Pikes or Devilles?
Pikes, BOS are race forks. Massively brilliant performance but they need stripping and servicing on a very routine basis to get the best from them. Pikes on the other hand are forks for everyday use, not quite in the same league performance wise, but heaps easier to live with
I ran a set of 120/150 Sektors on my Sovereign for a while. I could see the merits of both settings on that particular frame, especially as I was using it as my only bike at the time. It was nice to be able to run the fork at 120 for longer xc days out, steepening up the head angle, making it turn a bit faster, and it was nice to run it at 150 when the going got more tough and steep, slackening the head angle, adding stability and allowing bigger hits.
Ultimately, I replaced the fork with a 150mm Revelation, and only occasioanlly miss the ability to reduce the travel.
I've got a slackline with xfusion slants 130/160. The travel jumps from one to the other with a quarter turn of the dial on the top of the left leg. Ride most of the time at 130, popping it into 160 when the downhills get rocky/steep/fast. I find the slight geometry change makes a greater difference than the extra travel
I have a blue pig mk1 that ran 140mm pikes and it worked well. Upgraded to a set of 160/130 lyriks and after some initial use of the 130 mode for climbs I got used to 160 and found it better than the pikes. Awesome descending and not really any difference on climbing once you got used to it. It has now become my second bike with the lyriks moving to my new frame. I got a set of 150mm Marzocchi 66s for it from ebay which turned out to actually be 170s. Its only a 2nd bike so I just slapped them on anyways. Its an absolute beast descending. I tnink it's about 64 degree head angle like this. Cimbing is ok as well, again just a case of getting used to it. Due to the 2.9kg weight I dont get much lift on hills either!
John
