Submitted by
eayste
a Cross Country Rider
from South Dakota Date Reviewed: July 14, 2009
Favorite Trail:
Anything with Singletrack
Duration Product Used:
3 months
Price Paid:
$350.00
Purchased At:
pricepoint.com
Strengths:
Solid control. You use all it's travel.
Nifty pump that came with it.
Weaknesses:
Tedious fine tune adjustments.
Similar Products Used:
Manitou R7 - Fox RL120 - Various headshok products
Bike Setup:
Giant Anthem
Bottom Line:
A solid XC fork. Great for XC racing or trail riding.
It took a while to get this fork set up the way I liked it.
The rebound seemed to be to fast or too slow but worked great once set. You can use all of it's travel and have great control thanks to the DAD.
Value Rating:Overall Rating:
Submitted by
breadbeard2
a Weekend Warrior
from Mandeville, La. Date Reviewed: February 11, 2009
Favorite Trail:
Dupont State Park
Duration Product Used:
3 months
Price Paid:
$435.00
Purchased At:
price point
Strengths:
Lighter than stock fork with great stiffness and cool double arch. quality lockout that actually works without failing on first big bump.
Weaknesses:
Decals seem easy to peel away.
Similar Products Used:
several crappy manitou jokes, all entry level. axel platinumwas total crap.
Bike Setup:
Hardtail Fisher with some upgrades, outlaw rims, fire pro xc panaracers, xt cranks, deore/lx shifters.
Bottom Line:
Great upgrade from broken stock crap from manitou. Was ready to go out of box for my weight, 180lbs, did add air and make few adjustments after 10 rides or so to fine tune. Easy to adjust, love the factory pump free with purchase, Gives me full travel when needed but nice and stiff over most bumps, small logs, etc. Highly recommended for anyone in under $600 range. Would buy again anyday and have heard good things about support, warranty but have had no problems myself. Double arch attracted me as I have broken two manitou forks at the arch and am in no way an extreme rider.
Value Rating:Overall Rating:
Submitted by
paintmodel
a Weekend Warrior
from Mountain View, CA Date Reviewed: August 18, 2008
Favorite Trail:
So Many To Choose From
Duration Product Used:
Less than 1 month
Price Paid:
$375.00
Purchased At:
Universal Cycles-Las
Strengths:
Stiff, Plush, Easy to set up, Drop outs, ISS design parameters
Weaknesses:
Drop Outs, Hose/Cable Guide
Similar Products Used:
03 TALAS RLC, White Bros Coil/Oil (Forgot the model number)
Bike Setup:
Ellsworth ID, Hayes Carbon disc 160mm f/r, FSA Exo Cranks, Pushed Fox Vanilla 700 lb spring, Thompson post/stem, RF bars, CK wheels and HS.
Bottom Line:
The good: great feel to fork, very linear stroke with no ramping and uses all the travel right out of the box, its very plush and responsive. Double arch behaves as claimed, very stiff in the turns. Easily tuned, just add or subtract air, not as many twiddley gadgets as Fox. Easy to adjust on the fly becuase the knobs are big and don't have to be turned very much to acutate the valves. Lightweight, mine weighed 3lbs 14oz before cutting tube, 2 oz lighter than TALAS. Good for those who like to ride hard and do moderate jumps/stunts. For me nothing over 4 feet with good runout, trails where I live most drops in the 2 to 3 foot range. White!??
The Bad and as Yet To Be Determined: Cable guide is dumb! German engineers thought this out? What good is a hose guide thats a hole in a cast stanchion? Don't they know brakes come pre-bled? You have to remove the hose from the caliper or master cylinder to use then re-bleed your brakes after installation. DUH!, hope they fix that in future models, it needs to be U-shaped with slots for zip ties. Seals seem to take a few rides to break in, until that happens you get quite a bit of oil on the stanchions. Proprietary shock pump, the instructions say that only their shock pump will actuate the positive and negative chambers in the air spring. I don't know if this is really true or not but if true limits you abilities to adjust the fork if pump gets broken, lost, or forgotton. Brake Dive; so far the only real drawback seems to be its plushness in relation to brake dive. For most fire road or open single track situations this is not an issue, your weight is far back enough that your body counteracts the shift forward, however, I haven't had this thing on really steep techincal singletrack decents where your weight shifts forward due angle of decent, braking action, and slower speeds. I can imagine getting into trouble on rough, twisty, techical descents with brake dive pushing your weight onto the handlebars and trail objects wanting to send you OTB. (Mailbox Trail) More on this once encountered. I know some of you thinking well just go faster then, not all of us are that crazed. 45 degree angle droputs create problems getting the wheel into the fork after getting the bike off the rack. I have to turn the bike over to align hub to drop-outs, pretty minor issue, only slightly annoying. White!??
Four chilli's for brake cable guide dumbness.
Value Rating:Overall Rating:
Submitted by
thebronze
a Cross Country Rider
from DFW Date Reviewed: August 15, 2008
Favorite Trail:
IDB
Duration Product Used:
3 months
Price Paid:
$300.00
Purchased At:
demo
Strengths:
Stiff, Light, Adjustable, Reliable, Support, Excellent range of damping, and finally a real live shim stack!
Weaknesses:
Price, a bit over valved for cross country
Similar Products Used:
zoke marathon s/sl/qr20/mxcomp, fox vanilla130rlc
Bike Setup:
turner 5 spot
Bottom Line:
See my post in the shock forum called "albert select tuning". There's too much info to post here about this excellent fork.
Value Rating:Overall Rating:
Submitted by
oldphaty
a Cross Country Rider
from Bozeman, MT Date Reviewed: August 6, 2008
Favorite Trail:
Top Secret
Duration Product Used:
Less than 1 month
Price Paid:
$450.00
Purchased At:
Universal Cycles
Strengths:
The Laurin 130AM is stiff and unlike the Fox Float, you get the full travel without sending the fork in to Push for an overhaul. It's also super simple to dial in with air guide on one of the legs, a knob for rebound, and the Albert Select dampening dial. You can go from lock out, to slight bump action very quickly and simply. Initially the fork seemed to leak oil, but after several rides, the residue has gone and there is no noticeable difference in performance.
Weaknesses:
None so far
Similar Products Used:
Fox Float RLC, Fox TALUS RLC
Bike Setup:
Ibis Mojo Sl, XO shifters, XO RD, XTR cranks and FD, I9 355 ultralight wheels, Magura Marta Sl brakes, pretty much a kick ass ride.
Bottom Line:
When you're tired of being on the Fox bandwagon and sending your fork in for an overhaul directly from the LBS, go with some German engineering. BMW uses Magura suspension on the GS 1200 Adventure.
Value Rating:Overall Rating:
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