[Closed] Are all fork companies useless?

competition breeds new products without enough development
rising manufacturing and materials costs leads to corners being cut
end result is quality/design issues

hopefully the recession will be a good opportunity for manufacturers to rethink their strategies and maybe come up with some decent, reliable mid-range products (think Shimano SLX) that work, without all the fragile bells and whistles and premium price tags

yes they are all poo, the warranties are a joke and service intervals a p**s take

Performance Vs Price Vs Weight Vs Service breaks....

Not a easy balance to strike...

which they are ALL getting wrong though?!

At Bike 2000 I think it was, I remember sitting at the next table to G*y K*st*v*n and some American from a fork manufacturer whose name rhymes with Pock Cox.

The American was basically saying "...well, you *know* we can't make forks which will stand up to British conditions..."

'Nuff said... though I've heard they've come on in leaps and bounds since they were taken over by SRAM?

Its because you expect the world for bugger all cost. Consumer driven markets always end up the spout, its how the credit crunch happens.

People want a totally slick and buttery fork but do not want to believe this requires maintinence. If you can design a seal which can do this with zero maintinence while being jetwashed and blasted with harsh chemicals and windtunneled at 90 on the back of your audi.... Then you will be a multi billionaire!

Shame its not physicaly possible. You try jetwashing the internals of your engine and then adding gritty mud etc

PS my forks have lasted years and have no servicing, they are manitou. Its because i clean them when the mud is wet with some plain water and thats it.

I wouldn't call £600-800 'bugger all cost'
forks have been reliable in the past, I would say 3/4 years ago Marzocchi were the ultimate fit and forget fork - why not now? in fact my two suspension forks are Marzocchis from 2005 and 2006 and the older ones have only just been stripped down this year and the others I haven't touched

To counter this, I have a pair of year 2000 Marz Z3 Coil's and a pair of 2007Fox Vanilla R's.

Bar a wipe down and a spray of lube, neither have had any real maintenance and both are fine, running well and are still smooth.

Light, Strong, Cheap - choose 2

Its all driven by fashion and weight. Everyone wants light parts for their bike but unfortunately an open oil bath design like marzocchi used to do was heavy due too all the oil in them.

Id prefer to have a fork that weighed 1/2lb more but didnt require servicing for a year.

I think the 2010 marzocchis are looking promising as they are going back to the orinigal design supposedly

Ive had a pair of Pace RC41's for over two years, and bar none, they are the best forks ive ever had. No service issues, no faults, just work perfectly. New rockshox are almost faultless also (at least the ones ive got/had).
Maybe im just lucky, but ive been given no cause to complain.
I am also one of those that cleans my bike when its freshly dirty, and no jetwashing, maybe that helps.

03 Marzocchi Z1 FR been on 3 bikes in their life and never been serviced to date. Had a lot of abuse and they still keep boinging away. If Marzocchi return to that kind of form I might upgrade them some day.

Ive had a pair of Pace RC41's for over two years, and bar none, they are the best forks ive ever had. No service issues, no faults, just work perfectly

<<rolls round on floor laughing hysterically>>

I have a pair of them too. Not exactly had the same experience! If they hadn't cost me so much, yet now be worth so little they would have got flogged on ages back.

had a mat with RC41s and his experience was terrible, that was in the alps though

i suppose as riders get gnarlier forks get more abuse, i certainly ride stuff i wouldnt have dreamt of taking on back when i started

shock boots (or gaiters or whatever they're called - those rubber things that cover the stanchions) and open bath damping need to come back into fashion.

Buy some coil Pikes instead then.

My 04 Marzocchis were reliable but a little heavy and flappy, I've now got a Magura which has been fine for a year. I normally ride fully rigid when it's seriously gunky though. I could do with a more robust headset for that one..............

My Marzocchis have been on my bike for a year now and I haven't touched them once to do any maintenance. they were only supposed to be a cheap stop gap but as long as they keep working I cant see the point in replacing or doing anything with them. They are pretty heavy etc but work perfect for what I need. Maybe it is the newer technologies which are struggling as they haven't had time to be fully tested

The sealing on modern day forks is crap because the travel has gone up and weight come down at the expense of durability! Service intervals of 15 hours are ridiculous and negate any warranty issues for the manufacturer.

I have had dirt get past the seal on my lyrics on one ride and mark the legs. And when I sent them back they said that they hadn't serviced them enough (*cough* **** off). I guess once every two weeks isn't enough!

Annoyingly, all the manufacturers are the same so I can't just boycott Rock Shox

Exactly, people want lightweight long travel forks, there is inevitably going to be a compromise somewhere. Would be interesting to see how well forks would sell from a manufacturer willing to take a significant weight penalty to make them more durable.

Erm, Pace - my one & only experience was laughable (but not that funny as they cost so much!)

Fox - 2 pairs of coil Vanillas 05 & 08 - never been serviced. No probs (well nothing that bothers me!). Nice & cheap, simple coil - not much to go wrong is there.

I noticed Fox have gone back to open bath damping on the 2010 36 Van R, but not on the RC2, probably other models as well but I didn't check.

First 125 Vanillas when they came out, developed play in bushings. 32 TALAS later- started packing down and needed pulling apart with force. 36's in 2004. End cap of boltthrough on one end rotates the same way as the bolt though itself (it was held on with locktite). NWMB charged me for a new bolt through- otherwise I'd say they performed better 'on the bike' than the others?

