I've just posted a review of the new SR Suntour XCR Air fork redesigned for 2016 at Product Review: 2016 SR Suntour XCR Air 24" Fork ? DIRT MERCHANT BIKES
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Review of the new 2016 SR Suntour XCR Air 24" Fork
Spectre
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Did you have to pay customs when the fork was shipped? I'm debating whether to purchase from bike-discount.de, but I'm not sure how it will all work.
I bought about $300 worth of parts off bike-discount.de last year and did not pay any import duties. YMMV.
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No customs for me either. Took a bit of time after the handoff to us customs, but no customs Fee.
Nick,
Thanks for this info. You guys to my knowledge are the only ones with a 24" fork with magnesium lowers! It's a shame you offset the weight savings with steel stanchions though and personally don't see this as an upgrade when a magnet sticks to it.
Most of us are trying to reduce weight of our $400-500 kids bikes as a priority while still having good suspension performance. I think most would agree and pay a bit more for an aftermarket aluminum stanchion fork if you can get it in the 1500 gram range.
Cheers!
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Just out of curiousity. How much would you be willing to pay for a 24" fork with aluminum stanchions in the 1500 gram range? I think getting a big enough customer base for a 24" kids fork could be driving target pricing down when considering construction of these forks.Nick,
Thanks for this info. You guys to my knowledge are the only ones with a 24" fork with magnesium lowers! It's a shame you offset the weight savings with steel stanchions though and personally don't see this as an upgrade when a magnet sticks to it.
Most of us are trying to reduce weight of our $400-500 kids bikes as a priority while still having good suspension performance. I think most would agree and pay a bit more for an aftermarket aluminum stanchion fork if you can get it in the 1500 gram range.
Cheers!
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1,111 Posts
Yeah, that's the big question. If the bike itself is in the $400-500, are people going to be willing to pay near that cost for a fork alone? It's tough in a market where they outgrow stuff so fast.
I just weighed my sons stock hotrock OEM Suntour 24" fork. With nothing attached, it weighs 2270g. My younger sons 20" OEM hotrock suntour is 2120g. If this fork is coming in at 1835g, that's a substantial weight difference along with the performance difference. I'll definitely be interested in this when my youngest moves up.
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That has been my experience as well with the fork on my son's bike. In theory, it would be nice to make the bike lighter overall. In practice, he is quite fast already on both climbs and descents with the bike set up as it is. Could he be even faster on an even lighter bike? Maybe. Am I willing to spend another several hundred dollars to get the bike to that point? Not really.The CFO approved a certain budget for my son's bike and I'm pushing that budget already.
I think weight is important up to a certain point after which there are diminishing returns. In my opinion, bike geometry might actually be an equally important if not a more important factor. I believe a lot of folks key in on weight mainly because weight is something that can be quantified whereas handling is more subjective.
I think weight is important up to a certain point after which there are diminishing returns. In my opinion, bike geometry might actually be an equally important if not a more important factor. I believe a lot of folks key in on weight mainly because weight is something that can be quantified whereas handling is more subjective.
Weight is something you can actually do something about and there are a lot of ways to go about reducing it (though the benefits gained are not necessarily proportional to the cost). The only way you can change geo is with a different frame.
I agree with you though, weight is probably over-emphasized. I haven't 100% made up my mind yet what my son's 20" bike is going to be, but geo is my #1 consideration.
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BTW, Marins are pretty good for an affordable option.
Right now Spawn Cycles has a sale on their Savage 20 @ $510. I'd go that route for an extra $100 over the Marin and gain so much more cool stuff. Legit freehub and cassette, disc brakes, good tires, etc. The Marin is a fine bike and I built my son one 4 years ago but a lot has happened in 4 years. Kids bikes have gotten so much more cool with a lot more options.
Well, I paid about $300 for and RST F!rst 24 close to 2 years ago with shipping (exchange rate was way worse) on a $470 bike. So If I am buying stuff from Germany, I am sure others are as well and there must be a market, though small one. Looking at the specs, it looks like the RST 24 is magnesium lowers as well. I thought they are aluminum.
no cause I'm in the UK
$190 given thats the cost of the RST F1RST air 24 @1600g alu steerer,crown and stantions with magnesium cast lowers, adustable rebound and compression damping. That price includes delivery charge
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I'll answer your question in 3 parts.
