Rockshox Upside Down Carbon Rigid Teaser Pic?

I think it’s a SID replacement. Ultra light weight carbon crown with the strength and weight advantages of a USD fork.

Probably works best with a spike-equipped 800mm-long reverb. 😈

LoCo – Member

However referencing by eye the stantion diameter to lower steerer tube diameter the stantion (actual) slider, from the picture above would be about 38mm, which bring into question weight etc.
This is starting to annoy me know
Doing it in photoshop, I get 32mm stanchions.
top of steerer is 85px, stanchion is 95px

shouldn’t it read
“The Re-release of RS-1”
I thought their first ever fork was the RS-1

read it in order…

Who cares? Ditto re road. Who cares? The majority of consumers/users of bikes don’t race under UCI regs, so can use what they want. A USD road/cross fork would be lovely on a tracks and trails CX bike.

Even if it is a 29er xc fork, if it’s a light weight SID then why not stick it on a disc CX bike. It’d be more down to makers of CX bikes to produce a frame that worked well with a sus fork a2c.

.

A suspension fork equipped cx bike? So kinda like a mountain bike then.

You could also put wider, straighter bars on it, oh and fatter tyres too.

Well the ‘Everything Changes’ image just shows it on a ‘normal’ hardtail mountain bike.

I’m interested to see what they’ve done at the axle end.

Crown area on it looks very wide to be a CX or a road fork.

I think it’s a SID replacement. Ultra light weight carbon crown with the strength and weight advantages of a USD fork.

That would be awesome. The RAC was meant to exist in a silly lightweight XC variant too, but they never managed it.

How much though? I’m guessing mucho ££.

I reckon they missed a trick and should have released all the details today as it is the first day of spring.

I reckon at the bottom of the fork is going to be a new wheel size, the new 6″ format.

Who cares? Ditto re road. Who cares? The majority of consumers/users of bikes don’t race under UCI regs, so can use what they want. A USD road/cross fork would be lovely on a tracks and trails CX bike.

You do realise that XC mountainbikes and CX bikes only exist because the UCI says they’re different? CX bikes are banned from having flat bars and tyres wider than thirtysomething-mm, XC bikes are banned from having drop bars.

Given a totaly free choice I reckon CX would be more like a cross frame is now, just longer with flat bars.

Pinkbike making the same conclusions as AlexSimons pic

Is that 20mm? And are the hub flanges different sizes or is it a weird perspective

Read from the bottom up:
“In 1989 RockShox turned the world of mountain biking upside down, with the release of RS-1. History has a way of repeating itself.”

Does that say ‘predictive steering’ on the hub?

Does that say ‘predictive steering’ on the hub?

It may well be yet another front axle standard. Possibly keyed/ splined, or similar, to help with torsional stiffness of the fork.

God knows you couldn’t blame Rockshox for that, they had the best through-axle format so far and pushed it as hard as they can then had to switch over to something that’s worse in every way because of OEM pressure… So you couldn’t really blame them for offering a 650b axle out of spite.

when are they going to shut the **** up and just take my money!

that brake post looks a bit flexy!

Cool, looking forward to getting my hands on a set of these and to find out how flexy they are…

Why are upside down forks better than ‘normal’ ones which seem to be the norm? Or is it change for changes sake? I would have thought the stanchions are much more likely to get damaged down there and more chance of crap getting in the seals?

Unsprung mass innit

I think the main advantages are less unsprung weight and gravity helping lubricate the seals.

Why are upside down forks better than ‘normal’ ones which seem to be the norm? Or is it change for changes sake? I would have thought the stanchions are much more likely to get damaged down there and more chance of crap getting in the seals?

They’re better because the oil sit’s on the seals and bushings where it’s needed, not sloshing about at the bottom of the ‘lowers’. The seals actualy get less dirt as it just falls away from them, and any that does stick is wiped off by the seal and falls away, rather than accumulating by the brace/arch. Stanchion damage is usualy mitigated by plastic covers covering all but the back.

Unsprung mass innit

depends on the damper, if the oil and damper are in the shaft as normal for modern conventional forks then actualy it maybe higher as the biger heavyer dropouts, hub and axle plus the weight of the oil are all unsprung.

I guess they could be theoretically stiffer as well, the carbon crown on rock shock sids is by their own admission 10-15″ less rigid than the aluminium version. By having the fatter outer tubes at the top they should be able to make a stiffer in all one peice unit. (this is complete guesswork of course I have no actually knowledge of these manufacturing and design processes)

To stiffen an USD fork you need some sort of arch, like Emerald use on the EVO. Without they are torsionally weak, unless of course you have a huge stiff axle with a massive clamping interface, but even then they won’t be stiffer than the same normal fork.

they won’t be stiffer than the same normal fork

Again, only torsionally. Having run Maverick DUCs for 7 or 8 years now, I can say that it’s only one factor of stiffness.

edit: oh and the stanchions are still perfect. The guards do a great job.
That’s why these interest me. I think upside-down forks are under-appreciated.

Unsprung mass innit

It’s ‘cos they look more like motorbike forks, surely?

Muchos short travel there.

BMX forks innit blad…

Actually im saying its above the SID

Can’t see anywhere to put guards, which is a bit odd

To stiffen an USD fork you need some sort of arch, like Emerald use on the EVO. Without they are torsionally weak, unless of course you have a huge stiff axle with a massive clamping interface, but even then they won’t be stiffer than the same normal fork.

i had Marzocchi RACs felt stiff enough to me – I’m sure there was stories knocking about at the time that they were too stiff and put load through the frame?

Brant had some as well around the same time IIRC?

I reckon teasers ahead of 1st April 😉

Brant had some as well around the same time IIRC?

Beckoning cat welcomes RS-1[/url]

thought so 😀

Ok, so we’ve run out of wheel sizes and the marketing guys have decided that we now all need upside down forks – brilliant! The formula seems to be; think of something that has been like that for as long as you can remember, flip it on its head and convince the world we’ve been doing it wrong all along.

So what’s predictive steering then? Some sort of movement or spring in the axle/
bearings?