Some advice I can buy some brand new 2011 two step lyriks for £550 or is it worth an extra £300 for some 36’s they are going on my orange 5

36s are not worth the premium that they cost at all. I’m not very impressed with mine, first with the performance and then the rediculous service intervals. Mine have been service 6 times in the 10-11 months I’ve had them and they were only serviced becuase I could tell that the performance had dropped off.

Thanks pal that’s what is putting me off its just the lyriks have had some bad press

remember the new 2-step is no relation to the old version. You’d have to be mental to buy the old one tbh, it was ****.

Still like a coil in mine but the lyrik air spring is surprisingly coiley.

So what do you think mate lyrik or 36

I’ve got a Van36. It’s a good fork in its travel and tracks well but I find it difficult to balance sag and bottom out resistance. No idea if any other fork would be any better though.

Fox are pricing out themselves out of the market though. Especially as Marzocchi are returning to form.

I’ve had Lyriks for the past 5 years, they’ve been faultless. And I’m lazy at servicing stuff so I rarely open them up. Current ones are RC2 DH solo airs, they are sublime.

john690 – Member

So what do you think mate lyrik or 36

TBH I’d say Lyriks because they’re ace, and they’re less expensive. If you want height adjust then IMO there’s no other game in town, TALAS is a sad relative. But I’ve not spent enough time on a latest-model Float to comment on that, I bet they’re ace though. And the 55 rc3 is ace too.

But I bought my Lyrik u-turns for £250 used, good as new, and 2 years of constant beating later and they’re still spot on. So I’d go there again.

I’ve had the following and would rate their performance in this order:

1) Bos Deville / marzocchi rc3ti – both phenomenal damping & really boils down to whether you like plush or firm at trail speeds. DH I don’t think there is anything to choose between them – they are both extremely well controlled.

2) fox float, van etc. as long as its the rc2 damping, which is very good

3) lyric with motion control – especially if you’re a fit & forget person

4) lyric with mission control (I’ve never been able to get this feeling as good as the motion control)

I haven’t tried any of the newer rockshox stuff (rc2 or mission control DH) so can’t comment. I’ve also never had any issues with Fox longevity despite some woeful neglect.

Cheers guys for the price I think I will go with the lyriks I’m not sure the float 36 are worth the extra

If I were in the market for a 160mm fork then I’d either be looking at Lyriks or 55s. I don’t really relish the thought of paying absolute top dollar for Fox stuff that offers a small advantage over the competition in terms of performance, which I’m never going to be a good enough rider to exploit if I’m completely honest with myself.

I’ve also read far too much on here about stanchion wear for comfort – I did know a guy who had a set of never serviced 32 Vanillas that went five years without a service, but on the flipside a search of the forums here brings up some worrying real world reports of premature fork death. If I’d paid nine hundred quid for a fork that died within a year, I’d want someone’s head on a pole. FWIW my Magura and Rockshox forks of varying vintages (all between seven and two years) are still going really well with very lazy maintenance on my part.

You’ve forgotten to include XFusion Vengeance. Fantastic damping and plushness at a great price too 🙂

Having used over the past 18 months; 36 Vans, 36 Float, Deville & Lyric MiCo DH, I can say with a fair representation, they are all much of a muchness.

They all felt a little different, and had little quirks, but no one work performed ‘better’ or made me ride better/faster etc.

IMO buy the one you can get the best deal & support on.

FWIW!

I’ve run a first generation Lyrik coil (With Floodgate mod) from 2007 and now have the 2011/12 RC2 DH coil. I’ve also had access to a 36 Talas and float RC2 for the last 3 years, I also do all of the servicing on all 3 forks. Pro’s and cons (In my opinion) are :-

Servicing:-

Lyrik – Simple as its coil, intervals are spaced as per performance rather than manufacturers reccomandations. If you invest £££ in decent lube (Oil & Grease) then these maintenance tasks are greatly reduced.

36’s – Both were air so VERY different on the servicing front, the major servicing of 36’s can be daunting especially when they went from open bath to the FIT system. The intervals are in my opinion unlrealistic for something that is supposed to be rugged and durable. The invetstment in decent lube does not seem to improve servicing intervals, especailly as in the back of your mind you will always be wondering what the condition of your stantions are like. I have also found that the standard sealing on Fox is poorer than Rockshox, however I do not believe that this is soley causing the stantion wear issue.

The Ride: –

Lyrik – As expected for a coil fork it is nice and linear without the mission control dialled in, when you do start the fiddling process the effects of both high speed and low speed compression can be felt but are quite subtle until your on the trail. On long decents with the rockshox reccomended 442 mission control (with floodgate mod) / rebound setting there was a noticable warming of the stantion! This means that the system is working as it should. The Rebound is the area where thankfully RS have improved, with the larger orifice the oil flow is improved and the difference between the 2 forks is very noticable and more controlled on the newer fork.

