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Hey all:
Last night I found the time to install the Black Ops carbon fork (same as the White Brother's Rock Solid, and a few others) that arrived earlier in the week, and was able to take it for a ~10 mile loop today to check it out. I thought some of you might be interested in my post-ride opinion and a little porn, so here goes.
To be brief, and to be sure, this thing is pretty damned nice. If anyone's read Ryan Rumsey's review of the fork I can completely agree with everything he's mentioned and so I won't rehash that here. Comparing the two forks side-by-side showed very little (IMO trivial) geometry differences (both length A-C and offset), which I was happy about because I was quite content with the stock geometry characteristics. I have yet to put the OEM fork on a scale (because I don't have one!), but needless to say the front end is signifcantly lighter than stock despite the addition of a disc brake up front. On my test ride the light-weight was the first thing to catch my attention, because my first thought was, "Wow, I guess I had too many beers while sizing-up the two forks last night, because the offset feels smaller for sure". It was definitely more responsive but not twitchy. Only after I got back from my ride and held the OEM fork back up to the Black Ops did I re-confirm that the offsets were indeed nearly identical and the extra responsiveness must have been due to the lighter front end. I actually dabbed in a few technical sections I always clean, entirely because of the added responsiveness. After ~5 miles I got used to this new, better behavior and now love how "fast" and tossable the front end feels. And boy is it easy to loft the front end with this thing. IMO opinion it was easy before, but it's just that much lighter. The carbon really does an impressive job in absorbing small, high frequency shock. Having never ridden a carbon fork before I was pleasantly surprised in the amount of absorption without losing the feeling of rigidity, and the frozen tire ruts on the trail today were a perfect testing ground for this. All in all I couldn't be more happy with this fork for the price, and it's performance on the RLMC29er is pretty choice. Man do I hope I can sneek out of the house tomorrow. Without further adu, the pics.
-pete
Last night I found the time to install the Black Ops carbon fork (same as the White Brother's Rock Solid, and a few others) that arrived earlier in the week, and was able to take it for a ~10 mile loop today to check it out. I thought some of you might be interested in my post-ride opinion and a little porn, so here goes.
To be brief, and to be sure, this thing is pretty damned nice. If anyone's read Ryan Rumsey's review of the fork I can completely agree with everything he's mentioned and so I won't rehash that here. Comparing the two forks side-by-side showed very little (IMO trivial) geometry differences (both length A-C and offset), which I was happy about because I was quite content with the stock geometry characteristics. I have yet to put the OEM fork on a scale (because I don't have one!), but needless to say the front end is signifcantly lighter than stock despite the addition of a disc brake up front. On my test ride the light-weight was the first thing to catch my attention, because my first thought was, "Wow, I guess I had too many beers while sizing-up the two forks last night, because the offset feels smaller for sure". It was definitely more responsive but not twitchy. Only after I got back from my ride and held the OEM fork back up to the Black Ops did I re-confirm that the offsets were indeed nearly identical and the extra responsiveness must have been due to the lighter front end. I actually dabbed in a few technical sections I always clean, entirely because of the added responsiveness. After ~5 miles I got used to this new, better behavior and now love how "fast" and tossable the front end feels. And boy is it easy to loft the front end with this thing. IMO opinion it was easy before, but it's just that much lighter. The carbon really does an impressive job in absorbing small, high frequency shock. Having never ridden a carbon fork before I was pleasantly surprised in the amount of absorption without losing the feeling of rigidity, and the frozen tire ruts on the trail today were a perfect testing ground for this. All in all I couldn't be more happy with this fork for the price, and it's performance on the RLMC29er is pretty choice. Man do I hope I can sneek out of the house tomorrow. Without further adu, the pics.
-pete




