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Apart from the weight will I notice much difference in performance?
The recon is cheaper, available now and has those brilliant mudguard mounts on the fork leg....but weighs more.
Performance should be the decider
What dampers do they have?
If both motion control, then it's probably just the weight difference really.
If the Recon has "turnkey" or whatever, it'll ride like shit.
Ye, Recon has ( I think) the Turnkey Damper, which is crap. Reba has Motion Control, which is a few years old now and still basic, but performs well, is tuneable, and is what the top-end forks were running just a few years back.
I'd stretch to the Reba if you can.
Recon has motion control
https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/rockshox-recon-silver-rl-29-solo-air-tapered-976876
So it's likely just steel vs alu stanchions and the Recon has the crown & legs from the old 32mm Revelation - so will be a touch more burly there too.
Looks like a good budget option to me.
🙂
I think some recons have moco and some have turnkey don’t they? Seem to be a huge number of variants from crap damper and silver steel stanchions to ones with the moco and either gold or fast black alloy stanchions (I think the recon alloy is heavier / lower grade than reba alloy stanchions). The recon on my nephews bike is a gold rl with 130mm of travel and the moco damper. It’s not bad but feels a little weedy vs my forks - but then they’re all 35mm stanchion so not a fair comparison.
I used to have a 32mm stanchion revelation with 130mm then 150mm of travel - I think that fork was broadly the same as the reba at the time - just longer travel options possible. I’m pretty sure that was better than my nephew’s recon but it’s difficult to fully compare.
Ultimately if the recon is available now in a decent spec version and the reba isn’t I’d just go for the recon and get riding whilst you have the whole summer to play with.
I've got an older 29" QR Reba (2015) and 2021 Recon RL with Motion Control. They both feel pretty similar to me. The air spring is different though, on the Recon you can't add the bottomless tokens. The air spring seems to be a separate tube inside, so you can't just swap the top cap over. The standard air spring seems fine to me, especially on a hardtail when it's not so crucial that it balances with the rear.