Just wondered if the black coating that is one Danny Harts Boxxers for example is a likely competitor to Fox Kashima?

I would probably prefer it aesthetically to the Gold kashima coating. Just asking as I read today X-Fusion had a new super slippy coating so maybe RS will follow?

Look here. They’re made by a company called Fast Suspension who are based in France.

Edit: Just remembered, Rockshox already offer somekind of Ti Nitride coating on their high end forks. Similar in colour to Kashima coat too.

Although similar, I do not believe that those are the same as Blackbox stanchions – certainly RS have never said so, and the chances of them sending kit to a small company in France are pretty slim.

RS have played with coatings for years but always seem to return to the same ones, so wouldn’t get my hopes up quite yet

Wasn’t particularly interested in the Boxxers, that’s just where I had seen it. Think there were some Lyrics knocking round with it too. Might have been nice if it became available but i am not holding out a lot of hope.

Edit: Just remembered, Rockshox already offer somekind of Ti Nitride coating on their high end forks. Similar in colour to Kashima coat too.

They did Ti Nitride on their 2001 SID Races, they leaked air very quickly, all the forks would need pumping up every week or so! They did ‘Slippery Silver’ for a couple of years in 2002-03, that tarnished really badly and looked tatty.

Not sure I see much point, I can’t tell any difference with Kashima stantions, and RS don’t have the same wear issues.

If I remember rightly I thought the only way a normal rider could get their hands on the Black coating was if you brought an S-works carbon Demo, I seem to remember it being one of the selling points, I could be wrong though.

Just double checked the Pinkbike press release:
“Want BlackGold? The S-Works Demo is going to be the only place that you’ll see if for quite some time.”

They had a coating over the last year or so which the black box riders used which is mega expensive even for such a big fork producer. Supposed to be superior to kashima. They have scrapped that recently though for a cheaper alternative. Think it’s called something like black gold or something along those lines.

Pace used black coating on their stantions ages ago. DT Swiss still do i believe. I think at the time Pace stated it was more durable and slippy a bit like Fox’s kashima.

It’s called Diamond-Like Coating. Horrifically expensive (£4k-ish) and doesn’t last particularly long. Sam Hill has/had them on his Carbon Demo. I remember a year or so ago RS saying they’re not releasing DLC to the public.

Diamond-Like

In the way its enduring appeal lasts through the ages, or it’s ultra durable?

Nope. It’s due to being

Horrifically expensive

they did a limited run of ti nitride boxxers in 2002 before the slippery silver coating came along in 2003. made no difference in performance that i could feel.

DLC’s very expensive to add in short runs/retrofit, but it’s been used on some production motorbikes, and not exotica either- I’ve got a set of DLC’d GSXR750 forks in the garage. TBH it didn’t seem to add much but it did look cool, and didn’t fall off instantly like their TiNi gold coating they tried on the GSXR1000s.

(which was doubly embarassing, because everyone realised after it fell off their forks that it wasn’t actually doing anything- they worked just as well without it)