Submitted by
khaytsus
a Cross Country Rider
from Lexington, KY
Date Reviewed: February 19, 2012
Strengths: Almost No Maintenance Required, Bombproof, Reliability, Good Looks
Weaknesses: Travel (compared to 2012 shocks), Elastomers
Bottom Line:
I purchased this shock in around 1996 to put on my '94 Cannondale M400 and it's been great ever since. In 1998 or so I swapped out the elastomers for Englund Total Air and instantly transformed it into a plush and better dampened experience. Maintenance was still nearly zero, only needed to top off the air in the air cartridges around once a week, maybe once a year a 30-45 minute take apart and relube.
The Total Air's lasted until around 2002 when I started having problems with them blowing out, and after replacing all of the o-rings and riding them a bit more, one side exploded, so back to elastomers. In 2011 the original elastomers were completely dead, so I replaced them and rode on. In early 2012 I've gotten a new bike and plan to convert the M400 into a work commute bike, slicks, maybe fenders etc. All in all I got around 8000-10000 miles on the shock, perhaps 30% of those on trails, and zero problems out of the shock. It still looks brand new today, with the exception of where brake cables have over time etched into the crown a bit. The stansions always had Lizard Skin boots on them and look new to this day, no scratches, original gold finish.
I expect that the MCU's will again give out in some time in the future but until that happens I expect the Manitou 4 will continue to rock on for me. Best investment I ever made, I can only hope my new bike with a Rock Shox Recon Silver is only close to as reliable as my Manitou 4 has been.
Similar Products Used: Rock Shox Recon Silver TK/R
Bike Setup: 1994 Cannondale M400 Hardtail
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Submitted by
oldschoolmtnbkr
a Weekend Warrior
from San Antonio, TX
Date Reviewed: March 4, 2010
Strengths: Product it self. Light weight 2.7 lbs. Almost maintenance free.
Weaknesses: none. However, not designed for heavy weight riders. 175lbs and below should get the best out of elastomer performance.
Bottom Line:
Excellent fork for non-mechanic oriented mtn bikers. Did numerous races to include 2007 Chupacabaras 100km with a 13 yr old bike and fork. Basic maintenance (replace and lube elastomers). After 16 yrs fork is still going strong. Looks!! who cares. Travel?? who knows how much travel is realy used from current fork!!. this is more than enought
Strongly recomended if you can get your hands on one and don't mind looks or age. Worked at a bike shop for 3 yrs and this was by far the best product.
Bought used from a friend about 1994. It's 2009 and I'm rebuilding it for the first time. Love this fork. Found some new elastomers and suspensionforkparts.com
Yahoo! Looks great on vintage mid 90s bike.
Submitted by
Jason Smith
a Weekend Warrior
from Da Wood, GA
Date Reviewed: March 6, 2007
Strengths: Beautiful CNCing. Late 90's graphics are rad! Siplicity rocks and it lasted the better part of a decade.
Weaknesses: I never had a single problem with this shock until finally the elastomer wore out on me and i was getting zero travel. what can you expect after 10 years?
Bottom Line:
Great fork in its day. Serious bling back in the late 90s. Now it just looks cool in my garage. The simplicity of this thing is what made it great. To bad today's forks are so complicated and unreliable. Like another review said, guess thats the cost of progress
Bike Setup: Steel hardtail now running RS Tora up front.
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Submitted by
John
a Cross Country Rider
from Cyprus
Date Reviewed: May 23, 2004
Strengths: This is also a review for the UK made Smokestone Mudmonster Fullsuspension. Got the Man.4 with this bike, and still these days, this is a masterpiece of bike.
Weaknesses: Expensive
Bottom Line:
This fork came as the then top-of-the-line fork with my UK made Smokestone Mudmonster. The Mud-Monster was the ultimate full suspension bike in the late 90's in Great-Britain. It had a very sad history, as the back suspension was a break-through in invention, and an US Company bought the rights to get it off the market for some strange competitive reasons. So only very few mudmonsters were sold, and they have more than cultstatus these days and are highly sought after collectors items as well. The frame was made of 6005 aluminium like a piece of art. Great perfection and what really was the eye-catcher was this utmost clever back-suspension, which was a true invention, and a typical example of british understatement in mastery. Maybe this sounds like a rave-review, but it isn't, its just the truth! The bike is anyway not available anymore, I haven't even found it in search machines, that rare it is now. The last one I saw went in UK ebay for a stunning high sum, but.... as I said, this is now a collectors item. I just felt the need to write something about this bike and the sad history surrounding it.
Similar Products Used: GT-Timberline, Rotwild (Germany custom-made bike), Marin Bearvalley, and many others
Bike Setup: XT-Shifters, XT-Brakes, XT-Hubs, Mavic SUP 121 ceramic, XTR derailleur and so on....
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Submitted by
Andrew
a Cross Country Rider
from Atlanta
Date Reviewed: January 23, 2004
Strengths: I've had this fork for almost 10 years and it's still the sexiest beast around. I recently replaced the "original" elastomers with steroid-injected MCU's and now I have the toughest 2 inches of travel around. I'm not a downhill/extreme rider so this is all I need on my hardtail.
Weaknesses: Short travel. Not for hard-core riding. You wouldn't take your Bentley four wheeling.
Strengths: Suspension is firm, materials, build quality
Weaknesses: No pick up for a disc but hé, that's not its fault
Bottom Line:
I realy can't say a lot about this fork. I just purchased the bike. It's all old school but i'm so well chuffed with it that I had to write something about the fork. It's all CNC machinery. A sort of CNC art. I know I will sound like an old fart when i say: "they don't make em like this these days". But in this category they don't. It hase become too expensive. Things come and go except for this fork. It has come but it'll never go.
