[Closed] Manitou forks ??

The magazines seem to occasionally review them and they often come out on top, eg Dirt rated the minute and nixxon above the revelation and pike.

On the other hand, I've blown 2 SPV cartriges, had the rebound adjuster snap off one in the post (it was on a plastic shaft) and I strongly suspect my minutes now have a bent steerer despite coming under a lot less abuse than most of my forks. And I still don't really rate them when they're working other than being silly light for their age, iirc they were the lightest 130mm fork the damping never felt right (slow rebound and too much low speed compression even with minimum SPV), and they were seriously flexy, you would watch the front wheel tucking under going over rocks!

But that was from the manipoo era of forks, these days they seem to get good reviews but I guess the damage has been done to their reputation and it'll take a complete re-invention to get them back up there (like RS did with motion controll and the pike/rev/reba range). I'd love to give them a second chance but just feel like i'd be throwing good money after bad.

cheers thisisnotaspoon nice info

They had all sorts of reliability issues a few years back, Hayes were going to buy them then didn't. I was told they didn't even have a distributor a while back. Apparently now they have sorted themselves out and are much better but personally I see no reason to not stick with Fox or Rock Shox.

For what it's worth, my 2005 Manitou Sherman Breakouts turned out to be the worst fork I have owned, possibly even ridden actually. Utter crap!

They are still crap.Ive got a set of Minutes that are unfixable simply because of a design fault.Every time i give Manipou a go they bite me

got some minute 29er's. they are lighter, stiffer, and cheaper than the rockshox equivalent. i also prefer the feel/damping.

As above, my experience is with the older stuff. The current stuff might be fantastic but I'm reluctant to find out. They always strike me as a company that puts light weight above suspension action and tracking. I was also once told that the only reason they sell forks retail was to increase the perceived value of bikes that came with them as oe kit.

I'd trust new marzocchi before I trusted new manitous.

I like the look of the [url= http://www.manitoumtb.com/index.php?page=fork&fork=Circus+Expert&discipline=all ]130mm Manitou Circus fork. [/url]

Comes with the Abs+ damper which was always a good performer.

If they do a similar fork in an XC flavour it'll be a goodun i reckon

Tbh a lot of the prejudice against manitou is anecdotal. I'd have no doubt that the quality of the current stuff is up there with the competition. I'd have no problem sticking some on my bike. They tend to be pretty light too.

i've 2 pairs of minutes - 80mm 29er QR and 120mm 26" bolt-thru

both are fantastic - good performance, nice and stiff and very low weight.

i'd not have bought them 4 years ago, but they're totally different forks now it seems.

highly recommended.

We have had 2 sets of Sherman Fireflys 130s, some Nixon 145s and are still running Nixon 160s with no problems at all

Hayes did buy them in the end.

Manitou have alway had good forks in the range (i.e Coil Nixon with TPC damping), but knowing which were the good models was always tricky, and even then Q/A reliability wasn't the best.

They can be a bit divey under braking and on steep tech, and they're generally not quite as well finished as most of the recent competition. That said, I have a Nixon Elite from 2004 sat in my garage, and a rejuvinated IT Nixon (apparently the bad ones) on the front of my 5spot at the moment.

Evil genius seals are now surpassed by everyone except fox and they can be a little maintenace heavy, but they're as easy to work on as RS and they work alot better than the current price on CRC suggests.

CHosen carefully, its a cheap way to get a good fork. Its a bit of a lottery though.

I'm sure the new models are better, I really wasn't a fan of the SPV junk, I know riders who just took that cartridge out and left it out.

Fox maybe more expensive but metal parts last longer than light plastic ones, if that what Manitou are using. You can sell on a well looked after Fox at a decent enough price.

I think they have made changes to them this year to stop such diving. I really like the look of the Minute Pro's and nice and cheap at Winstanleys however I won't be buying any as I emailed Hotlines with some queries regarding what stiffness springs fitted to the mars hybrid system as standard and the availability of alternative ones, even quoting the part codes from manitous documents but they didnt reply which gives me no confidence should I have any issues...... On a semi related note, manitou really need to spend a few pennies on their website, surely companies realise how important the internet and advertising is these days and it really needs vamping up with more info

I've only ever owned Axels on my old Rockhopper and they were a sorry excuse for a fork, they weighed more than five pounds and flexed all over the place.

A friend has a set of 130mm Shermans, I can't recall the exact model but I do know that they're Ti spring and a 20mm bolt through. I tried them on a 2004 Enduro and a 2005 SX Trail and I remember that I was very impressed with their suppleness and I don't think my friend had a single problem with them in all the time he's owned them.

They were a hell of a lot better than the set of Nixons I tried on a 2005 base Enduro a while back.