013 O/C! The 2013 CTD Evo’s used the first iteration of the O/C (open cartridge) damper which was a shocker! It used more plastic parts than previous O/B cartridges and a number of them failed in use – yes literally self destructed on big hits. The symptoms were the fork turning into a bouncy pogo stick and no difference between C, T, and D (quite obvious as the ‘C’ on the 2013 O/C was practically a lockout, unlike later iterations).

Although Fox fell short of issuing a recall, they told distributors not to quibble about any reported problems and just replace the cartridge no questions asked. At first people were being upgraded to FIT cartridges as that was all that was available while Fox worked on a new version of the O/C cartridge, but eventually they came out with a modified 2014 O/C cartridge which was better made.

I wouldn’t buy a 2013 O/C fork for this reason. The 2014/15 O/C cartridges are better designed/made, and although still made for a price, do not ‘break’ like the 2013 ones did. Despite all the testing/design/development every now and then a company comes out with a lemon – the Fox 2013 O/C was one of those!