RockShok SID SL

[Webby]

Hi all,

I have spotted a hard trail XC bike with RockShok SID SL suspension that I am interested in. After
reading reports around the web I find that many comments are about the "Quality of product", such as
parts prone to failure.

I am not a full blown XC racer, but I do like to ride fast flat forest trails with no planned jumps.
As I do not intend to bash the hell out of my bike I was wondering if this reporting was due to the
way people ride or of a product on the limits of its design?

Once again I have read that this fork is well suited to people of under 80kg (176lbs), this is
another point I need advice on as I weigh 84kg (185lbs). Should I be looking for a stronger fork or
am I reading far to much into the downside of the reporting and not the positive aspects.

I'm new to the quality bike scene and have been riding a (no name) bike for far to long. Thanks
in advance.

Webby

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[S. Anderson]

I think you're reading too much into it. The Marzocchi forks are probably the benchmark these days,
but the SID's are pretty good. I worry more about maintenance than performance these days. I prefer
coil spring units since they are relatively maintenance free. I still have a bad taste in my mouth
from the old school air spring forks of old and have shied away from them ever since. IMHO, air
springs simply don't make sense in a fork. However, SID's are used by many XC racers and I'm sure
they're adequate for most uses.

Cheers,

Scott..
--
Scott Anderson

"Webby" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi all,
>
> I have spotted a hard trail XC bike with RockShok SID SL suspension that I am interested in. After
> reading reports around the web I find that many comments are about the "Quality of product", such
> as parts prone to failure.
>
> I am not a full blown XC racer, but I do like to ride fast flat forest trails with no planned
> jumps. As I do not intend to bash the hell out of my bike I was wondering if this reporting was
> due to the way people ride or of a product on the limits of its design?
>
> Once again I have read that this fork is well suited to people of under 80kg (176lbs), this is
> another point I need advice on as I weigh 84kg (185lbs). Should I be looking for a stronger fork
> or am I reading far to much into the downside of the reporting and not the positive aspects.
>
> I'm new to the quality bike scene and have been riding a (no name) bike for far to long. Thanks in
> advance.
>
> Webby
>
> --
> rec.bicycles.off-road is moderated by volunteers. To find help solving posting problems, or
> contact the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
> http://rbor.org/rbor_charter.txt
>

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the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
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[Matt O'Toole]

S. Anderson wrote:

> I think you're reading too much into it. The Marzocchi forks are probably the benchmark these
> days, but the SID's are pretty good. I worry more about maintenance than performance these days. I
> prefer coil spring units since they are relatively maintenance free. I still have a bad taste in
> my mouth from the old school air spring forks of old and have shied away from them ever since.
> IMHO, air springs simply don't make sense in a fork. However, SID's are used by many XC racers and
> I'm sure they're adequate for most uses.

I don't know what you mean by "old school," but the original Rockshox Mag series were some of the
most reliable and durable forks ever built, to this day. Since then, there have been a few
generations of absolute ****, which has improved since Marzocchi raised the bar. The original SIDs
were garbage from a reliability standpoint. The newer ones are supposedly pretty good, as are the
new Judies, Blacks, and of course, Marzocchis. However, I'm still riding around on a '96 Judy with
White Bros. guts because it's well-dialed and reliable. A set of bushings and seals once a year and
I'm good to go, with no maintenance unless I've been playing in the mud. I'm reluctant to trade it
for a devil I don't know -- even though more stiffness, a half inch more travel, and more mud
clearance would be nice.

Also, Fox air shocks for the rear have proven to be very reliable. This gives me confidence that Fox
air forks are probably great too. Apparently, a lot of people feel this way, which is why they can't
build enough of them, even at $600 a pop.

Matt O.

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rec.bicycles.off-road is moderated by volunteers. To find help solving posting problems, or contact
the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
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[S. Anderson]

Well, it never made sense to me, in a Mag 21, to put 60 or 70psi into a fork, creating huge stiction
problems. They were great for big hit stuff, but their ride quality in "normal" XC stuff was either
too stiff or too limp, mostly due to stiction limitations. The bad-taste thing was going riding with
people who had seals blow on their Mag 21's and having to ride out on a hobbled fork. They were
certainly light though, especially the Ti/Mag 21..

For me, riding a 2001 Judy XC or the like makes more sense. The worst-case scenario is you develop
an oil leak and have a messy ride home. Maintenance, for me, has been zero and it's a pretty decent
performing fork.

