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Discussion starter · #41 ·
TimTucker said:
The part that I'm curious about -- if the specs say it'll support a 67mm 29er tire at 203mm travel, can it support a bigger tire at reduced travel?

Could it work with 29x3.25 if you drop down to 180mm? (I'm currently running one on a 120mm Machete Comp)

Could travel be reduced down further than 180mm to support a 36er?
Click to expand...
Reducing total travel reduces height and clearance. You'd wan to reduce travel but maintain height. Not difficult to do but you lose HBO engagement.
 
#44 ·
Two_bricks said:
Pardon my ignorance, but how does travel reduction increase the clearance, or have I misunderstood something completely?
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Dorado is an upside down fork, the only thing you have to worry about is the tyre hitting the crown.

If you reduce the bottom out height you are less likely to hit.

If you reduce top out height it won't help.
 
#45 ·
TimTucker said:
Not difficult for someone who works on suspension all day, but seems a little intimidating to me ;-)
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You clip a spacer to the air shaft on the current dorado. It takes only a few minutes and you don't even need to depressurise the fork.

Now to adjust the HBO is where you need some skill.

I never bothered with that though. There is more HBO than I need, losing a bit isn't a problem.
 
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#46 ·
1939372


Just seen the pic of the new pro damper.
The conversion to closed damper looks really strange.
It looks like they have kept the twin tube main layout, but on the recirculation channel there is a spring loaded ring!?

Have I understood this correctly?

What's everyone's thoughts?
 
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Discussion starter · #47 ·
CaveGiant said:
View attachment 1939372

Just seen the pic of the new pro damper.
The conversion to closed damper looks really strange.
It looks like they have kept the twin tube main layout, but on the recirculation channel there is a spring loaded ring!?

Have I understood this correctly?

What's everyone's thoughts?
Click to expand...
Yes they've sealed the twin-tube damper by adding a spring-backed IFP.
The issues with an open bath damper are oil foaming under extended use and oil gassing out when it gets hot.

Sealing the damper solves both these problems. No oil foaming because it doesn't get mixed up with air and no gassing out because it's all trapped. You also should be able to vacuum bleed it but I won't know about that detail for a while.
 
#48 ·
Clever way of doing it.
Just the ifp being an extremely thin ring...

Is this unique or just I've not seen before.

It's impressive how much they squeeze into such a small space. It's in a different league of complexity and performance compared to the competition!
 
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Discussion starter · #49 ·
CaveGiant said:
Clever way of doing it.
Just the ifp being an extremely thin ring...

Is this unique or just I've not seen before.

It's impressive how much they squeeze into such a small space. It's in a different league of complexity and performance compared to the competition!
Click to expand...
IFP's in an outer tube are really common in dropper-posts. But not common at all in suspension. This one also runs on a tapered inner tube so if oil volume gains too much (ingestion of bath oil) it'll vent out and keep working.
 
#50 ·
Got one of those new dorado comp's delivered last week and spent a couple days bashing it at whistler, was very pleased with it. Ended up slightly adjusting the shimstacks for compression and rebound on it and had to fill the oil bath a bit fuller as the 35lb/in spring stock was a bit on the soft side for me, apparently replacement springs in different stiffness's will be available sometime in September according to some emails to Manitou. It's straight up the lowest friction chassis I've had in my possession, it just moves so easily and makes those brake bumps just disappear entirely, not to mention most other bumps too. I wasn't so sure about the ABS+ system for functionality initially coming from spending lots of time on bos product, not sure why I felt like that but ABS+ is great, I like it. Props to Manitou for making even their "low end" damper work properly and be easy to tune, I even found a handy tuning guide on Dougal's website for the compression side of things which helped speed things up instead of having to model the piston and shims, although I do wish for it to have the HBO. I've been on an Idylle 37 for a little while previous to this fork and the big difference is the fore-aft stiffness. The dorado feels a lot calmer and has a lot less of that vibration "harshness" over high frequency bumps like brake bumps. First day in the park was a huge one, mostly on the nasty tech in garbo and creekside. Rode right from first chair and ended up sweeping garbo and fitz at end of day, and had no arm pump, no hand fatigue, no "claw" because the dorado did a great job on the front.
 
