Looking to build up a hardcore hardtail. Frame not procured yet, but I will be between 130&150 up front.

I’m trying to keep the budget sensible, which rules out pikes. I think Rockshox Yari, and the X-Fusion Sweep Roughcut HLR are in budget, as is the X-Fusion RL2.

Has anyone enough experience with all of the above to give any sensible opinion? I’m guessing that girth of the yari might be good if I end up at 150mm, but since I weigh under 11 stone, I can’t see myself having stiffness issues with either.

I briefly tried an X Fusion sweep with RL2 was ok but found it dived a bit under braking. Sold it on & kept the 140mm Devilles as no forks out perform these! Hear good things about the new rough cut for X Fusion but not tried it yet.

FOr a hardtail, the HLR is the best of those options I would say. Its what I run on mine and Ive had all 3.

Interesting Ben – what is it about the HLR that makes it better suited to a hard tail do you think?

Probably worth owning up – I’m expecting to pair it with a zero, probably an AM

I have a set of x fusion metric forks with the HOR damper and love them. Can set up the low and high speed compression to take out the brake dive issue, but it still gives me enough sensitivity.

The HLR is a massive step up from the RL2 in terms of damping, both adjustment range but also quality of damping. It definitely is a match for a charger damper. The reasons its good for an HT?

– Weight, its considerably lighter than a Yari
– Damping – the adjustment range is wide, it allows you to have say 130mm of amazing travel with 20mm in reserve quite easily, controlling the HA changes while not having to restrict the travel of the fork over smaller stuff.
– Small bump sensitivity – best of your choices
– Reliability – sold loads now and touch wood, never seen one back. Service intervals tend to be ‘when you can be arsed’ which is usually a long time 🙂 although I should say the HLR is new enough that I can’t offer that as set in stone yet, but for XF forks it tends to be long.
– Air spring tuning – because it uses an actual negative coil spring, you can use oil to tune the air spring (like RS tokens). The side benefit being this gives the forks a nice lube bath in the air spring so thats a plus too (even though it should be a negative).

those all sound like very good reasons 🙂 Thanks Ben

I have an RL2 on a bird zero (waves at Ben). I find it great for most things, it’s soft when I want it to be, but I’ve never had it bottom out harshly. It coped well on an uplift day, my arms weren’t pumped buy the end of it. The only things that aren’t great is it can be a bit divey when braking (only really notice when it’s steep, I’ve touched the ground with the chain ring when things have gotten too steep and rough for me). And I had a couple of issues with the axle handle (first it was too floppy, buy I worked out how to fix it, then it jammed ‘out’so I couldn’t put it in the fork. Bird sorted it out in no time and I didn’t miss a ride.

I recently tried a couple of demo bikes with pikes. If I was buying a new bike or fork, it would be looking for an x fusion fork unless there was a very good reason not to.

Ben, do you know if the rough cut damper is available separately, yet?