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Looking for a new fork for one of my bikes.
Thinking about a Mezzer as it ticks a lot of boxes for my application.
It'll initially be fitted on a long travel hardtail at either 150 or 160.
I'll try both and see what feels better.
But it'll also be used on other bikes from time to time.
The ability to change travel pretty quickly with spacer from 140 to 180 instead of having to buy air shafts appeals here.
It also looks very straight forwards to service.
Also the HBO and extra chamber for ramp control interest me.
I've had an EXT fork that has the same kind of ramp control and liked that aspect of it but ultimately got shot of it for other reasons.
I thought that they had got over the bushing play problems but a mate had a new Mezzer recently that developed play after a few rides. He's had another since that's been fine. He was doing a review on them so no skin off his nose.
So has anyone got a Mezzer?
Any problems with it?
How easy is it to live with?
Also curious. Not often seen in the wild. Some reviews rave above them. But also reports of creaking CSUs and bushing problems.
Got two second hand ones on my bikes, both have the bleed valves in the lowers so i think they are sorted
one is on my hardtail 29, set to 130, i recently serviced it and bumped it to 140, in theory you can go as low as you want but its not official.
other is on my full sus, 27.5 @ 160
I had Mattocs before.. went for Mezzers as there was basically no negative in doing so. Now the new Mattoc is out i would consider it again to save a few 100g on the shorter travel bike.
Manitou forks are my go to, never had a fox, had a few RS
take a while to get them right I'd say
i started on the recommended settings and didn't click
went through the thread over on MTBR with their recommendations and felt happy
then this service i went back to specced settings, which are super firm, and that actually works really well for me now
I'm not a guru and quite numb to settings, and can basically just say that's good or not
the only negative i would say is really needing to buy the manitou tools to remove the lowers and airspring... but the fact that its entirely servicable at home, and there are even guides to reshimming if its your thing.....
I have a set that I really like. The travel just feels so smooth and controlled. My only issue is not getting full travel (set at 140mm currently), I think this is down to not having got quire the right setting yet. I'm going to set them to 150mm soon and play again with the settings. When riding I did not notice the 'missing' last 10mm of travel even on big rocky descents.
You don't need all the expensive special tools on the Mezzer (you did on the Mattoc). On the Mezzer the foot nut is not up inside the lowers so you don't need a thin socket, just one flattened like you do for fork top caps so it engages better. The cassette tool with a cut is also not required (if you have a deep cassette tool). When I had a Mattoc I modified my old park tools cassette tool then found the new (pedros) one was deep enough to work without modification.
There are several huge threads on mtbr is you have a lot of time to kill!
Had Mezzer Pros for a 3 years. Now on son's bike. FYI I am 115kgs so not light.
Yes, easy to service and change travel. Also have Mastodons and Mattocs on other bikes so makes sense to have the Manitou tools. Great they are all very similar to service (fluids etc). Ability to change travel easily is fantastic.
They hit all the cliches when riding under my fat mince-core style: stiff, supportive, extremely well controlled etc etc, possible to get set up exactly how you like. The support is really noticeable compared to any other fork (Pike, Lyrik, 38 grip 2 are comparisons) - get the lovely suspension feel you like, but with no dive. amazing, really, esp for a fat bloke.
Downsides:
When you are going really fast, I've never been able to get small bump compliance exactly where I'd like it.
Possibly the main thing is that there is A LOT of adjustability. A huge range. And that can lead to a lot of faffing. There is a great shared excellent google doc on MTBR mezzer forum of people's settings, really useful. E.g. I can run it with really low main and IRT pressures, but compression damping cranked right up, or higher pressures with damping wound right off. It's really 'interesting'. I think I have hardly any rebound damping at all, even at my pressures, as it just rides better and is pretty over damped anyway.
The bolt through axle does have a habit of either coming loose, or binding somewhere. Never really found the Goldilocks Nm on the bolt. It is infinitely better than their old QR axle which is on the mattocs. that is unbelievably bad! But, everyone else's is fit and forgot so not sure why they've chosen the path they have.
Had creaking CSU that suddenly stopped, and have a wee bit of bushing play when unsagged but do not notice when riding.