#51 ·
I too am interested in this fork, but a few things are holding me back. Firstly I am a coil guy, to me coil is so much better than air from what I have tried thus far that I don't believe any hype claims that an air shaft behaves coil like or close to it, to me they might aswell state these V brakes perform disc brake like. So it's interesting to me that the lowest end model comes in coil but it's not offered as an option in the higher end models with better dampers. Would be interesting to know how the comp compares to the pro in terms of stiction and midstroke support.
Another thing I love about my ZEB is the torsional stiffness, some people say a Lyrik is stiff enough or a 36 bla bla, well I noticed immediately the increased stiffness and steering precision of my ZEB and loved it. Initial reviews of the new Dorado although they claim there is no major issue with torsional stiffness on the trail some have stated there is quite significant twisting when clamping the wheel and turning the bars...for me I struggle to see the point justifying the increased weight of a dual crown if you potentially end up with less torsional stiffness and steering accuracy than some of the newer single crowns. Guess I will have to wait for ze Germans to do a thorough lab test before I can make up my mind. Have to say though that carbon one is a great looking fork, just a shame they went with black stanchions as opposed to the gold they used to have, the original Dorado looked the bees knees.
 
#52 ·
Danzzz88 said:
I too am interested in this fork, but a few things are holding me back. Firstly I am a coil guy, to me coil is so much better than air from what I have tried thus far that I don't believe any hype claims that an air shaft behaves coil like or close to it, to me they might aswell state these V brakes perform disc brake like. So it's interesting to me that the lowest end model comes in coil but it's not offered as an option in the higher end models with better dampers. Would be interesting to know how the comp compares to the pro in terms of stiction and midstroke support.
Another thing I love about my ZEB is the torsional stiffness, some people say a Lyrik is stiff enough or a 36 bla bla, well I noticed immediately the increased stiffness and steering precision of my ZEB and loved it. Initial reviews of the new Dorado although they claim there is no major issue with torsional stiffness on the trail some have stated there is quite significant twisting when clamping the wheel and turning the bars...for me I struggle to see the point justifying the increased weight of a dual crown if you potentially end up with less torsional stiffness and steering accuracy than some of the newer single crowns. Guess I will have to wait for ze Germans to do a thorough lab test before I can make up my mind. Have to say though that carbon one is a great looking fork, just a shame they went with black stanchions as opposed to the gold they used to have, the original Dorado looked the bees knees.
Click to expand...
The fore aft stiffness is a benefit of usd.
The torsional stiffness feels great to me when riding, rulezman review seemed to complain that the new model is too stiff for all but the biggest riders.

To me the disadvantage of a usd fork is the weight. The stiffness is there.

Reviews seem to jump all over torsional stiffness, yet seem to praise floppy creaky single crown forks.

If this dorado is anywhere near as good as the current one it'll embarrass almost any fork out there.
 
#54 ·
spo0n said:
Wheel twist test is silly, how often do you put the wheel in between your legs while pushing and pulling on the bars on the trail?
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Depends on whether you want to choose your lines in rough chunky stuff or you want the fork to choose for you.

It relates directly to control on the trail IME, with every inverted fork I've owned. Sure, you could use exotic engineering methods to make an inverted stiff enough for Mtb, like maybe once piece carbon uppers and crown, but you are paying more for what could be done simpler and where that engineering could be applied towards making it lighter with at least as good performance. There's no good reason to make a fork inverted unless it's significantly more than 8" of travel (where there is not enough bushing overlap anymore).
 