I still wouldnt buy another pair for as long as I live with the pathetic servicing schedule/warranty.

I've got a nice pair of 2001 Marzocchi's and another pair of 2005 ones that haven't needed touching. The 2001 pair have outlasted 2 frames without yet needing a service.

Rode a hire bike with some of last year's Marzocchi offerings and they were utterly rubbish unfortunately. 4" out of 6" travel, didn't feel right at all, 20mm bolt through axle was a bit wobbly giving just a touch of vibration I could feel that put me off a little bit (well not on the really rocky stuff, but on the slightly rough bits was annoying). I really hope they get the QC sorted out sometime soon so I can spend lots of money on MTB parts again 🙂

On this topic is it possible to hard chrome the stanchions of MTB forks?

Not sure why anodizing is used instead of a hardchrome finish.

MX Bike stanchions dont disintegrate at the first sign of a bit of grit, the seals go but not the expensive bits (usually).

I've a pair of 13year old Pace RC36s, the ones with the twin arch design. Still the best fork I've had - one service and the odd squirt of oil. Not so impressed with the newer Pace or Fox - trying a PIKE now based on the reports on here and MTBR

When you consider what we had to put up with just a few short years ago, I think modern forks are amazing:

http://www.bikepro.com/products/forks/rockshox/rockshox_q21r.html

[img] http://www.bikepro.com/products/forks/jpgs/quad_21r_frt_6,jpg [/img]

Of course it is possible to build forks that last - motorcycle ones don't fail or need servicing so rapidly. However this does not provide the turnover for the manufacturers.

Hard chroming would help but I guess would need steel stanchions hence weight

I have 3 sets of zocchis - all still perfect after years of abuse - ( although we did still need to have one set repaired after some serious tandem abuse.) Annual oil changes is their lot

I have a set of foxes bought cheap second hand with worn out bushes and stanchions

1 set of pikes - no problems but need the regular servicing ( but not as often as foxes.)

Mountainbikers accept many parts with poor longevity that would not be accepted in any other vehicle. I simply don't understand why people continue to buy fox forks for example.

Toras have chrome steel stanchions. Fill yer boots.

I never thought it would ever happen, but I agree with TJ. If we were to stop accepting products that last 5 minutes they'd soon stop making them.

Yup Tora's and a few cheaper forks have chrome but I doubt its hardchrome, that usually has a ground finish to it, but the steel stanchions its on is part of the weight penalty. A quick Google has revealed its not possible to apply it to the ally of higher end forks.

I don't suppose this is a definitive answer but:-

[url] http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=331061 [/url]

It would be possible to have great forks & that last, but with that extra weight, I don't know of any made that way though, but right now the more expensive and better performing stuff has anodizing.

My forks have a nickel coating:

http://www.marzocchi.com/Template/detailSPAForksMTB.asp?IDFolder=113&LN=UK&Sito=mtb&IDOggetto=30782

Not quite as hard as chrome though.

One issue might well be that motorcycle type fork seals would have considerably more stiction

OP didn't mention Rockshox.

Revelations - last years best fork ever. This year, bolt through version squirts all it's oil out of the top cap on 2 pairs between my mates.

Forks like this would probably last OK:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

glenh - Member
Forks like this would probably last OK:

Old Girvins still get silly money, but no disk mount.

I'm happy that the Singular swift comes with rigid forks....

It's very fortunate for fork manufacturers that the poor longevity of their product dovetails nicely with your average MTBer's urge to buy the newest and shiniest thing.

Thing is, you're only really ever going to get posts on sites like this written by folk who's forks have failed for some reason. Hardly ever do you get threads that start "My Forks have been faultless for years" . So relying on STW for unbiased fork reportage is pretty daft.

nickc is right.

The internet is rife with people who confuse 'anecdote' with 'data'. They have a problem with one single Acme fork and hey presto the "all ACME forks are sh1te" thread pops up.

Let's face it, all mass-produced items have an occasional rogue product. One step goes adrift eg in an Italian factory for a few hours and 'M*rz*cc* don't measure the oil properly' becomes their reputation for years.

so, the short answer to OP's question is: no, not all fork companies are useless.

Good point...

I always preferred the steel stanchions of Mag 10's to the alloy ones of Mag 21s. And plus, the steel stanchions had a noticably larger airspace, so better spring properties.

But indeed, the problem are weight of course. And stiction. A motorcycle weighs lots more than a mountainbike, and the sprung/unsprung mass ratio is much more on the side of the stiff fork seals. Whereas on a mountainbike with lower sprung/unsprung (I bet I got that the wrong way round, but I mean the ratio between the moving bits and the static bits) means that everything has to move a lot more slickly.

Hardly ever do you get threads that start "My Forks have been faultless for years"

...and even if you did, such a superbly reliable fork would have been superseded by a new model which may not have the same level of reliability.

Come on then Brant, why not design us a range of UK-proof suspension forks, e.g. three models: Race, All-Round and Downhill. Then sell it to one of the big manufacturers 🙂

That certainly is a point Brant - however 'zocchis manage with motorcycle type seals - the ones I have the seal at the top of the slider holds the air pressure ( the only seal in the open bath system) so must be a tight fit. I don't particularly notice stiction with them