Pikes or Slant?

Looking to swap my Vengeance HLR Air out for some Pikes or Slants.

Can get pikes for £535 and Slants for £320. Both brand new.

Are the pikes worth the extra £200?

Thanks

Slamts: What travel and where for £320 ? Thinking of some myself.

Will be 160 to go on my alpine.

Work in a bike shop so perks of the job etc 😉

I had the choice, but the axle to crown of the slant compared to the pikes was too high. And the internal adjustment is a pain on the slants.

Really rate my slants and 320 is a bargain. Can’t compare with the pikes as I have not tried em.

I wan’t to know the same thing but with sweeps instead of slants… I’m buying a 301 that can be altered between 140 and 160mm rear travel and i want a fork to do everything.

Video: 27.5 Fork Shootout – RockShox Pike Vs. X-Fusion Sweep

Not ridden Slants, but put Pikes on my bike recently. They are simply amazing, couldn’t fault them one bit. Stiff, plush etc

I went Slants, and very nice they are too. The conclusion I came to was that they were close enough in performance for my riding ability, the hefty extra price for the Pikes (overpriced?) wasnt worth paying. Of course if your skills warrant it, or you must have the best, the law of diminishing returns says you’ll have to pay through the nose for it!

Had some 29er dual position pike rct3 which were rather good, got some sweeps coming as trying 650 on front now, think it really comes down to price as both are very good.

Why are you ditching the Vengeance, out of interest?

Just want something lighter on the front end.

Daveh – if you think Pikes are overpriced then don’t look at the price of Fox 34’s……

Indeed, the cynic in me thinks that RS looked at what Fox were getting away with charging and thought ‘we’d like a bit of that’. Charge what you can get away with. The Slant is all the fork I could ever need, I’m simply not a good enough rider to out class it, and I’m not that shabby really.

Slants seem a no brainier for the pice

Is there much difference in damping between the two? I know the Slant has shim-stack controlled damping but not sure if it has a dual rebound circuit…

According to the back to back reviews, there’s barely anything in it between the Pike and the Sweep (the 650b slant).

I went Pike, but only because the Slant isn’t easy to reduce the travel on. 20mm increments, and if you want less you need to get the drill out. Or maybe a custom travel reducer.

Plus the a2c was a lot more than the same in a Pike, so same travel = higher ride.

Slant @ 160mm is 545mm, Pike at 160mm is 542mm I believe.

I’ve just used m10 washers to reduce the travel in a set of revelations, I’m sure the same approach would work with the Slant ladder/pin system. I know 18bikes offer to space them to whatever you fancy.

I went Pike, but only because the Slant isn’t easy to reduce the travel on. 20mm increments, and if you want less you need to get the drill out. Or maybe a custom travel reducer.

Does that mean you can reduce travel easily on the Pike? Even on the dual position one?

Dual position is meant to be easy peasy, via a crown top lever. 160/130mm via the flick of a switch with gay abandon.

If you see Dave’s comment above, he refers to the ladder and pin configuration, whereby a coiled pin is pushed into a set of 20 drilled incremental ladder holes in the air piston rod. Essentially you need someone with a bench drill to poke the pin out and push it back in.

I know suspension service chaps, who’ll get them in for you, will be able to reduce the travel. Its just not as simple as the old Fox and RS methods were… I.e. remove the air assy and pop a spacer on.

Pikes, I believe its internal spacers on the rct3, but I’ll need to be corrected if I’m wrong. They were set at 150mm anyway, which the Slants aren’t available out of the box at, its 160 or 160/130, unless you get them tuned for you.

Slants only have rebound and lickout adjust.

The Pike RCT3s have rebound, low speed compression and a 3 position platform adjust.

You’re better off comparing the Slant to a Pike RL or a sektor. (Basic damping)

Pikes, I believe its internal spacers on the rct3, but I’ll need to be corrected if I’m wrong.

The Rock Shox solo air spring cannot be adjusted by adding or taking away spacers. You need a new shorter / longer spring assembly.

You need a new shorter / longer spring assembly.

This. They’re just becoming available, £35 I think. A punch and mallet will do fine for the ladder/pin too.

As for the comparison of the damping, depends how much you twiddle/how you judge things. Pikes do have more bells and whistles, but I’m not a fan of that. I don’t need 3 settings multi-adjust, I don’t even need lockout. I had an RCT3 Revelation and didn’t use any of the different modes. I just want a well controlled damper. The only comparison I’m interested in is how the two forks compare when in open/descend mode.

[
As for the comparison of the damping, depends how much you twiddle/how you judge things. Pikes do have more bells and whistles, but I’m not a fan of that. I don’t need 3 settings multi-adjust, I don’t even need lockout. I had an RCT3 Revelation and didn’t use any of the different modes. I just want a well controlled damper. The only comparison I’m interested in is how the two forks compare when in open/descend mode.]

I’m with you on that Dave

Knobs and dials allow people to ruin (or did I mean tune?) their forks.

