Loving my Vans at the moment but it would be nice to be able to drop them down during climbs.

How do Lyric coils measure up?

Cheers in advance!

yeah… i wanna know his too!
any good comparison experience would be cool.

I have a set of coil u-turn Lyriks and they are brilliant – so plush and stiff, plus the Maxle is sheer genius.

Sorry, can’t comment on the Foxs, but was advised to get the Lyriks instead of the 36 Vans.

I’ve got a DW-Link 5-Spot on which I’ve tried coil Lyrics, Marz Z1 Lights, and now 36 Floats. Haven’t tried the Vans though.
The Floats are as plush as the coil Lyrics to my mind, and quite a bit lighter. U-Turn on the Lyrics is a bit of a faff to wind down, so only really practical on long climbs. System on Z1 Lights (ETA) is much better as an on-off.
My next move is to reduce internally the travel on the floats from 160mm to 150mm to see how that feels.

I’ve had both – previoulsy I was using Van 36s and am now using Coil Lyriks. I had had the Vans set up by Mojo, which included tuning the compression and rebound for me. There isn’t much to choose between them and the Lyriks in terms of performance but the Lyriks are more versatlise in that they can be wound down and you can adjust the damping out on the trail. The stock Van 36s (the plain R version not the RC2) might not perform as well out of the box though as you don’t have much control over the damping characteristics.

I actually use the Lyriks set to 145mm of travel with the Floodgate on and they work really well. The Floodgate effectively locks out the fork but you can adjust the threshold so that they open up quite easily. I’ve been really surprised at how well that works, giving a firm platform on which to pump the bike through shallow hollows and dips but still giving really good overall performance when you hit roots and rocks. I don’t think that the Vans can offer that feature (?)

As to why I’ve had both, I started with the Vans, then sold them to a mate (who is still using them) bought Revelations (which were fantastic) but then really wanted to stiffness and versatility of a longer travel adjustable 20mm fork, hence the Lyriks.

I’ve got Lyriks, and they were awful until I had the bushings resized by TF, but now they are fantastic.

Love the adjustability of both travel and damping on the Lyrik – it is a very easy fork to set up for different kinds of riding, and being able to instantly dial in a bunch of low speed compression to stop diving is great on steep slow trails. You’d need the RC2 to do this with a 36. Maxle is a better axle system than the fox too.

Silly money now, but if you want on the fly adjustable travel the Lyrik is the way to go.

36s are great forks too though, so if it were me I’d run them til they died then replace with Lyriks.

I had a pair of 07 Van 36 RC2’s, certainly lovely forks and I didn’t have any problems with them… However, I now have a pair of 09 RS Lyrik U-Turn Coils and I have to say that I prefer the Lyriks.

The Lyriks are more controlled over rocky, v bumpy terrain although don’t quite have the small bump sensivity of the 36’s. I prefer the big hit performance of the Lyriks though, once you get up to speed the damping deals with things superbly. I also find the ability to lock them out with the flood gate really useful for road miles and climbing, makes things much less bobby than with the 36’s.

My 09 Coil Lyriks must have needed 25 hours of riding before the bushings loosened up and I replaced the oil in the legs as there didn’t appear to be much in there – this has certainly improved performance. I’m now going to make a conscious effort to top up the oil in the legs every 2-3 months or so.

Also, it’s well worth storing them upside down as this seems to improve the small bump performance – presumably because the bushings and foam rings stay nicely lubed. I always do this with my Fox forx and it also appears to help the Lyriks.

Hope you find this useful!

Also, it’s well worth storing them upside down as this seems to improve the small bump performance

Does this not mess up your disc brakes though?

[Does this not mess up your disc brakes though?]

Not with an elastic band round the bar pulling the brake lever in. The Magura Marta’s I have don’t seem to be affected by being stored upside down. My old Shimano Saint’s didn’t like it though…