36 TALAS – I’ll start with the TALAS, my epxerience is that the fork is compromised by the TALAS system. Lots of stiction along with quick drop off in performance after servicing means that this is the price you pay for a high tech adjustable fork. Setting up the Compression / rebound is not as easy as the Lyrik, the effects of both high and low speed compresison adjustemnt is not as subtle and tends to be in “jumps”. This may be due to the poor small bump compliance but I certainly found the fiddle factor a lot more of a pain in the ass than the lyrik.

36 FLOAT – For an air fork this is a good fork, however not without minor faults. HS / LS compression is improved (which is why I make the comment about TALAS), they are a very light fork so there’s a big benefit for bikes on a diet. The downfall is that the sealing is poor and so the ride does suffer quite quickly after servicing, and also setting up the air pressure correctly is a bit hit and miss with ramp up compromising fork travel.

My Summary : –

The lyrik is now fit and forget across all models, easy and simple to service and setup. Service longivity is good if a bit homework is done. What I don’t like about Lyriks? Nothing really, they seem to be in tune with what riders want i.e. the flood gate mod became the RC2DH system. They look good, work well and are designed to do the job.

36’s are a very good fork, and theres no doubt about that. If you can live with the issues and afford the replacement / service costs then fine. My issues with Fox are that every time there’s an issue there’s a half arsed fettle to fix i.e. swap seals (SKF / Enduro) as the Fox ones are crap, Fox as a multi million pound company should get it right 1st time! Stantion wear is a big issue and somehow it has become “normalised”, yes oither makes have stantion wear but these tend to be older forks and were probably down to incorrect seal seating, poor lube or incorrect use. Fox are now notorious for new forks suffering stantion wear after a few hour use. I hope that the Kashima coating goes someway to help reduce stantion wear but time will tell.

Phew! Hope this may help!.

Hey Konastoner, could you tell us a little more about how the 2 Lyriks compared?

Sure Northwind, the main difference for me was in the rebound, even though Lyriks share the same oil for both rebound & compression. As I run the floodgate mod in my old lyriks this emulated the new RC2DH (although there is an improvement in compression too). It’s also worth noting I had the Boxxer mod on my old Lyriks whereby the rubber internal wiper seals were replaced with foam rings (the same as what is on the 09 boxxers), this is what is standard now on all RS 35mm forks.

On my old lyriks I ran only 2-3 clicks of rebound, on my new ones i’m up to 5-6 (I weigh 90ks loaded). I attribute this to the higher / better oil flow and thus lower circuit resistance (larger porting), also as there’s more oil in the rebound / compression circuit the heat loading capacity is noticably better and with no noticable change in rebound / compression. On my old Lyriks during long decents (Not necessarily DH type runs) the fork would suffer minor (but noticable) packdown / stiffness on larger square egde hits. As I mentioned above the stantion would gain heat (A bit like the air can on rear air shox), this was being transfered from the oil and as both the rebound and compression share the same oil the effect is magnified. As the RC2DH system is roughly the same as before (with my mods) I run 5 x 5 clicks of High and Low speed compression which is marginally higher than before.

I would not say the difference is “night and day” or “revolutionary” (This may be because I had moded my old Lyriks to nearly the same spec as the RC2DH!) but the difference is deffinately there. I have run the 2 forks back to back on White levels and cwm carn and the new Lyrik is better, more controlled, responsive and most deffinately smoother. From the box however I recomend the following to get the best out of the fork: –

Strip the fork down replace the seal lube for Judy Butter and use plenty of it.
When lubing the foam seals use the reccomended oil but also smear Judy Butter on the foam seals too, this really helps.
I add an extra 2ml to lowers, what is reccomended I feel is too little and as the fork become active there needs to be enough oil to coat the fork internals as well as move around the fork.

They are both great forks though and the only reason for buying the new Lyrik was the extra 10mm and I didn’t want U-Turn.

Hope this helps 🙂

Grand, thanks very much- I’ve done the same mods so very useful.

Konster wins the ‘most comprehensive reply this week’ award 😆

If interested I have a Fox 36 I’d be happy to part with in spot-on condition. Drop me a line if you want pics and details.

Hi saxabar how much you looking for mate mail me some pictures jal@reliance.co.uk Regards John

<cough> check the classified ad I just posted <cough>

Konster wins the ‘most comprehensive reply this week’ award

Agree’d, good info there.

Also agree about Fox as a company. I don’t feel their products are bad, in fact they’re very good but there do seem to be problems that are not resolved.

Case being the whole bath oil migration problem on air forks when the lower leg oil gets into the air chamber making the fork more progressive. It’s gradual so you don’t notice it until suddently you realise you’ve not hit full travel for months! AFAIK the service centres are fitting updated parts as the forks come in, but what would be nice is if Fox doesn’t feel it can do a recal to at least put out some sort of service buletin on their website to let people know a) that the problem exists b) how to fix it!