Not much bowing to the advertisers here

Is that the 2013 or 2014 CTD FIT damper cartridge though? Different beasts, they’ve always been pretty scathing of the CTD fork carts. but the testers will be going significantly quicker than your average rider as well.

Not being a fox fanboi just adding a little balance, and yes Marz or RS Pikes are bloody good this year.

Will Fox take notice, I hope so, just got a set of pikes 29er 140mm and have to say the difference is amazing,its weird how the big players all seem to have good years and bad years!

No yellow font on blue background?

Writing understandable words?

Not Dirt.

“Like wise” should be “likewise”.

plenty of grammatical errors in there

but regardless id rather see an honest opinion than a textbook perfect generic bestest evaaar bike review

iirc jonsey has said the 2014 version is better than 2013 but still not perfect

owning a 34 Float, tough & stiff not a 36 but it’s not meant to be.
“needs more compression”
Having a small play with different fluid volumes currently which should address that
“needs a bigger axle”
not something I’m having a problem with, 15mm is holding up very well was tracking fine with no noticeable flex

“one of the poorest 160mm forks on the market”

not really

Product owner in doesn’t like bad review shocker?

“needs more compression”
Having a small play with different fluid volumes currently which should address that

Changing the fluid volumes will change the spring rate, not the compression damping.

The CTD era of Fox forks all seem to suffer from the idiotic idea that you should reach full travel on most of your rides, and mincers on rough trails or average riders on smoother trails were telling Fox that they weren’t getting that. So the genuises at Fox decided to make the spring curve far too linear and reduce the compression damping, turning a potentially good fork into a either a wallowy waterbed or an oversprung pogo stick.

Mike levey at pinkbike has also been giving the 34 ctd some harsh reviews

although he says the 2014 is better

on a 900 quid fork Id rather not have to mess around with oil volumes to get it working properly

So air volume will make it less linear. And oil change can increase damping.

Edit-“In my opinion having ridden all the available 160mm forks back to back in a variety of conditions”
Your(sic) welcome

More just that I think the fork is quite good having ridden a lot of different ones over the last few years.
Maybe I’m just not good enough to get to it’s flaws 🙂

So air volume will make it less linear. And oil change can increase damping.

Smaller air vol. less linear (more float fluid in air chamber)

The issue with the damper is the too free flowing piston taht’s been upgraded for 2014 unit plus valving, can be tuned further as necessary, the combination of linear air spring system and the free flowing damper piston/valving is the issue with the 2013 I think.

(but you knew that anyway :wink:)

My 2013 34s needed a service to get full travel which is frustrating…purposefully avoiding riding any other 160mm forks so that I continue to consider them up to the job!

Realise this doesn’t help

MBR have been pretty scathing of some of the latest Fox forks too.

There’s a review in this months of enduro bikes and the Spesh Enduro gets a 6, mainly based on the fact that the Fox fork limits the performance of the bike so much.
As far as I can remember, it sounds pretty similar to what is written above too.

Losers always look for excuses in their kit when they fail

Sure you can fix some of the defects but you really shouldn’t have to on such an expensive fork. Fox have been quick to admit the problem and rectify it but strangely quiet about fixing it for existing owners.

No great surprise though, the 34 was always a classic Fox marketing exercise- 150mm 32 uncompetitively flexy? Turn that into a selling point for something more expensive. OK so it’s barely lighter than a 36 and not much stiffer than a Revelation or a Thor, but ssssssh.

The most amazing thing about that article is that they haven’t used a dark purple font on that black background….

I quite like the 34 actually so, err, there!

Careful now you are wrong, just goes to show what happens when Dirt writes an article that people can actually read…

Have been really impressed with the 2013 CTD. Perhaps just lucky, or maybe it suits lightweights?

What I will say is that performance is incredibly dependent on rebound setting. Fox reckon that each rider has only 3 clicks of usable rebound adjustment (despite there being about 20 clicks total) so if that’s out, the fork will feel terrible regardless of pressure / oil volumes etc.

The Fox app recommends slightly slower rebound over what I traditionally thought was “right”, and so far I’d say it’s the correct decision.

just got a set of pikes 29er 140mm and have to say the difference is amazing

Yip – I bet the difference was bloomin astounding!
It has a bigger wheel and less travel – in fact you could say it was a completely different part.

Glad to see were comparing apples with apples

I think he’s comparing Fox’s CTD damping to RS’s charge damper rather than the chassis…..maybe.

Careful now you are wrong, just goes to show what happens when Dirt writes an article that people can actually read…

Do you mean legible or intelligible? Either could apply . . . . ;o)

I’m not a fan of the CTD stuff personally – I like my old RC2 damper because I can fiddle with it to get it how it works best for me.

