Never really considered these forks in the past but Iam quite drawn to some for marathon events, light with lots of travel. What are owners thoughts and experiences, are they reliable? Was there not some issue of flex? Are they a bit divey?

I have the SC32 basically the same fork but less travel

reliable , easy to maintain and adjust to your style, divey yes but a change of damper fluid cured that.

Flex yes and no, in that frontwheel between your legs and yes they flex more so than my Rev's but when riding there is no flex

between the Rev,s and the sc 32's thats a hard one, Revs because they use a standard axel (mine do anyway) not a 25mm special hub and the bar mount lock out . Mavs because they are so easy to work on, but the lock down is on the top of the fork leg.

Hard choie but from the DIY aspect it is the Mav's every time for me

I run the SC32's and love em, have been ultra reliable, easily home servicable, but I have never had too.

If you trap the front wheel in your knees and twist the bars, there is flex, but its not a real world test, dont feel anything whilst riding.

For the weight and the travel on the DUC not sure anything comes close, and as they are not held in high regard in the UK the prices 2nd hand are crazy low.

They have an on the fly lockdown thats brilliant for climbing or if you have slapped em on a frame designed for slightly shorter travel.

My only gripe is they maybe dont have the small bump comlpiance some forks have, but that might be my SC32's rather than DUC's, I do tend to prefer my forks set slightly on the stiff side anyhow.

Someday all forks will be upside downers, like on just about any performance motorbike 🙂

I've got them on three bikes & really rate them, as above you can make them flex if you want to but not noticable when riding normally.
I'm over 15 stone & had to experiment with thicker oils to get the damping range to suit.
You can get an axle adapter to suit Hope Pro2 hubs so front wheel compatability is not an issue.

Thanks but do maverick not say no to the hope adaption?????

Yes they do

but if you want to sell your own hubs you would to 😉

Dunno what maverick say about the hope conversion, but the 24/7 is a decent cartridge bearing hub anyhow, just doesnt come in the myriad of different colours only black or silver. If its an older set of forks you find, they need to have blue seals in them, and the newer ones have better anodizing on the cosmetics, side.. stanchions are the same as far as I know.

I've been riding DUCs for nearly 3 years now, from Peak District cross-country stuff to trips to the Sierra Nevada and some big terrain, via various trail centres in between. The are super plush, I've not had to touch them for servicing (yet) but am reliably informed they are easy to take apart. The travel lock down is essential and often used for steep climbs.

They do dive under braking though, which I found an issue when riding slow and technical. However once I got better and learnt to let the bike run rather than brake too much this stopped being so much an issue. I've not tried different oil yet.

As for stiffness, I've not really compared them in anger to anything with similar travel, so my comments should be taken with a pinch of salt. However I do find them a bit "indirect" under hard, fast and loose corners with baby-head rocks. Could be my technique and also bike geometry but I find I'm working hard to keep the bike on course. They are not a "point and shoot" fork – unless going in a straight line – even though they can gobble up an awful lot.

Overall they are recommended but if I was in the market again I'd look hard at some of the lighter long travel forks that are around these days. The Mavs aren't as significantly lighter than the competition these days.

No complaints with the hubs though

I've got both the DUC and SC on two different bikes and they're great the flex between your leg test proves **** all really as this doesn't represent anything on th trail, they are very stiff in the areas needed, IE back and forth.

Hub wise I use Kings on both of mine, but this is only to match the rears. The standard hub is fine and has good bearings in ime.

I use DUC32s and LOVE them. Only time I have noticed the flex was when doing some jumps and things in the gulley at Swinley which was a really fast, tight banked exit chute and when I rode it on my mates Ransom with Talas 36s they were noticeably stiffer, but they weigh loads more and I hadn't ever noticed the flex in 3 years of normal riding. If I was a rock garden monkey I would probably look at something else like the new Revalations (same travel and not much more weight) but for my riding they work perfectly. I quite like the fact that they are a bit 'different' too!

Maverick don't advise the Hope hub as the axle is smooth rather than knurled and they say the dropout design needs a knurled axle to work properly. I read on MTBR that someone sent them a hope axle to look at and it was about .2mm smaller diameter than the knurled Maverick axle so they advised firmly against using it.

They only recommend the Maverick, Bontrager and King hubs,

he flex between your leg test proves **** all really as this doesn't represent anything on th trail

This was always Paul Turner's – the designer of the Mavs – response and much as I love my Mavs I do think this is cobblers. Trying to ride out of one of the many Peak District ruts will put torsional stresses on a fork – it's just common sense – and if the fork has torsional flex then it will struggle.

…however whether you actually notice that flex is debatable