Bike Setup: Balance AL550, everthing shimano LX and some dia comp components. Only done 500 miles
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Submitted by
Crazy Mike
a Cross Country Rider
from The Netherlands
Date Reviewed: April 4, 2002
Strengths: A true classic. Beautiful CNC machining, inside and out. Lightweight, and very nice on an older hardtail that needs a fork that's not al tall as the current models. Extremely easy to service. This was a big reason why I got it in the first place. Not a Rock-Shox ;-)
Weaknesses: A little flexy, seals really aren't good enough to keep the mud out, so need to keep the boots on when trail conditions are bad. Elastomers just don't cut it anymore these days.
Bottom Line:
I dumped the original internals of this fork and put in Englunds (total air technology) instead. Removed the cable guide and polished the brace. Replaced the OEM steel steerer with the aluminum one from my EFC, and pressed some extra O-rings underneath the dustwipers to act as extra seals. The fork works beautifully and weighs in at 1275 grams - lighter than a SID. The fact that this fork is not as tall as most modern forks means it's perfect for my non-suspension corrected hardtail, a Miyata Elevation 5'000 that's still a mean beast after all these years. I would like to give it 5 chilies in both departments, but with the stock internals and those inadequate dustwipers, it gets no higher than 3 overall. I would give mine 4 because of the Englunds, still losing one due to the dustwiper problem. (But then again, if you leave the boots on, it should be fine).
Similar Products Used: Manitou EFC, RST 460, AMP F4-BLT, Suntour SR-72, Rond O24U, modified RST Aerosa AET.
Bike Setup: 1991 Miyata Elevation 5'000. All classic parts 1991-1996 except for the brakes which are vee's
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Submitted by
A G
a Cross Country Rider
from San Diego
Date Reviewed: January 12, 2002
Strengths: Fantastic on the small stuff, great on the medium stuff, OK on the large stuff (I'm not really concerned with big hits). Simplicity, ease of maitenance
Bottom Line:
This fork is a true CLASSIC. Great for XC. Over the 5 yrs that I've had the fork my weight has fluctuated between 190-210, and I ride hard!!! I have replaced ever single component, including the frame. The fork stays!! I have replaced the elastomers once!
Submitted by
Nick
a Cross Country Rider
from Tempe, AZ
Date Reviewed: July 31, 2001
Strengths: Decent durability- I rode mine for 4 years, and I wasn't even the original owner. Good damping. Mine was cheap, but I don't know anything about the original price.
Weaknesses: Short travel, and heavy. Lots of flex.
Bottom Line:
Mine took me all over the country- Utah, Illinois, Tennesee, Wisconsin, and I never had any problems using it for cross country. It has a good feel to it, little or no maintenance is required, and you aren't going to end up leaking oil all over the place and riding home on a bottomed-out fork. Plus there's a fun whooshing noise when it compresses. However, after all those years of riding, I went to do an 18" sidehop drop.. CRACK. I couldn't figure out what had cracked on my bike from looking at it, so I decided I might as well break it the rest of the way so it wouldn't happen when I wasn't expecting it. This time both fork stanchions snapped where they enter the crown. At least I was expecting it. 4 years seems to be a reasonable amount of life for a big (180#) guy like me, if you can stand the limited travel.
Similar Products Used: Manitou Spdyer, Marzocchi Z4
Bike Setup: Steel hardtail
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Submitted by
Matt N.
a Cross Country Rider
from Flemington, NJ
Date Reviewed: July 18, 2001
Strengths: Simple, reliable design.
Weaknesses: Heavy (for its time), flexy.
Bottom Line:
Simple technology (elastomers) with major limitations of flexiness (too soft for riders over 160 lbs) and really stiff second half of travel.
I had far more problems with subsequent Manitous though than with this fork. The price of "progress," I guess. Why is it that in recent years forks have gotten simultaneously much heavier, more expensive, and less reliable? Three flames for not being any of these.
Similar Products Used: Manitou III, Mach 5 SX, 2000 SXR, most Rock Shox
Bike Setup: Fisher Supercaliber, SXR with Englund kit, King HS, Syncros stem, Bontrager Ti bar & barends, XTR drivetrain/levers/V-brake, White Industries/Syncros/DT Revolution/Rigida carbide rims, Mythos XC, Salsa Flip-Offs, Race Face cranks, World Class Ti BB, Easton CT2 post, Avocet 02r Kevlar, King cage.
Weaknesses: Limited in adjustments, no rebound control. Over the years the fork has become very very flexy.
Bottom Line:
The fork has been very good it takes punishment well and requires very little to keep it maintained. Unfortunately it is beginning to show a lot of flex especially at low speed in technical terrian. The brake pads begin to touch the rim in this type of riding. I would probably keep riding it if it were not for the flex and the fact that it's getting harder to find elastomers.
Weaknesses: Lonely. They need to make these again (something similar, anyway).
Bottom Line:
They certainly don't make forks like this anymore. For good reason. No company could afford to! All CNC'd... this fork gives me wood. I'm going to get a bunch of em.
Bike Setup: Trimble #196, Original XTR, USE, FSA, & Salsa goodies, Mavic USTs. 20.5 lbs, & tough as nails. This bike kicks my ass.
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Submitted by
Ryan M.
a Weekend Warrior
from St. Pete, FL
Date Reviewed: June 24, 2000
Strengths: Price nowadays :) easy to rebuild Looks
Weaknesses: None for how old the technology is
Bottom Line:
This bike came with my used '95 stumpjumper comp. I guess it was my first suspension fork but compared to 2000 Rock Shock forks it's quite to contender for being 5 years old! Great beginner fork although i ride it with xtr/spin etc. stuff i should probably upgrade my fork now.