Main inflation valve opens both negative and positive chambers on all manitou forks I think, so certain shock pumps do not play well with it and the fork must be unweighted when you add main air (ideally with weight of wheel pulling fork down) otherwise will loose travel. I have 'fixed' countless Manitou forks for folks who did not know this. I appear as a mechanical magician.
Hope that's helpful.
I was going to ask if you can adjust travel without taking them apart and it seems like you can. I have a Mattoc and it's a useful quirk of how the Manitou negative air spring works. I have switched mine between various bikes utilising between 120 and 160mm travel on hardtails and full sus.
I've had some for several years, currently on a SC Nomad. I really rate them. Miles better than the Pike (charger 1 damper) I had before.
Needs a digital shock pump to set them up as small differences in air pressure make a noticable difference. Once you get the setup right just ride and don't touch them. I felt my pikes were great in the first half of the travel but sucked when the bumps got bigger and you got down into the travel more, the mezzer feels like a magic carpet in comparison, just very composed.
+'s: performance is brilliant. Once setup just forget about them. Easy to service. Peoples reactions to seeing them.
-'vs: I don't feel the HSC adjuster does much but I don't have many long descents here to test back-to-back well, mostly shorter enduro-ish or short and steep dh tracks. Needs digital shock pump. People think your fork is on backwards. Stock mudguard breaks in the wind if you have the bike on top of the car, I just cable tied a standard mudhugger type one on instead
I went and bought an old mattoc for the hardtail because I like them so much, and again, it's miles better than the RS fork with mo-co damper it replaced. I'd be interested to try a new RS/Fox fork, but would absolutely buy these again
I really like mine.
Changing travel is easier than a lowers service, which is easier than a lowers service on the Pike Ultimate 2.1 I had before them. <br /><br />
The 3 chamber system seems to deliver. It’s plush enough at the top while being supportive and linear deeper in. They’re nice and stiff too. <br />No complaints about the damping but then I’m not really experienced enough to comment. I’m 80kg and set it up on the light side and it works for me. <br /><br />
The only other modern forks I’ve owned (I’m a late returner to mtb) were Pike Ultimate 2.1. In comparison those felt harsh at the top, soggy in the middle, then harsh again the end. Chalk and cheese against the Mezzer Pro. <br /><br />
Mine are current (2023) and no issues with the lowers. But I’ve yet to run them longer than 150mm (where the overlap is great). I’ll be trying them at 160-170mm on my next frame. <br /><br />
Good stuff aside, I’m not sure I’d want to buy them at full price given the difficulty of getting plants and services in the UK. I’ll be ordering the kit from that Dougal chap in New Zealand.
The Rulezman YouTube instruction videos are excellent (I normally hate YouTube videos for all the waffling)
Had mine almost 3 years - easily the best fork I've owned, having had Lyriks, 36s, MRP Ribbon coil and a few others.
Performance is spot on, easy to work with and maintain, stays working great.
There's also a really good tuning forum over on MTBR full of hints & tips. I've followed quite a few of the things on there and gained even more performance.
Do it!
Got one last year for my to replace a 140mm X-fusion, I'm running it set to 160mm, perhaps a bit long but helped raise the front of my Stumpy and generally improved the handling IMO.
I'm probably not the most sensitive to setup with suspension but there's lot's to play with having two air chambers and damping to play with you can have a reasonable ramp up in spring rate or have it quite soft for the whole travel. There's an online spreadsheet tool where various people have played with travel, pressures and damping to achieve different things and you can plug in numbers for yourself...
It's light as well for the available travel, which isn't a bad thing if you're planning a more 'trail' than #Enduro type build...
I can certainly see me hanging onto the fork and swapping frames down the line...
I can certainly see me hanging onto the fork and swapping frames down the line…
This is a great point, one fork to cover a whole multitude of future frame options.
looks dam good too
I just remembered that I needed to buy the Icetoolz cassette lockring tool to remove the lowers because my existing one (Sram) wasn’t deep enough to clear the valve.
As mentioned, you also need digital shock pump with a deep socket to work with the two chamber valve (the LifeLine one works).
Lastly you need either a crow foot torque wrench head or a reverse hex torque wrench to reassemble the lowers IIRC.
The only issue I've had with manitous in recent years is getting service kits. I'm not sure if it's Manitou or Hayes the owner, but they seem to be really erratic at delivering stock to the UK.
