I’m flipping useless at spending money…

Took a punt on some new forks this morning and am having second thoughts, here’s why;

Purchased some Sektor Gold Dual Coil 150mm with 15mm Maxle with an old school 1 1/8 steerer for a bargain £250.

But since I tip the scales at over 14st even at my lightest, not including any riding gear, I’m thinking I’ll need to upgrade to a x-firm spring which looks like another £45.

But I see that Merlin have Revelation RL’s available for £309 which are Solo Air’s so will not need a spring upgrade.

Do I stick with what I’ve purchased or send them back and go for the Revelations?

What do folks think? 😕

Revs

They’re effectively the same fork chassis and damper wise, the spring side is the difference: one is air and one is coil. So do you think you’ll use the dual position? Do you prefer a potentially plusher ride (coil) or lighter (air)?

Personally I don’t think you can’t go wrong with either but, if it were me, I’d go Sektors for the coil and travel adjust

Thanks for the responses, not helping me make a decision so far with a vote each way 😉

tmb467, why Rev’s?

Nuke, I have the same thoughts and also think coils are likely to be more reliable. Not sure if I’d use the travel adjust, probably not as I’ve not got lockout on the forks they are replacing and rarely use lockout on my other bike.

I think the Revs will have a much better rebound damper either dual flow if 13 or rapid recovery if 14 model.

Frosty, the Revs do (if 2014 as advertised) appear to have better damping.

Revs – DNA Motion Control with Dig valve and Rapid Recovery rebound
Sektors – Motion Control

Revs 2 vs Sektors 1 🙂

Revs will be significantly lighter and should have better damping

Depends what you’re going to ride tho and if you prefer the feel of coil.

Does the sektor have any compression damping? Might be useful. Revs won’t really but they may be a newer design.

Revs do have the better rebound damper, which is a pretty big step up. Comp. damper is basically the same. I’d go for the Rev.

These forks will going on an older style Marin Quad Tara 2006/7 that spends the majority of the year doing nothing, but gets dusted off for a trip to Morzine/Les Gets/Chatel for some XC and mild bike park riding. It might manage a trip or two to Wales or the Lakes as well.

I’m leaning towards the Revs as it appears to be a better fork which I can fit and run without having to buy any other parts.

Revs as the damping is better (rebound mainly)
The new top caps should be available soon which will allow fitting of the air tokens to get the air spring to ramp up better too as the air spring can be a touch linear.
Have a 2 week old set of the RCT3s which had the new top cap fitted, but still need a couple of spacers to get it just so as running them at 110mm (29er) and still a touch linear with 3 tokens (can take 6 max in that spec.!)

Loads of problems with all my recent air rockshox, I’ve gone back to coil and got some dualpos coil Sektors.

The damper is not as good, but it can be upgraded if you really care enough. In my opinion the vastly better small bump handling is worth it over air.

Just a cheap reliable tough fork like the old Pike was.

The revs have been pretty reliable from all the ones we’ve seen tbh, with less issues than you would expect for the number of them about, percentage failure wise.
The 3 sets I’ve had 2012, 2013 & 2014/2015 have all been faultless

#goes to check them all as they’ll all have exploded simultainiously having said that 😉

Lol, yet more conclusive evidence of why I should buy one over the other 😉

If the Sektors didn’t need a spring upgrade then this would be an easy decision. But as I weigh at least 14st10/94kg without any riding gear I reasonable sure I’m not going to get away with the standard spring which I assume will be a medium?

With a spring upgrade the price difference between the Sektors and Revs is only £15 which makes it seem sensible to go with them….doesn’t it?

Argh! 😕

so can the damper be upgraded on a Rev? I’ve been given a set of Specialized OE Revs – RC3 and may want to upgrade the damper. Is it possible and how much is it?

Loco, I’d asked this on your contact page the other day – dunno if you’d responded!

cheers

LoCo – Member

Revs as the damping is better (rebound mainly)
The new top caps should be available soon which will allow fitting of the air tokens to get the air spring to ramp up better too as the air spring can be a touch linear.
Have a 2 week old set of the RCT3s which had the new top cap fitted, but still need a couple of spacers to get it just so as running them at 110mm (29er) and still a touch linear with 3 tokens (can take 6 max in that spec.!)

Apologies for thread highjack…..

Loco – cool – looking forward to the new top caps being available – any idea on when? And do they come with tokens too – or do I need to buy them separately? Can you update when you get some in as I’ll want two sets……..

Will they fit a 2013 Solo Air Reba? Set at 110m? I’m still struggling to tune them as I want – the correct air pressure for approx. 30% sag leaves them too soft and “divey” – to counteract that with more air they feel “dead” and” harsh”

I don’t see why anyone would opt for coil over air these days, given the performance and tunability of air springs.

So yes, I’d go for Revelations on that basis.

Coil is still better imo- I just got a set of Pikes which are supposed to be up at the top as far as performance goes, they’re brilliant forks but the spring performance just isn’t as good as my coil lyriks. I’m going to try a Sektor coil in my Revs, see how that works out.

For the OP, I’m assuming you need 150mm but if not, I’ve got a 140mm fixed length extra-stiff Sektor spring going spare.

I’ve got a set of the 2014 Revelation RLTs 1 1/8th steerer, black stanchions, crown mounted lockout, I bought them from Merlin a couple of months ago, trimmed steerer & fitted on a project but never used would like £300 with insured postage and will include original receipt.

if you are interested can provide pics this evening & measure steerer.

Slight off topic but is there no Sektors in 650b? Can’t find any and noticed the RS website shows only 26″ & 29er for the Sektor.

Thanks for the offer Northwind, the Sektors are Dual Position 150’s so not sure the spring will work, but thanks anyway.

Similarly, interesting offer Loxy and even more to confuse me!

Coil. Much better spring performance than the air, where your damper is tuned to work alongside a constipated spring. Compression damping is easily tuned on the Sektors by making small, incremental changes to the weight of damping fluid. Coils still have very much better small and mid-stroke sensitivity, more than compensating for the very small weight penalty and teh slightly less sophisticated damper. The old coil Lyrics and original Pikes are still better controlled over hard terrain than any mid-range air fork.

Slight off topic but is there no Sektors in 650b? Can’t find any and noticed the RS website shows only 26″ & 29er for the Sektor.

They definitely exist for OEM.

Coil. Much better spring performance than the air,

hmm depends on personal preference too. I’ve tried a Sketor coils which felt too linear and divey for my taste. I much prefer my dual air Revelation which has plenty of small bump compliance but ramps up nicely for larger hits and feels less divey.

I think air can deal better with the limitations of the cheapo dampers, too. (I opened up a Sector R the other day and spent some time looking for the seperate compression damper it doesn’t have)

Compression damping is easily tuned on the Sektors by making small, incremental changes to the weight of damping fluid

Doesn’t that also mess up your rebound damping as well?

Thanks for all the replies, I think so far I’ve learnt that coil is better than air expect when air is better than coil.

I think ultimately I’m going to now base my decision on the stanchion colour, so which is best; black or gold? 😉

Muuuurder!(-ed out)

😀 a murdered out Marin…do I have to black out its lights to complete the look?

I’ve put some pics here:
Revelation pics

The steerer is 228mm and they are for a 26″ wheel.

Let me know if you are interested.
Cheers

The weeds aren’t included 😉

Loxy, thanks for posting up the details but I’ll pass, good luck selling them…or riding them! 🙂

Have a set of the Rev RL’s on order, hope to get everything built and ridden this weekend.

Thanks for all the replies.