Hello,
After a brief thread on what to do with bikes, I've decided to man-up my race bike for training and general messing around. I'm currently using SID RLT Ti 120mm QR15s.
My concern is that the SIDs do still feel flexy and not confidence inspiring on fast, steep technical descents.
Does anyone run SIDs and Rebas? And can they draw a comparison between the two?
I've not used Rebas for quite a while, do they feel more stable, stiff and plush compared to the SIDS?
Or... should I just plump for Fox 120 FiT Kashimas for plush feel?
Cheers
Butty
I have got 2009 qr sid team (100mm) and 2009 maxle reba team currently at 105mm. So nearly same travel, same damping as each other (and your fork), and lowers and uppers pretty much the same as 2012 ones (but not as each other) too as far as I can tell. For me, there's not all that much difference between my reba and sid (I bought the sid for another bike because I loved the way the reba rode): I find that front tyre choice and tyre pressure makes a lot more difference to my 'front end confidence' than which of those 2 forks is between me and the front wheel.
I suppose the car park 'side to side' flex/deflection test is better on the maxle reba (and bear in mind that your qr15 is just that, a big qr and not a bolt through), but unless you ride rutty or bouldery stuff, then this is supposed to be of rather limited relevance once you are actually rolling, or at least that's what the Maverick fork blurb says! (about their deflecto-tastic forks, that is. Mrs J has one and loves it though.)
If it was my money, before I dropped a wheelbarrow-load of money on another qr15 fork with possibly better damping but probably similar flex/deflection, I would see how big a front tyre I could get in the sid and try that with a few different pressures, and then try and have a go on a proper maxle/20mm fork on a familiar and rocky trail, and see if it felt massively different/better in terms of what you describes as flexy and not confidence inspiring before.
HTH 😀
Cheers Julian,
The rev 150s I used to have with 20mm maxle felt a lot more confident inspiring, but that was on a bigger bike as well as the additional travel.
Although if there's not much in it between a SID and a Reba, I'll not bother pursuing that line 🙂
I've always found Fox forks to feel nicer in my experience, but like you say the only time I'll know for sure is the put a different fork on the Spark and see how it feels.
I have used 9mm QR Sid RLT ti 2011 model and the same years fox 120mm fit ones on my spark and I have kept hold of the foxes as they just seem to be that bit plusher even without the kashmina coating...