First. We wanted to make a fork ultimately that was affordable (this is our general goal with 99% of our fork line) and we don't see end users spending much more than $250.00+ on a new fork for a $650.00 or less bicycle. Hitting a sub $200.00 was the goal. So the cost vs. performance was to great to meet our goals. The aluminum construction would add significant cost to the fork but only save 100g. We are using a light weight steel here for strength and cost. As the kids market grows we will offer more options down the road but this is what we feel to be a good balance of weight, performance and value.
Second. We do offer a sub 1450g fork. It's a Axon WERX 20. To get the fork down in such a low weight we had to use our carbon fiber lower casting, aluminum butted stanchions and a hollow crown. We made a small batch and these forks sold for well over a $1000.00. The XCR has the same air spring assembly giving great rider adjustments in a usable range for light weight riders.
Third. In all my years of riding with kids, never have they asked or whined about a bike being too heavy. Especially with all the newer bikes that have dropped excessive frame weights. Cleary is one of those brands. Worrying about weight and component specs is only for us older kids to complain about : ) In my personal experience kids are more interested in getting dirty and not shifting their gears!
Cheers.
Nick.
nmoore@srsuntourna.com
BTW. These forks are leaving Taiwan for our distribution center early next month and we plan to be able to ship at the end of February.
First. We wanted to make a fork ultimately that was affordable (this is our general goal with 99% of our fork line) and we don't see end users spending much more than $250.00+ on a new fork for a $650.00 or less bicycle. Hitting a sub $200.00 was the goal. So the cost vs. performance was to great to meet our goals. The aluminum construction would add significant cost to the fork but only save 100g. We are using a light weight steel here for strength and cost. As the kids market grows we will offer more options down the road but this is what we feel to be a good balance of weight, performance and value.
Second. We do offer a sub 1450g fork. It's a Axon WERX 20. To get the fork down in such a low weight we had to use our carbon fiber lower casting, aluminum butted stanchions and a hollow crown. We made a small batch and these forks sold for well over a $1000.00. The XCR has the same air spring assembly giving great rider adjustments in a usable range for light weight riders.
Third. In all my years of riding with kids, never have they asked or whined about a bike being too heavy. Especially with all the newer bikes that have dropped excessive frame weights. Cleary is one of those brands. Worrying about weight and component specs is only for us older kids to complain about : ) In my personal experience kids are more interested in getting dirty and not shifting their gears!
Cheers.
Nick.
nmoore@srsuntourna.com
BTW. These forks are leaving Taiwan for our distribution center early next month and we plan to be able to ship at the end of February.
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Nick,
Two questions:
1. Is the Axon WERX available in the 24" wheel size? My understanding is that it was only for the 20" wheel size.
2. When you say 'These forks are leaving Taiwan for our distribution center early next month and we plan to be able to ship at the end of February.', do you mean the Axon WERX forks or the XCR Air forks?
Two questions:
1. Is the Axon WERX available in the 24" wheel size? My understanding is that it was only for the 20" wheel size.
2. When you say 'These forks are leaving Taiwan for our distribution center early next month and we plan to be able to ship at the end of February.', do you mean the Axon WERX forks or the XCR Air forks?
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@dirt merchant
I should have mentioned the Axon is only available in 20" and that further points to how difficult it is to shed grams. Even with a smaller wheel size we were only able to get it below that 1450g mark. Granted it includes an uncut steerer and a 68g thru axle but you get the general point.
We'll have a very limited run of Axon Werx 20" forks. We only manufacture them 100 at a time due to cost and overall demand.
SF16 XCR LO DS AIR 24 wIll be here as well for deliveries to take place end of February.
Cheers.
I should have mentioned the Axon is only available in 20" and that further points to how difficult it is to shed grams. Even with a smaller wheel size we were only able to get it below that 1450g mark. Granted it includes an uncut steerer and a 68g thru axle but you get the general point.