I think that is down to hotlines the distributor. Hopefully Hayes/manitou will get better UK representation as an outcome of Signas collapse.
Thanks all.
I have everything i need to service them and if my cassette tool isn't long enough i can cut a slot in a spare one and do it that way.
Just ordered some for a decent price from R2bike.
"I think that is down to hotlines the distributor. Hopefully Hayes/manitou will get better UK representation as an outcome of Signas collapse."
Hotlines dropped distribution of Hayes bike group at the end of April this year.
Since then no other UK distributor has taken the option to add them to their portfolio so anything Hayes/Manitou/SunRingle/Protaper comes from the Hayes Europe location in Germany.
I was surprised that Upgrade didn't take them on as they already distribute Reynolds who are the other brand in the Hayes group.
On the MezZer front I would like to see a coil version as I have never got my forks set to a level of small bump sensitivity that I want without sacrifices in mind stroke support.
Just need to find someone with lathe skills who can make an air piston replacement so I can jam a z1 coil in them.
Love mine, but as others have said, there's no current UK distributor for Manitou so spares can be hard to find (I've recently had to use Bike24 for parts for my son's Machete). I adjusted the travel myself (quite an easy 30 min job). I found the initial set up not too bad following the Manitou setup guide and have tinkered from there. There's a handy thread on the MTBR forum that's good for info - especially the spreadsheet for settings.
A Mezzer Pro, Mara and Dominion equipped bike is my dream. I've got a McLeod (helps rid 4 bar bikes of their sluggishness and wallowing) and Mattoc Pro.
Hayes got something so right with the pro dampers silky smooth handling of successive big hits. Feels smooth and unflappable like DH forks from other manufacturers.
I'd like to try a McLeod.
I’d like to try a McLeod
I'd go for the newer Mara. The inline version is a McLeod with all the refinements and improvements the McLeod got during it's production run before the name was dropped in favour of one name for both the inline, trunnion and piggyback versions, which were previously named McLeod and Swinger 😀
I asked Manitou about the distribution a while back, they said Evo Cycles is the only retailer in the UK at the moment. Evo didn't have any on their website but said they can order anything in.
A shame they don't put the products on their site for visibility. When I bought mine (heavily discounted from CRC) they only had the 'wrong ' offset in stock. At one point I nearly ordered the correct CSU from New Zealand (before finding one in Germany). Does mean I have a spare CSU now.
One other thing to note is that it is possible to convert them between 27.5 and 29 with I think just a lowers change. CSU is the same, a long and short version which give the different offsets, i.e. shirt offset 27.5 will become short offset 29 after lowers change.
Seen as this thread has re surfaced.
Fork arrived yesterday avo so pretty quick delivery.
Import and VAT came to around £150 which is what i'd worked it out to be.
Will be striping them down to check everything is lubed up and dropping them to 160mm shortly.
As they are Manitous latest and supposedly most sorted product it'd be good to hear (good and bad) what you think when you have got them dialed in and had some time on them!
Good video about the Mezzer here, showing how versatile it is, as well as a guide to how easy the travel adjust is:
Dropped them to 160 yesterday.
Plenty of oil and grease in there apart from on the IRT shaft and in the scrapers/seals. That's now done.
Have used ccs86's pressure calculator spreadsheet for initial setup.
Only tried them up and down the road and off a jump the kids have built at the end of the road.
Sag is sitting at 20% and got around 75% travel off the jump which seems about right compared to all my other forks.
Hopefully I'll be able to get out on them today and bed them in a bit.
Think I'll need to drop them to 150 as the A to C is 7mm longer than the previous fork was at 160 but I'll try them first.
You don't want much grease in the IRT. Don't need much to coat the O-ring.
I assume if there is too much in the IRT chamber you'll cause excessive ramp up towards the end of the travel.
pretty much. both chambers are pretty sensitive to pressure changes.
I really like this video for travel change. No chat, just a quick 1, 2, 3.
I have mine set up on the soft side (cos I am a bit soft). I've been able to balance small bump, support, and a linear behavior deeper into their travel that I like a great deal.
As Poah said, a few psi makes a difference in setup, and it took me a little while to get them nailed. I recommend keeping notes!