The fact that you need to fiddle with oil levels etc to correct it is a bit off in my opinion on such an expensive, high end fork.

The 34 I rode seemed pretty stiff, but I think I’d still go for a 36 (I’m really happy with my old 36 Van..they just keep on going). I often read a lot of the reviews for stuff and take it with a pinch of salt etc, however when I rode these it was the first time that I really got what the reviews where banging on about. Even with the fork set up for me (sag etc) it did blow through its travel far to quickly in both Trail and Descend mode. Not for me I’m afraid, especially at the price they sell for.

Even with the fork set up for me (sag etc) it did blow through its travel far to quickly in both Trail and Descend mode. Not for me I’m afraid, especially at the price they sell for.

I’m never that convinced there is a magic sag number I have been playing with mine since I got them, was it the one with the trail adjust (more low speed compression damping). I was playing with the settings for a couple of days at Rotorua with uplift and lots of riding till I was happy. Not that unhappy with that really, the rear shock which they are equally grumpy about “piss poor” also rates on my bike ahead of lots of others tried in the past and got the seal of approval from quite a few others (including some very decent and competent riders). Looks like it’s better on some suspension designs than others.

What to the top reviewers at Singletrack say? Bet they didn’t give a bad review.

It is true though the 2013 to 2014 are very different forks I went straight from one to the other and it was night and day.

Dirt do love a bit of Fox bashing.
considering the Dirt race team ride Manitou says it all really.
The jurno’s at dirt had a bit of a falling out with the guys at mojo. if you read the reviews of past you’ll soon see how fox products went from shining reviews to piss poor ones around the time when the arguement happened.

The jurno’s at dirt had a bit of a falling out with the guys at mojo.

Really?! I’m not sure that’s quite right.

They featured Tim’s Remedy in the last issue too

greeble – Member

considering the Dirt race team ride Manitou says it all really.

Not really when the current Dorado has a brilliant reputation.

The reviews also went south at the same time the rest of the magazines started giving poor reviews – I don’t think the problem rests with Dirt

Note – my bike came with 34s…given the choice I would definitely go with 36s…I like stiff

greeble – Member
Dirt do love a bit of Fox bashing.

eh?

they were loving the mojo custom remedy in the last issue and theres at least 1 vid on the dirt site from earlier in the year with steve and chris porter together chatting about bikes n stuff

I don’t think that you can really say that it’s only Dirt – the likes of Pink Bike have been banging on about it for a while too.

Fox were top dog for a while (if you believe that the mags say) but have fallen out of favour / been overtaken by the competition as things have moved on. It also seems like ditching the RC2 cartridge has gone down like a lead balloon with those who like to fiddle / control their own compression settings. Offering three predetermined ones isn’t going to keep everyone happy…even more if you genuinely know what you want or need.

The problem is Marketing sells stuff and most customers are clueless.

This means that too often proper products are dropped for things that sell, sadly.

Also, if they didnt bring out new stuff every year people would think their old stuff is pants.

The GF’s Covert came with 2013 CTD shock and 34s and the performance has been good.
Initially I was sceptical about the need for a middle size fork (and she originally wished it had 36s) they seem to perform pretty well.
We set them up using the Fox App (sometimes it takes a few attempts to photo the sag correctly) and as said above I would probably have run them faster on the rebound.
It might be that she’s lighter than a lot of the reviewers and obviously not as fast or big hitting as some(although she can hold her own on DH and jumps with most people) but they’ve not been blowing through travel.
I understand that they’ve got problems and have been changed for 2014, but I sort of agree with them about not needing hundreds of settings to fiddle with if the shock is initially set up right for rider and bike (which is what Specialized and Ohlins have said as well).

I’m sure there’s better out there from other brands, but she’s happy with them at the moment (and she’s normally very fussy about her set up)

Tom KP

zerocool – Member

I sort of agree with them about not needing hundreds of settings to fiddle with if the shock is initially set up right for rider and bike (which is what Specialized and Ohlins have said as well).

Specialized/Ohlins are custom building shocks to work with bike, and then giving a narrow range of adjustment around the ideal – as opposed to a wide range of adjustment on the shock to suit lots of different kinds of bikes. Bit different. They’re just taking away the pointless extremes of adjustment that will suit nobody.

Agree completely with Dirt. 160mm 34 CTDs are pish.

Might be a decent performing fork, who knows? Ours have all been broken most of the time, so it’s been hard to tell.

Reduce the volume of the air spring and fut an avalanche damper. Then youll get a custom tuned fork that performs brilliantly for less than selling the fork and going to a bos/rock shox pike.