We'll have a very limited run of Axon Werx 20" forks. We only manufacture them 100 at a time due to cost and overall demand.
SF16 XCR LO DS AIR 24 wIll be here as well for deliveries to take place end of February.
Cheers.
Forgive the responding to an old thread but,
you know, I have gotten some conflicting info on the availability of this Axon Werx 20 fork. For one, it has been more like vapor-ware. Not to be found. The same redundant 10 or so biased reviews on it which really didn't say much. Except for how rad it was and the Spawn riders were. Despite that, pretty much any search for a 20 inch suspension fork brings this fork up...all hits of which date back to the same release hype of around April of 2015.
Calling you guys (again) has resulted in being informed (today) that the fork was only produced in quantities of 50, that being 25 for here, and 25 for Europe...there are none left, and that they were distributed through various marketing channels. I take that to mean that they were hooked up to those who knew somebody. Because when I called about them back in April of this year, the guy I talked to said there were a slew left and they'd consider letting one go at cost as they "weren't selling". But when I attempted to reach out to purchase one, no one responded. The guy that offered the idea of cost wouldn't even answer his phone.
This fork was impossible to buy, and worse, it was and still is hung out there as a friggin carrot in the face of those who wanted to stupidly shell out the money for it because their kids were riding well enough to warrant it.
You guys REALLY pissed me off with this fork and I won't be buying anything else of yours for my son despite the domestic availability.
And frankly, you're dead wrong...I would in a second shell out $300-$500 on a fork for my son. If the fork was built well, and looked the part, and wasn't a pig that weighed 1800 or more grams. Kids are riding well these days because they are being born to parents that get them into this awesome sport, start them early, and obsess over how to dial their rigs as best as we can.
If all you can see in your marketing outlook are the folks that are frugally looking for something to fit in with their retirement planning, you aren't looking. Plenty of us are spending stupid money on our kids, and with out regrets. My son rips. And I would have paid retail on an Axon Werx 20. Too bad I couldn't get one despite trying for months.
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I checked with my SR Suntour rep and it does seem that the 20" Axon Werks forks are available. I would agree that some limited-edition items in the bike industry are difficult to get without a connection to the right folks since these items are not necessarily available through the normal distribution channels. But, if you look at the car industry, there are a lot of parallels with respect to limited edition models. Take the new Porsche 911R as an example of a real product that has all been spoken for: The Retro Racing Porsche 911 You Didn't Know About Is Already Sold Out I'm not exactly sure why Porsche didn't make more but I think the 911R was intended as halo product and the unobtainable nature of the product generates more hype and interest.
I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but just sharing that other industries can have this same pattern. It certainly is a jarring change from the rest of our 24/7 connected world in which everything is available on demand, but perhaps this type of pattern comes up in "enthusiast" types of activities in general such as cars, camera, audio equipment, etc.
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245 Posts
Two things:
1. Axon Werks look nice, but check out the new Spawn/Brood Brothers Fork. Not Vaporware. Sic cranks too. My 4 year old might get one when he gets big enough.
Parts - Gear - Born to Ride | The World's Best Kids Bikes!
I wonder if next years Kotaris etc will come with them, not just on their full suspension bikes...
2. My other son's bike has an 2016 24 XCR Lo and it works well, but I think it is set to 63 travel. Anyone out there know how to convert it to 80 travel?
Details - SR SUNTOUR Cycling
1. Axon Werks look nice, but check out the new Spawn/Brood Brothers Fork. Not Vaporware. Sic cranks too. My 4 year old might get one when he gets big enough.
Parts - Gear - Born to Ride | The World's Best Kids Bikes!
I wonder if next years Kotaris etc will come with them, not just on their full suspension bikes...
2. My other son's bike has an 2016 24 XCR Lo and it works well, but I think it is set to 63 travel. Anyone out there know how to convert it to 80 travel?
Details - SR SUNTOUR Cycling
Those do look really sweet. I think Flow is planning to sell their forks a la carte eventually too so that may be an option down the road.
The cranks are only listed on the Canadian site, so they may not be available in the US yet. I'm tempted to buy a pair for my wife's bike!
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