Any thoughts about Rockshox Recon RL

Any thoughts about Recon RL? I know its their budget fork but is it any good compare to the fox evo (2014) people keep saying its crap.

Fitted a secondhand 120mm 29er Recon to the Winter bike.

It’s not too bad to be honest, no Pike though.Lol Never had a fox fork so can’t help there.

I even made a couple of diy tokens for the air shaft to increase the progression as I’m a bit of a biffer. Quite effective.

A low end fork none the less but if you treat it as that you might get on fine with it.

Recon RL is an air spring suspension, right?

Yeah never had any experience with any, well I have fox evo 2014 ofc but not entirely sure how to tell whether its crap or not apart from its 1 1/4th (31.8mm) steerer tube 😆

Are you pleased with it? Yeah saw someone selling a 2nd hand Recon RL I think its the 2018 version.

Fitted a secondhand 120mm 29er Recon to the Winter bike.
It’s not too bad to be honest, no Pike though.Lol

Yep. I’ve got a Recon RL on my HT, had an old one on my previous HT. They work. They make a squishing noise, but move up and down reliably, don’t twist too much and do what you’d expect. For a cheap fork they are very good but compared to the Pikes on my FS…. well, you can feel the difference in every respect. But then the Pikes cost about three or four times as much.

I can honestly say that I’m not rushing to change them on my HT, though, and that gets more use than the FS.

Depends what your budget is. Recon is a reliable, but chunky thing. If you can get up to Reba level it’s a lighter, better fork.

Well I only asked because someone is selling it quite cheap, but yeah looking at few forks for future upgrades. Yes what is the Reba or Mattoc Pro 2 as they’re around £300 which is quite reasonable I guess, but no idea about their performance apart from youtube reviews. Though not a lot of reviews about Mattoc forks apart from 5 years ago 😆

Basic fork but reliable, Fox evo were utter turd due to the damper.
Main issue is the basic rebound damper which suffered from ‘packing down’ on repeated impacts, so it’d Just lose the plot in rock gardens/rough stuff

What size are you after?

https://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/FOXFS27RC/x-fusion-sweep-275-roughcut-fork

I don’t think you can get a better fork for that price.

Have had a gold recon for 5 years. Not subtle but does a good job. It is reliable and fine. I have fox 34s on another bike which are noticeably stuffer and leagues apart on plushness. But I still think recons so a good enough job for most.

That said mattocs were down to £220 for ages at crc and x fusion at £200 at planet x so I would suggest that you stretch to that if you can. Both make great forks.

Martinhutch beat me to it

Are the Mattocs better than the sweeps as the sweeps I had (rl) and the metrics I tried with a roughcut damper were heavy and the dampers felt last than fabulous.
Sorry for hyjack but after a set of cheap fork myself but wouldn’t buy xfusion again

@simonloco,
Haha that’s fine, seems like we’re looking at the same forks anyways.

But I’m actually looking at the Mattoc Pro 2
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/manitou-mattoc-pro-2-forks-15mm-2017/rp-prod149017

But looks like the Mattoc Comp version is better than the Evo then, looking around 140-160mm travel as I’m using my evo at 160mm travel. As long as its something that will match the rear shock as I heard the travel gap between front and rear should be close?

How did we get from second hand Recons to nearly 400 quids worth of top quality fork so quickly? Give it another half hour and brand new Pikes will be in play. 🙂

Those Mattocs are supposed to be great, mind you. I picked up a set for about 300 on offer last year but the build never happened, so sent them back.

Yeah good point.

I would buy recons any day of the week and service wise I have sent them off once in 5 years or regular use and they’re fine. Older fox needed a lot of servicing I think?

I dont know budget of original poster but I’d also consider cheap fox 34s for 300 quid.

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/fox-racing-34-float-rhythm-27.5-140-grip-sweep-adj-tapered-boost-819894

The mattocs seem pricey to me but only because they were down to 220/230 not too long ago. Meant to be ace.

Also answering question above I think x fusion make some brilliant forks and the sweeps I have are fit and forget so I love them. Just do a dependable job.

@martinhutch
Ikr, well I only asked for 2nd hand because of the Recon haha but someone started posted a brand new one so I though I’ll throw some in as well hah. Well the 2nd hand Recon RL I saw was about £100 so thought if I could stretch it a little might as well get a new one. But ofc not instantly just widening the options.

Budget isn’t that much really, can’t see spending around £500. So I think those Mattocs or that fox 34 are around the price range.

Mattoc comp is around £220
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/manitou-mattoc-comp-forks-boost-15mm-axle/rp-prod178213

No I don’t think Pike will come in play a bit pricey for me at the moment, maybe once they’re on 50% off 😆

My money I’d get the mattocs or x fusion. Ridiculous deals. Both great forks.

I have had recon gold forks, they were very basic. I’ve also had the top of the range pikes from a few years back. I now have the mattocs.

Imo the mattocs are better than the pike, and a million times better than the recon

Edit..my mattocs are the pro 2, not the comp

I think I’d get those x fusion sweeps with the roughcut damper if they’re still £250.

RL is not a bad fork tbh. Steel (black) uppers I think so that adds weight but the RL damper is more or less the same as what you’d have got in a top of the range Rockshox fork not so long ago. Not sure if it gets the revamped rebound damper or not though.

It’s basically a Reba with steel stanchions, the RL is a decent enough damper for what is essentially an XC/ trial fork and I’d wager, that on the kind of bike it’s aimed at, most riders wouldn’t tell the difference between the RL and a better damper if the weren’t told / couldn’t see the branding in the first place.