The fork (a 130mm Rockshox 35) is well within warranty as the bike was only ordered in June and received in August. I’m looking to send it to SRAM to check out, but is it worth paying to upgrade the damper at the same time?

Happy to be corrected, but I don’t think there are any official Rockshox upgrades for the 35. You can enter your serial number on the RS Trailhead website to check…

YariUp looks like an option, but can’t comment on its effectiveness.

Warranty it, sell fork, buy Manitou Expert series/DVO Berryl/Marzocchi Z1/Z2 – the performance issues on the 35s are caused by both the much more basic type of air spring and damper. Spending 300 quid on a Charger 2.1 damper to drop into it seems like a lot of money in comparison to just buying a better fork.

Have you tried letting all the air out and then resetting the air pressure, but adding air in small increments and cycling the fork each time? I wonder if the stick is an unbalanced positive or negative air spring giving the feel of stick.

Warranty it, sell fork, buy Manitou Expert series/DVO Berryl/Marzocchi Z1/Z2 – the performance issues on the 35s are caused by both the much more basic type of air spring and damper. Spending 300 quid on a Charger 2.1 damper to drop into it seems like a lot of money in comparison to just buying a better fork.

This.

What do you mean “sticks”. Does it not move or is there just a lot of friction.

What do you mean “sticks”. Does it not move or is there just a lot of friction.

It sags when I start riding and when I get off the bike it stays in its sagged position. It still offers travel but when I get off I have to force the fork back to full extension

It could just be that the seals have dried up and causing excess stiction.

I had this with a less than year old set of RS 35 Gold forks. Exactly the issue you described. I gave them a simple service of stripping off the lowers, clean up, greased the seals, soaked the foam wipers in oil, lowers back on, filled up with oil and back on the road. Finished result is miles better than when I got the bike in the first place. It really didn’t take that long and there was a good video of how to do it on youtube. No overly fancy tools needed etc.

There are foam rings that are meant to hold oil and wipe the stanctions as they go up and down. The rings are at the top section of the lower fork just under the rubber seal. The oil will eventually either get wiped off on the stantion, or drain down into the lower fork, and the foam dry up. Once it dries up, there is nothing to lube the rubber seal, so it sticks … causing the issue you have.

A simple solution in the short term would be to store the bike upside for a while. This will let the oil in the lowers of the fork run down and hopefully re-lubricate the foam and seals.

Sounds like the good old blocked negative bleed port problem. My Lyriks had it as well. Little dimple that allows air to balance between positive and negative chambers get blocked by grease. Easy fix. Let all air out of fork but not at once. Do a little then bounce fork and repeat. Once it’s all out, remove air cap. Fork will probably have sucked down. Pull fork up until full extension. Mine was really resistant to this. I had to remove wheel, put axle back in and stand on it. When you hit the balance point of the air chambers you’ll hear a massive squelch/pop. This should clear the blocked grease. Push and pull back to full extension a couple of times. Refit air cap and pump back up, bouncing on forks every 30-50 psi to balance chambers gradually.
Mine’s been fine ever since.

Not sure the 35s have a dimple, they equalise at top out.