Cheers,

Scott..
--
Scott Anderson

"Matt O'Toole" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> I don't know what you mean by "old school," but the original Rockshox Mag series were some of the
> most reliable and durable forks ever built, to
this
> day. Since then, there have been a few generations of absolute ****,
which
> has improved since Marzocchi raised the bar. The original SIDs were garbage from a reliability
> standpoint. The newer ones are supposedly pretty good, as are the new Judies, Blacks, and of
> course, Marzocchis. However, I'm still riding around on a '96 Judy with White Bros. guts because
> it's well-dialed and reliable. A set of bushings and seals once a year and I'm good to go, with no
> maintenance unless I've been playing in the mud. I'm reluctant to trade it for a devil I don't
> know -- even
though
> more stiffness, a half inch more travel, and more mud clearance would be nice.
>
> Also, Fox air shocks for the rear have proven to be very reliable. This gives me confidence that
> Fox air forks are probably great too.
Apparently,
> a lot of people feel this way, which is why they can't build enough of them, even at $600 a pop.
>
> Matt O.
>
> --
> rec.bicycles.off-road is moderated by volunteers. To find help solving posting problems, or
> contact the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
> http://rbor.org/rbor_charter.txt

 

[B A R R Y B U R]

Matt O'Toole wrote:
>
> The newer ones are supposedly pretty good, as are the new Judies, Blacks, and of course,
> Marzocchis. However, I'm still riding around on a '96 Judy with White Bros. guts because it's
> well-dialed and reliable.

I hope you have a parts source, as the LBS I work at has never had good luck getting Rock Shox
parts. This goes double for forks over 2-3 years old.

And FWIW, Blacks are such fine products that Rocky Mountain Bikes actually sent out brand new
Marzocchi Z1's to some existing 2002 Switch owners. The scene at the 2002 New England Pedrsofest was
hilarous when the Manitou support truck showed up, a day and a half late, and immediately was
SWAMPED by people wanting rebuilds on Black forks. <G> Oddly enough, the other suspension
manufacturers didn't seem to have many people showing up with broken products.

Barry

n

 

[S. Anderson]

Yeah, the Rock Shox parts dilemma was especially poor here in Canada for some time. There were
distributor problems and Rock Shox' recent ownership change as well. The situation is better now,
but I don't know how much better. I had a Manitou 4 for 6 years and it was a decent fork for it's
time. When I bought my new bike I ended up with a Rock Shox Judy XC with Hyrdacoil and dual springs
and it's a nice fork IMHO. Little maintenance so far, knock on wood, and a huge improvement over the
Manitou 4 (of course!). But, knowing there were problems with early Judy's, I've been secretly
thinking that a Marzocchi is in my future one day...

Cheers,

Scott..
--
Scott Anderson

"B a r r y B u r k e J r ." <"keep it in the newsgroup "@thankyou.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> I hope you have a parts source, as the LBS I work at has never had good luck getting Rock Shox
> parts. This goes double for forks over 2-3 years old.
>
> And FWIW, Blacks are such fine products that Rocky Mountain Bikes actually sent out brand new
> Marzocchi Z1's to some existing 2002 Switch owners. The scene at the 2002 New England Pedrsofest
> was hilarous when the Manitou support truck showed up, a day and a half late, and immediately was
> SWAMPED by people wanting rebuilds on Black forks. <G> Oddly enough, the other suspension
> manufacturers didn't seem to have many people showing up with broken products.
>
> Barry
>
> n

 

[Matt O'Toole]

B a r r y B u r k e J r . wrote:

> Matt O'Toole wrote:
>>
>> The newer ones are supposedly pretty good, as are the new Judies, Blacks, and of course,
>> Marzocchis. However, I'm still riding around on a '96 Judy with White Bros. guts because it's
>> well-dialed and reliable.
>
> I hope you have a parts source, as the LBS I work at has never had good luck getting Rock Shox
> parts. This goes double for forks over 2-3 years old.

Rockshox has always been terrible about answering their phones, returning phone calls, reps showing
up with the goods, etc. I don't know how anyone can run a business being that flaky, but they do.

So, since the parts were cheap anyway, I bought a bunch of bushings and seals to keep me going for
several years. Also, there are tons of these old Judies and parts available used, so there's no
trouble getting stanchions, steerers, etc. I'm not so confident in newer stuff, which comes and goes
so frequently that being orphaned is more likely.

> And FWIW, Blacks are such fine products that Rocky Mountain Bikes actually sent out brand new
> Marzocchi Z1's to some existing 2002 Switch owners. The scene at the 2002 New England Pedrsofest
> was hilarous when the Manitou support truck showed up, a day and a half late, and immediately was
> SWAMPED by people wanting rebuilds on Black forks. <G> Oddly enough, the other suspension
> manufacturers didn't seem to have many people showing up with broken products.

I haven't heard that, but I wouldn't doubt it either.

Matt O.

