[superlightracer]

Hey Folks,

Just figured I'd share my experience with upgrading my fork with the new 2019 Debonair air piston.

I have a 2018 RS Revelation 150mm (same chassis as the Pike) which came with the old Debonair spring.

I've struggled to get fork working smooth despite relubrication, servicing, playing with tokens, yada yada yada. It really made me regret making the switch back to RS after riding Fox for the last 10 years.

While some of the limitations of this fork come from the damper, there was still a fair bit of stiction in the system to make it handle harsh over high frequency bumps. I am prone to tendonitis, so anything I can do to make my touch points smoother, I am all over.

Anyways, after hearing a few stellar reviews of the new Lyrik, I decided to install the upgrade kit. Even if it wasn't a game changer it would be a cheap experiment.

Install is straightforward if you're familiar with fork teardowns. If you're not, just have a shop do it. It seems SRAM has leveled up their customer support side of things over the last couple years, there's plenty of how-to information on their YouTube page.

The Result:

My home trails are on Vancouver's North Shore which is brutally rocky, steep and harsh on bikes. I've had the fortune of riding almost everywhere in the US and Canada and still maintain that the shore is the harshest place for a bike. This rough nature of this terrain means that if your suspension has weaknesses, they will be realized quickly.

Right off the get go, the increased negative chamber volume was noticeable. Very linear feel on the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the travel. Much more so than the previous debonair spring. The next 2/3'rds the suspension ramped up nicely, and I only bottomed out a couple times the entire ride. The mid stroke support seems to have improved. With the previous setup, I could never get the fork supple enough without blowing through all the travel on medium size hits. This no longer seems to be an issue- even with the rudimentary MoCo damper.

The stiction is gone. My hands love it.. all the chattery small bump impacts feel muted- like the suspension is doing it's work.

I only have 2 rides on it so far, but they've both been exceptionally rocky and harsh rides, and so far the upgraded Debonair is killing it.

I can safely say that this upgrade is worth it and recommended.

 

[Thorjensen]

Just made the change from the stock B1 130mm airshaft to a 140mm 2019 upgrade on my Pike RCT3. I find my old fork settings way off now, and I'd expected that due to a whole new airpiston etc I should make some psi and mabey token changes.
On stock B1 130mm:
98psi to get 25% sag with 4 tokens.

Upgrade 2019 airpiston.
135psi to get 25% sag with 2 tokens.

The Rock Shox Fork setting app says 127psi without mentioning the tokens.

Sounds right???

 

[Structure]

Thanks for posting. Thinking of doing this for my Pike.


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[ColinL]

Good info, thanks for creating the thread.

I am curious how the debonair fork spring is going to work out for riders well over 200 pounds.

On the shocks, the first debonair cans had so much negative volume that on many bikes, heavy riders were unable to control bottom out or even unable to reach 30% sag. Even with a lot of volume reducing bands they had this issue on shocks with a piggyback.

So - sorry to ask, but - everyone that has posted, how much do you weigh?

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[Thorjensen]

Good info, thanks for creating the thread.

I am curious how the debonair fork spring is going to work out for riders well over 200 pounds.

On the shocks, the first debonair cans had so much negative volume that on many bikes, heavy riders were unable to control bottom out or even unable to reach 30% sag. Even with a lot of volume reducing bands they had this issue on shocks with a piggyback.

So - sorry to ask, but - everyone that has posted, how much do you weigh?

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Well i'm around 110kg/240lb full kit and it seems to be aprox 135psi and 2 tokens where I find my 25% sag on my 140mm B1 Pike RCT3 with the 2019 upgrade. Even without any weight on the bike the fork is sagged to 7-8%. I'll take it apart regrease and reassembly just to be sure.

On my Rock Shox Deluxe DebonAir RT3 (no piggy) I ride with 220psi and 2 volume reducers and get 30%

 

[rpet]

I just made this change on my ‘18 Lyrik. Haven’t ridden it yet, and am interested to see if I need to add or lose tokens.

 

[rpet]

First ride results: it does seem a bit more supple in early stroke. I will probably up the psi by 5 or 8 psi. For this first ride, I kept all my settings and PSI the same as before the swap.

It still has adequate midstroke support, and I got nowhere near full travel, which has been the norm with this fork (and the local training loop I took it on doesn't call for a full 180 travel). I will need to take it on a trail with more high speed washboard and small rocks to confirm the initial stroke performance - today's trail was generally smooth, with sporadic mid-size chop and rocks, rather than relentless little stuff.

I still have not bottomed this fork ever in over 50 rides, including 4 days at whistler. (1 token).

I weigh about 160 with gear, which may explain why my results both with old spring and new are very different than previous posters.

 

[s-master]

Well, remove that token, than

 

[Fuel53]

This is from the Vorsprung website in regards to their Luftkappe upgrade. Supposed to do the same thing as the debonair spring so maybe some sag from bike weight is normal.

"If you're anal about your fork having an exact (but rounded-to-the-nearest-10mm) amount of travel. Because the Luftkappe balances forces at a pneumatic topout, the force right around topout is very low (literally zero other than friction), meaning the weight of the bike alone will cause it to sag a few millimetres. Your car's suspension sags under the vehicle's own weight, so should your bike - unless it was so sticky, overly stiff or over-preloaded that 10kg of bike weight wasn't enough to cause your suspension to move at all, of course. If the idea of only having an apparent 148mm out of a 150mm fork is a big deal for you, stick with the stock fork."

