So I test rode a trek with kashmina front and back; I didn’t end up buying the bike as it was far too expensive for what was on offer, but that’s another story- now one of the little things that really impressed me about the suspension was if you dropped the bike onto its wheels it compressed a little and stopped: zero bounce. It felt so responsive to ride, low stiction but supportive and good on bigger hits.

Since then I’ve bought a new bike with exactly the same fork, same year, SKF seals etc but minus the kashima. 36 Talas 160 if it matters. This fork doesn’t seem to perform the same, granted I’ve not ridden it much yet and I’ve probably got a little tweaking of air pressure/rebound to do. LSC is off at the mo. There seems to be quite a bit of stiction when pushing down on the fork that I did not find with the kashima fork.

Does the kashima really make that much difference? Anyone ridden the same fork with and without?
Could it be something else, there are lots of reports of sticky talas forks on the net and if I’d not ridden the trek I’d assume that’s how they are…

Set up >95%
Kashima <5%

Keep fiddling and you’ll get there 😀

Is it a brand new fork? Might just need to bed in a little.

I’ve heard an a lot of “wow, that Kashima really reduces stiction” bandied around, but i’ve never actually seen any shock dyno data to show exactly[/] what it does do……….

Im lead to believe the skf seals are more important then the kashima coating. i went for forks and shock with the coating cos it looks the nuts. as dashed says, keep fiddling

I’ve got a 2011 Talas fork with Kashima, I noticed a real difference when I switched to skf seals.

If the first fork you rode wasn’t a Talas one that will account for some of the difference as the Talas aren’t quite as plush as the normal forks.

Fiddling will be re started once my reverb comes back from service (didn’t work out of the box, grrr)

Definately agree about the setup being everything, took me ages on my last bike to get it dialled. I just wondered if there was some sort of major difference between kashima and not given the two forks felt so different. It’s not like I spent a long time setting the kashima trek up; I just demoed it from the store so checked the rebound wasn’t set to anything crazy and rode it.

I did check the forks on my new bike and the seals definately have SKF on them so I assume theyre the latest low friction design.

Neninja; both forks were 2012 36 talas 160. One kashima, one not.