Hi folks,
It has been a long few years without a bike and away from this forum….but I am BACK!!! Wooohoooo…

Well kinda…I want to get a bike put together again, but as I have been out of it for a while I am a bit lacking in what forks are good or what has lost it’s reputation….There are some fairly good prices for bike stuff from RCZ bikes, and there are specials on forks at the mo…So I hope you guys dont mind me plunging right in for opinions…

So what are the following like?
2009 Marzocchi – 55 ATA and the 55 RC3
2010 DT Swiss EXM 130
2010 Magura Thor 130
2011 Rockshox Domain R

As I said, I have been out of it for too long and no idea what the various companies are like for reputation now. I wont be doing major stuff (I am getting on abit now at 36!!), but really want a medium travel, tough bike…

I want to build up a Nickolai Helius (still to get, but got to start somewhere) as I had one before and loved it…..

Anyway, cheers folks….I got additional 20% off vouvhers to be used by the end of today, so any opinions recieved before midnight tonight would be MUCH appreciated.

Cheers

Al (previously Imthedaddy)

Nice bikes but which Helius? I think there are several models (CC, AC, AM) and that would have some bearing on which Forks to go for…

Edit: I have no experience of the forks listed but if you’re after around 5 inch travel, those DT Swiss are supposed to be nice, as are the Magura. I think Marzocchi had some reliability probs with their ATA system and the Domains are a bit weighty?

Marzocchi ATA forks have a terrible reputation for reliability, I believe they gave up on adjustable travel forks because they just couldn’t get them to work reliably.

I have had Magura Thors on two bikes and they’re pretty good. They are 140mm travel, though. Magura have some other forks (Durin? Laurin?) that have 130mm travel. The travel adjust remote on the Thors is annoyingly easy to break in a crash. Mine are a little divey at times but I believe that this was fixed for the 2010 model.

Rock Shox Domains are very different to the other forks you list. Lots more travel (shortest travel on on CRC is 160m, though it does have U-Turn so it’ll wind down to 115mm), beefier and with steel stanchions so they’ll be heavy. From Rock Shox range I suspect that the Sektor (cheaper) or the Revelation (more expensive) would be closer to the other forks you’re considering.

Cheers guys,
I know DT used to be pace…which had both good and bad points…am wary of the pace forks, but DT were meant to be doing good things with the forks, now they own them….hmmm no sure….Same story with the rockshox, I used to never like them, but they been taken over aint they as well, so maybe they are better now? I have no experience of the Magura’s, so maybe the leader at the mo is the Marz RC3?