There is some other comparisons on this thread: http://forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspe...ckshox-pike-lyrik-1029014-7.html#post12933249

I will be installing a debonair 170mm spring to my '17 Lyrik 29 this weekend and was wondering how this would affect sag setup.

 

[Thorjensen]

Well to answer my own question about an abnormal increase in psi and difficulty to get to 25% here's my weird mistake.
So...
When I put the lowers back on I compressed the fork completely and put in the bolt and tightend them. (don't know why I did that this time to my fork). Well that creates a strong vacuum when air is filled into the positiv chamber extracting the fork.

Took it apart and put back together without compressing and it function PERFECT now with full travel.

The new 2019 140mm comes with 1 token installed so I have only put in one extra to 2 tokens in all. Have read that the new piston needs you to run about 10psi more than than before, and probably needs to remove one token.

I might need to run my 140mm with 1 token only to use all my travel.

 

[Adam1974Nomad]

Well to answer my own question about an abnormal increase in psi and difficulty to get to 25% here's my weird mistake.
So...
When I put the lowers back on I compressed the fork completely and put in the bolt and tightend them. (don't know why I did that this time to my fork). Well that creates a strong vacuum when air is filled into the positiv chamber extracting the fork.

Took it apart and put back together without compressing and it function PERFECT now with full travel.

The new 2019 140mm comes with 1 token installed so I have only put in one extra to 2 tokens in all. Have read that the new piston needs you to run about 10psi more than than before, and probably needs to remove one token.

I might need to run my 140mm with 1 token only to use all my travel.

Just burp lowers with a zip tie next time lol

 

[C-H]

Or RS could just install bleed valves on the lowers like MRP is doing.... just saying.

 

[Fuel53]

First ride this morning on the 170mm spring installed on a MY17 160mm Lyrik 29/27.5+. I kept the one token on from stock given my 215 lb weight. I failed to measure the difference before and after but the under the weight of the bike the increase in length looks less than 5mm. If you pull down on the fork- not just unweight you appear to get close to the 170mm length.

To get 25% sag I only upped the pressure by 5psi vice the recommended 10, maybe due to the token. No change in geometry was perceptible once on the bike. Glad I didn’t pick the 160mm spring. I feel like it would have steepened things up when I wanted a little slacker.

I was honestly expecting a minimal improvement but on the trail it was substantial. On the climb up I cleaned the one techy/rocky section that I dab on 25% of the time- felt like it tracked better. Going down I hit the drop line with multiple 4-5’ drops and it felt great, nice ramp up and no loss of stiffness. Confidence inspiring.

I will dial down the rebound two clicks for next time as the return felt a little fast, overall I am very pleased after the first ride. If anything it made my rear suspension feel a little worse even though no changes there.


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[justwan naride]

Looking to purchase the upgrade kit for my 130mm Yari. Riding a hardtail, so the fork (and my legs) has to do all the work on the bumpy stuff. I've always felt disappointed by the small bump sensitivity of the Yari, if this makes a noticeable difference it will be very welcome.

I also wonder if it's worth bumping the travel up to 140mm.I wouldn't mind raising the bb a bit, but I don't want to loose the fore/aft balance of the bike.

 

[dreicha]

Is this upgrade available for 2018 sid too?

 

[Thorjensen]

Is this upgrade available for 2018 sid too?

Which model of SID are you running?

These SID's are running stock DebonAir:

SID RL B3
SID RLC B1
SID WC B3

NB.

If you don't know what type of fork you have, insert the serialnr. from the fork crown here: https://trailhead.rockshox.com/en/search/

 

[dreicha]

Ok, maybe the fork is 2017 and comes with contessa rc 2018.
Is actually internals compatible? Im looking for upgrade.

 

[I'm Dave]

Upgraded my 2017 Pike 150mm to the Debonair 160mm spring. Small bump sensitivity is so much better!
I've only had two rides so far but handling changes aren't at all noticeable. I left a single volume spacer in it and set sag at around 25%. Took a little more air than before to get correct sag but that was as expected.

Money well spent.

 

[justwan naride]

Ι recently installed the debonair upgrade on my 2016 130mm Yari. I'm 68kg and usually run 72-75psi, fork came stock with 3 tokens.

On the last service my mechanic changed the oil to a thinner viscosity one to open up the compression a bit, as I found small bump a bit too firm before. Removed two tokens for the same reason.

So, after the debonair installation I pumped the fork to 85psi (10-13 more than my usual setting) and kept a single token. Had to adjust to a slower rebound to compensate for increase in speed due to air pressure. Did a couple of laps on very familiar trails which have a little bit of everything apart from big jumps. Flowy singletrack, some rock slabs, a few steep rollable drops, a few choppy sections as well (brake bumps).

I still felt a bit of feedback in my arms and was tired at the end of the ride, but the fork tracked the ground much better than before. Despite the wet conditions the wheel felt like it kept better contact with the ground and it remained more composed during successive hits. Hit a PR on the longest and roughest of the trails and two 2nd fastest times on other trails. That was on very wet conditions and me not riding this bike since the end of November due to waiting for a hub part that was broken.

I've now removed 3 psi and added a token, looking forward to riding again. Too early to come to a final verdict, but so far it looks promising. Overall it felt like a more expensive fork.

I also noticed the issue with the static sag, but it's only 2-4mm, so no big deal, esp. if everything else is improved.

 

[de lars cuevas]

Is this upgrade available for 2018 sid too?

Hi. Yes it is. More or less: t does reduce friction, but does not increase negative air volume.

Details here (In Dutch, sorry) https://www.velozine.nl/2019/02/19/debonair-de-beste-verstopte-upgrade-voor-je-sid-of-reba/