Rebound and lockout is fair play, adding in high speed, low speed, floodgate etc etc is pointless on a set of forks IMO, anyone who know what they’re doing is going to rip the fork apart and rejig the shims anyway. Low speed is only there so people that eat up “plush” can have it whilst retaining the ability to be setup for someone who wants something that performs well (usually not car park/show room plush).

Just features for marketing sense.

Pikes are pretty bloody awesome mind.

Busy day at Llandegla yesterday, of all the people I saw riding there was only one I think who was capable enough to require full high/low speed compression/rebound adjustment, man he was flying! Didn’t see the bike he was on as he was so fast but I bet you it was nothing fancy, he was just a very very quick rider!

I’m sure I’d balls up my forks if I had all the knobs to twiddle, there tends to be some degree of interaction between the settings so solving all the variables becomes a nightmare!

Love it – people who can’t get their heads round suspension adjustment stating that suspension doesn’t need adjustment. 😉

Yep, unless you know what you’re looking for, it can be a bit of a stab in the dark. I serviced a mates all adjustable fork once, put everything back to factory settings as a start point, and he wanted to know how i’d tuned it so well, as all his attempts at adjustment had never worked anywhere near as good 😉

Sometimes a lack of adjustment means that the manufacturer takes the time to get the damping spot on (for a target rider). When you have a huge range of adjustment – why would they bother – let the rider work it out.

Coming off years of fully adjustable forks – I’m impressed with the Slant. Damping is very good – doesn’t really need adjusting.

Bollocks. Low speed compression adjustment with a usable range is actually useful.

Most people dont have the time to reshim a pair of forks by the side of a trail to find out what works for them.

A lack of adjustment means the manufacturer will get the damping spot on for your average mtber, eg a 40 year old it support worker that weighs 15 stone. You only get spot on damping with people like push and avalanche. Thus externally adjustable forks and the use of bracketing to set them up is useful.

I’ll happily admit that as a barber I’m good at cutting hair. I send my suspension to Loco as he knows what he’s doing.

Its really not hard to twiddle low speed comp to find something you like that suits your trail.

“Its really not hard to twiddle low speed comp to find something you like that suits your trail. “

Placebo?

What happens if you ride more than one trail?
I will be going Slant for the same reasons daveh mentioned.

I thought I’d phone 18 bikes for an opinion as they sell them.

I asked him for a comparison between my current 36 Fit Floats, Slants & Pikes. He says that both are an improvement over the Fox, the Pikes are their favourite current fork but only by degrees. £200 better?

Placebo?

Erm, no!

Well OK, if I’d have had full adjustment on my revs I should have been able to get them set up as I like, fair enough. My point was that there’s a minority of mtbers who can actually make use of said adjustments, a majority who can’t, and that’s riding ability and setup knowledge. Look what fox did to their 2013 range in response to customer demands! Take an easy example, all is well with your fully adjustable fork but it bottoms out on big hits. Do you add a tad more air, fit a ‘token’ to increase the spring rate ramp, or add more HSC? Or a combination? Having done so, are you sure that the change hasn’t effected your other settings? Did you make these changes in a cold garage or out on the trail on a hot day?

I think it’s important to distinguish between damping and damping adjustability.

Dual (i.e. separate high and low) speed rebound circuits are worth having. Branded as dual-flow/rapid-recovery etc by the fork manufacturers. Allows the fork to perform better in very rocky stuff.

I’m a very average rider but I can tell when a fork has/hasn’t got this.

ime the only useful adjustment on a fork is lsc. If you need to play with hsc either you’re a riding god or you’ve cocked up the air pressure!

Suspension, it’s a big old can of worms, if you don’t know the whole story, you’re just going to make a hash of it.

Those who don’t know the whole story but are convinced they’re excellent suspension tuners, it’s either placebo or you got really, really lucky.

I’ve done a bit of suspension tuning/data logging as a student on cars, I learnt enough to learn it’s a ridiculously difficult subject when it comes to cars, a single, reasonably consistent sprung mass in terms of location and in relation to the surface.

Bikes is on a whole over planet, your body is a sprung mass supported by these infinitely adjustable spring dampers (your arms and legs), which are in turn supported by another sprung mass (the bike), on top of another spring damper (the tyres), all suspended over an unpredictable surface.

To think one click of low speed compression does anything in that picture is madness.

Agree with RicB, it’s those extra damping circuits that make a tangible difference.

Back on track, the ultimate answer is:

If you want:

– Great value for money
– Great performance
– Stiffness
– Simple servicing at home

Buy the Slant

If you want:

– Spanky looks
– Great performance
– Stiffness
– Sealed damper
– Latest tech
– People looking at your forks, and pointing, going ‘ooooo!’

Buy the Pike.

Simple 🙂

I have a slant fork and its bloody brilliant can’t fault best fork I have used and I’ve tried a few even Fox Kashima RLC . Pike is a real nice fork and does look the dogs but pricey compared to the Slant.