I’m currently part way through servicing my DH bike (Canfield Jedi) that has been untouched for 2 years and did it’s last Alps trip 4 years ago. I’m off to Morzine for 2 weeks in August and quite tempted to treat it to some new forks. In the past it’s had old 888s and Shivers, but currently has some 2005 Marzocchi 66rcs.

How much have DH forks improved in recent years? My 2015 Pikes feel amazing, so I’m wondering if something like a used 2014-2015 Boxxer would be a good upgrade. Have coil forks improved the way air forks have? Sadly the frame is 1 1/8th so something like a Lyric is not an option. Are the Boxxer WC air versions any good? I remember they used to be troublesome, but that was 10 years ago!

Cheers!

Modern boxxers (with charger dampers) feel ace.

Modern boxxers (with charger dampers) feel ace.

I thought mine were horrid.

I’m running 380 C2R2 Ti’s which I really like; feel similar to my old 888’s but without diving through their travel all of the time.

Persoanlly I’d stick with coil forks – they just feel better. A fair few WC riders use the spring versions of the Boxxer rather than the air ones.

Have had Domain RCs Boxxer RCs Boxxer R2C2s and Lyrik RC2DH on the big bike the trouble with Rock Shox is they have a fork for every day of the year and the incremental differences between forks are barely noticeable for an amateur like me.

ime the dual-crown forks only come to life when you’re pressing on, really attacking stuff. The rest of the time they work OK but merely tolerate non-flat out riding.

The Boxxer RC was simply a Domain RC with aluminium stanchions and the same mutiple-hit panic bells internals.

The R2C2 was pretty good but again only really helped when getting stuck in the rest of the time it was just ‘there’

The Lyrik was probably about the best. Only slightly less stiff than the Boxxers but with a wider range of usability at the expense of not being ‘ultimately’ as good.

ygm

I’d guess so

I paid £1200 for a set of 888 WC TI forks back in 2008, they looked
AMAZING, sadly they were how shall I put this? Crap.

Out of the box they were appalling, it twiddled the knobs for hours, sat there with the book and a how-to guide for fork tuning and it only made them worse – it went like this – fork riding like crap, okay 2 clicks less high speed compression – worse, okay lets try going to other way 4 clicks more high speed compression oh that’s really bad – okay go back 2 clicks to where I started – worse still, WTAF?

Took them to be looked at – nope, they’re mint. Paid someone to set them up for me, they were right, but so very wrong. Perhaps it was the “WC” element, if you were someone like Gwin or Brendog who slams through rocks as the cowered before them they would have been amazing, but for a mere 30 something muggle they were just too firm everywhere even with the right amount of sag.

Fast-forward nearly 10 years an my modest 160mm Yaris are leaps and bounds better, I tore through sections on a 160mm trail bike that would have been hard work on my 9” Travel Cove mostly because I wasn’t a world class rider, okay it’s not got the same grip from it’s 2.3 tyres as I got from my 2.5 tyred DH bike and it’s less planted at mega speeds, but it’s a better bike.

I’d love a 180mm Lyrik/Yari, but sadly no tapered headtube. I like the look of the Marzocchi 380s, but haven’t seen any good used ones for sale. I’m guessing they are pretty rare as everybody moved to RS and Fox.

Neil has offered me some very affordable 2014 Boxxer RC’s, so I’m going to give them a go. If they turn out ok, perhaps they’ll get treated to a damper upgrade of some sort as I understand the RC is the basic MoCo damper.

Cheers for the advice, looking forward to having my teeth rattled out once again on Morzine brake bumps!!

Only had a few DH forks. The Boxer Team & R2C2 (of which there will be many secondhand) were pretty good but not stunning. These are essentially the same fork BTW.

The Marz 888 RC3 Ti was on another level but perhaps a bit soft for me – I probably weighed 80kg at the time. You could probably add more support by putting more oil in the lowers, that certain worked on the 55 RC3 ti.

Anyway, I’d put that 888 at the top of the list. You won’t even notice those braking bumps.

I paid £1200 for a set of 888 WC TI forks back in 2008, they looked
AMAZING, sadly they were how shall I put this? Crap.

Wierd, i have some i took off early this year for some charger boxxers. Id happily put them back on if the boxxer broke. Mine had amazing small bump compliance though did dive a little too much, way nicer than stock boxxers, mine were the air version with travel adjust and had the funny bottom valve removed in order to get full travel. Modern boxxers has same sensitivity but better damping so dont dive and feel more controlled.

EDIT Best upgrade ive done though was pro-core, low pressure grip when everyone else is upping pressures because of braking bumps. Amazing.

380’s are dirt cheap when I looked last. I have some on my tues, but I guess it depends on how much you want to spend. There is a chap in london who has some new ones on pinkbike. Dont remember the name but he is a plus user.

Wierd, i have some i took off early this year for some charger boxxers. Id happily put them back on if the boxxer broke. Mine had amazing small bump compliance though did dive a little too much, way nicer than stock boxxers, mine were the air version with travel adjust and had the funny bottom valve removed in order to get full travel. Modern boxxers has same sensitivity but better damping so dont dive and feel more controlled.

Mine were coil, I was 105Kgs at the time so I went for the hard spring, still got 30% sag but noting could make them plush in any way for me.

The odd thing was they got glowing reviews in 2008 when I bought them, in 2009 the same forks (only grey lowers and not white) got fairly poor reviews, but mechanically they were the same.