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#55 ·
There are pros and cons of usd.
Don't just concentrate on the one (alleged, but not noticed by this 100kg rider) of torsional stiffness.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

There are quite a few advantages that should be noted.

One of the important ones for me (as its muddy where I live) is the seals are at the bottom.
You get a dual benefit of the seals sitting in oil.

The seals are always lubed, the Dorado always feels super plush. It does not have to rely on crappy foam rings like a conventional fork.

The oil also continually passes through the seals. This cleans the dirt out and is working with gravity.

The seals on my Dorado are always spotless, a normal fork gets dirty faster than you would think!

Self cleaning, low friction.

The most important part of any fork stiffness fore/aft. The 36 dorado has 55mm tubes at the most stressed part, while other forks are arguing about 35 or 38...

Arguing about the (potentially) imagined torsional stiffness while overlooking the advantage of super stiff, well tracking, plush, self cleaning design just seems to be missing the point to me.

It's like arguing about what's better on a race track a ferrari or a Ford and just concentrating on the paint colour!
 
#56 ·
Ford GT40.

The physics of Mtb are inherently different than motocross or motorcycles. At those dirt bike travel lengths, inverted is the only way to get decent bushing overlap without crazy extended lowers. Our biggest worry is not casing a 60 foot double and we can gain back fore aft stiffness on a right side up fork by increasing stanchion/tube size. Motocross forks don’t even really have steerer tubes, relying on the crowns instead. With mtb, a “brake arch” makes a dramatic difference for torsional stiffness at very little weight penalty. It’s simply not the same thing and there’s no good reason for inverted. A decent oil bath (enough oil) works great, the oil coats the inside while everything is in motion, only settling during periods of non-use. The “advantage” for inverted seal friction also means if it fails it generally wipes out your front brake. Can’t remember the last time I had to change fork seals, since they aren’t under high pressure like the older open bath systems anymore where oil height was controlling ramp up.
 
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Discussion starter · #57 ·
Jayem said:
Ford GT40.

The physics of Mtb are inherently different than motocross or motorcycles. At those dirt bike travel lengths, inverted is the only way to get decent bushing overlap without crazy extended lowers. Our biggest worry is not casing a 60 foot double and we can gain back fore aft stiffness on a right side up fork by increasing stanchion/tube size. Motocross forks don't even really have steerer tubes, relying on the crowns instead. With mtb, a "brake arch" makes a dramatic difference for torsional stiffness at very little weight penalty. It's simply not the same thing and there's no good reason for inverted. A decent oil bath (enough oil) works great, the oil coats the inside while everything is in motion, only settling during periods of non-use. The "advantage" for inverted seal friction also means if it fails it generally wipes out your front brake. Can't remember the last time I had to change fork seals, since they aren't under high pressure like the older open bath systems anymore where oil height was controlling ramp up.
Click to expand...
The problem with increasing tube size further is friction. As your tube sizes grow, so does seal and bushing swept area. Those seals and bushings are also continually fighting gravity to stay lubed.

If someone wants a conventional DC fork there are plenty of options on the market.

The flexiest fork (in torsion) I ever owned was a 2000 Jr T.
 
#58 ·
Got myself a new dorado expert. What a beautiful piece of engineeringđź‘Ś
Have a question regarding the oil levels. Are these the same as for the previous dorados? 30ml and 110mm from top?
I also have a mezzer IRT laying here. Is there maybe a chance the dorado pro uses the same unit?
 
#59 ·
lukam said:
Got myself a new dorado expert. What a beautiful piece of engineeringđź‘Ś
Have a question regarding the oil levels. Are these the same as for the previous dorados? 30ml and 110mm from top?
I also have a mezzer IRT laying here. Is there maybe a chance the dorado pro uses the same unit?
Click to expand...
I believe it is an entirely new damper and the stanchions are 1 mm larger, so guessing the oil levels are different and set differently, as well as an IRT. Email Manitou, they are helpful.
 
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