 

[Matt O'Toole]

S. Anderson wrote:

> Well, it never made sense to me, in a Mag 21, to put 60 or 70psi into a fork, creating huge
> stiction problems. They were great for big hit stuff, but their ride quality in "normal" XC stuff
> was either too stiff or too limp, mostly due to stiction limitations.

It had nothing to do with seal stiction. The forks were rigid except for big hits by design, via a
blow-off valve. This is because racers and racer wannabes were convinced that their tremendous
horsepower was being sapped by forks bobbing up and down. Keep in mind that this was the first
mass-market suspension fork, and suspension itself was a controversial subject. Rockshox responded
to the retrogrouches by putting in a blow-off valve, so you could adjust the point at which the
forks would start to move. The original Rockshox, the black ones with the pink lettering, had no
blow-off valve, and were very plush indeed. So were the special Bontrager-modified Mags that had no
blow-off valve. Any stiction that occurred on these forks was because they were too flexy, which
caused them to bind.

> The bad-taste thing was going riding with people who had seals blow on their Mag 21's and having
> to ride out on a hobbled fork.

It happened occasionally, but was really pretty rare. Rockshox Mags were very reliable, and fairly
maintenance free forks, even by today's standards.

> They were certainly light though, especially the Ti/Mag 21..

...but too flexy, especially the ones with aluminum stanchions, like that Ti model (which had Ti
bolts, whoopee). In fact, riders in-the-know sought out the "cheapo" OEM forks or even Mag 10s,
which had stiffer, steel stanchions. They were a few ounces heavier, but worked a lot better.

As I mentioned, the flex caused the forks to bind. Also a problem was that the bushings were too
close together. The Judy solved these problems with fatter, stiffer stanchion tubes, and bushings
that were further apart, like a Manitou's. This explains the Manitou-like appearance, with the
fat-to-the-bottom lower legs and offset provided by a tab, rather than the inline design of the Mag.
Since then, fork tubes have gotten even fatter and stiffer, becoming even smoother and more
precise-steering. A Judy seems stiff enough, until you get on a Fox.

> For me, riding a 2001 Judy XC or the like makes more sense. The worst-case scenario is you develop
> an oil leak and have a messy ride home. Maintenance, for me, has been zero and it's a pretty
> decent performing fork.

Yup, and if you really trash it, you can pick up another from Supergo or ebay for a hundred bucks.

What's scary is that I have about $500 invested in a '96 Judy XC -- they cost $325 when they came
out, plus another $150-200 for an aftermarket cartridge and coil springs. Like computers, this stuff
gets better and cheaper every year.

But the White Bros. cartridge I have has been absolutely dead reliable. I've only opened it a couple
of times in 6 years, mostly to experiment with different oil viscosities. The things that wear out
in in my Judy are the seals and bushings, which last about a year if I'm riding a lot. Wet
conditions are what really does them in. If you hear water in your fork, you need to take it apart
and clean it. This is very easy with the Judy. I also dump a bunch of Phil Wood oil in there to keep
the bushings wet -- it does a better job than plain grease, which gets scraped dry.

Matt O.

 

[Dave Wissenbach]

I've got a SID XC on my bike and have had no problems, once I set it up for long travel. Because I
weigh 195 pounds, I changed the damping oil to 15 wt Belkin motorcycle fork oil, which seems about
right. (The shop that put it on set it up for the short travel option, contrary to my instructions.
The owners have since sold the shop--their reputation was so bad that the new owner had to change
the name!). I bought the fork on a recommendation of a friend who installed on on his bicycle, and
he has had no problems either.

This fork works very well. I think that people who think that the fork is weak or wobbly are
mistaking the very compliant movement of the forks over small bumps for flexing.

"Webby" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi all,
>
> I have spotted a hard trail XC bike with RockShok SID SL suspension that I am interested in. After
> reading reports around the web I find that many comments are about the "Quality of product", such
> as parts prone to failure.
>
> I am not a full blown XC racer, but I do like to ride fast flat forest trails with no planned
> jumps. As I do not intend to bash the hell out of my bike I was wondering if this reporting was
> due to the way people ride or of a product on the limits of its design?
>
> Once again I have read that this fork is well suited to people of under 80kg (176lbs), this is
> another point I need advice on as I weigh 84kg (185lbs). Should I be looking for a stronger fork
> or am I reading far to much into the downside of the reporting and not the positive aspects.
>
> I'm new to the quality bike scene and have been riding a (no name) bike for far to long. Thanks in
> advance.
>
> Webby
>
> --
> rec.bicycles.off-road is moderated by volunteers. To find help solving posting problems, or
> contact the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
> http://rbor.org/rbor_charter.txt
>

--
rec.bicycles.off-road is moderated by volunteers. To find help solving posting problems, or contact
the moderators, please see http://rbor.org/ Please read the charter before posting:
http://rbor.org/rbor_charter.txt