What fork for XC racing?

jamesbullen

I am currently building up a light weight high spec hard tail for long distance XC racing in Malaysia. I am looking at various fork options.

I have always used Fox and was looking at the Fox F100 RLC but have been told Fox are not as reliable as they were a few years ago and are prone to leaking. Is this true? I have also been looking at 3 other fork options. Rockshock Sid worldcup; Rockshock Reba world cup; Manitou R7 platinum. If any one can give me feed back on these forks it would be great.

davebee

SID's are very light but tend to be a bit flexy. Rebas are stiffer but have a small weight penalty. The Reba is a very tuneable fork which is useful if you are very light/heavy and are fussy about how you like the fork set up. The Fox's have a reputation for being supreme while they work but do tend to leak/ require more regular maintenance even though on the face they use higher quality components than rockshox. They are also considerabyl more expensive. Don't know about the Manitu forks, but they tend not to be very well received in the UK. Unless you are an elite racer and get your kit paid for by a sponsor I wouldnt bother with the world cup version of the rockshox and would go down a step or two and get the race or team version which is virtually the same fork albeit slightly heavier. (Of cours eif you were an elite racer, you probably wouldn't be asking this question on a web forum) The benefit doesn't seem to be worth the huge price increase between the ranges as you can make bigger weight savings elsewhere on the bike for the money that you save in the form of lighter wheels/finishing kit.

AngoXC

Out of all of them, I think the Reba works out on top purely because we all know Fox tend to be a little pricy. They are magnificant forks (when set up correctly of course)...no quams whatsoever about them. I ran SIDs for ages and they were very flexy.

In regards to Davebee's comments bout maintenence, Ive found that the Rock Shox needs much more frequent attention to keep it working in tip-top order if compared to say the F100...the Fox was able to go longer and at the same performance without the need for a service.