[savagemann]

I'm looking into getting a good shock for my BMC Superstroke. It's a 150mm travel with a Fox RP2. I'm tired of screwing around with middle of the road forks, and recently deciced to pull the trigger on something high end.

I'm getting my RP2 pushed this month. I'm a big guy so Push is gonna set it up for my weight, approx 290lbs and dropping. As is I run about 260psi in it and pretty much run it with the pro pedal on most of the time.

I've been researching forks for quite a while, and the only one that strikes me is the Lyrik. Looking at the 2 step air model. It's the high end of the Lyrik line. But seeing as how I work at a shop, I can save a bit on it. Retail is like $1000-

What are your guys experiences with this fork?
Since I am a big guy would you suggest the coil version?

I really like the idea of the travel adjust on it, 115-160mm 2 step, and all of the other features seem sweet.

What is your take on RS's Floodgate lockout feature?

Any input would be greatly appreciated, on any of the Lyrik models and or their floodgate, or anything else you think I may need to know.

I've been a Manitou guy most of my life, but RS rocks too.
Thanx guys.

 

[CharacterZero]

I dig the Lyric coil I am running on my Terremoto.

As to whether you should go coil or air - your choice, I am sure others will chime in . I am a clyde and this is my first real coil fork.

As for the adjustment, I think that RS missed the range on this one - why not 130/160 or something like that? I would think that 115 is too big a drop for most applications.

And the floodgate/lockout works as advertised. I never really lock it out, I like my forks plush.

I will say that this is stiffer than my Pike was by a hair, the new Maxle 360 kicks ass and the compression dampening is just a little bit better than the Motion Control.

 

[rockyuphill]

I ran a Lyrik Solo Air on my RM Slayer for a season and really liked it, very stiff, and a very plush and adjustable fork. It felt better than the TALAS 36 I originally had on the bike. I missed the travel adjust feature, but if you want a very smooth feeling long travel fork the Solo Air was a good investment.

 

[ScottW]

The Lyrik 2 Step is great. I actually like the 160-115 adjustment. Drops the front end the right amount for steep climbing. With sag my fork is already sitting is the 120 to 130 range so dropping it to 115 is good.

Nice adjustments, plush, stiff etc etc. It's a very nice fork.

 

[Kyle509]

I love my Lyrik coil, it is soo smooth. It handles small bumps really well and just eats up the bigger hits. I went from a fork with literally no adjustments so I love being able to adjust the travel, high, and low speed compression.

I never use the floodgate 'lockout' on mine, I just drop the travel when climbing. I like having the suspension stay active when climbing, especially since most of my climbing is rocky and technical. I assume the 2step is a nice ride as well, but it's hard to beat that nice plush coil feel. It's also pretty light for a longish travel coil fork. The Lyrik is the nicest fork I have ever had and would recommend it to anyone.

 

[the.vault]

If you are really at 290lbs the one of the air sprung forks might be a better option. Coil springs are at the limits (theoretical) for most people ~ 180 lbs. With air you can always add more pressure, up to a point.

The forks are easy to service. The 2 step air requires a higher pressure than the solo air for, 2 step air has a smaller piston diameter. That might be concern for the OP at 290 lbs. The travel on the solo air can basically be set to whatever by using travel spacers.

I never use the lockout feature. The low speed damping adjustment makes the forks easy enough to pedal with for me.

I have a solo air fork. It is about 14 months old, with a lot of riding. I am really happy with it. There is some play in the bushings, which hasn't changed much from stock, and a little wear on the surface of the stanchion, I didn't look after the fork enough.

 

[dascro]

If you are really at 290lbs the one of the air sprung forks might be a better option. Coil springs are at the limits (theoretical) for most people ~ 180 lbs. With air you can always add more pressure, up to a point.

Couldn't disagree more. I believe that coil springs are better for a heavier person. The high air pressure needed for a heavy guy could cause an air fork to blow out.

180lbs is at the limit for most RS forks WITH THE STOCK SPRING. I am around 200 and thought the firm spring was just about perfect for me, if a bit too stiff. You would certainly need the xtra firm spring. I've read that others that weigh around what you do are very happy with the performance with the xtra firm spring.

 

[eatdrinkride]

It's a nice fork. Like a Pike's big brother. FWIW I ride rocky technical terrain and use the coil uturn model. The stock spring if fine for me at 185-190 lbs. One thing though, I would NOT be happy with only 160 or 115mm settings. On my 575 the Lryik at 115mm is way too steep for 95% of my climbing. It's ok for extended and very steep climbs in the saddle but for the rocky step ups and short climbs I hit constantly on the local trails I find running at about 130ish is much better, the bike just feels to twitchy and awkward to ride for any real distance at 115mm.

Also search for lyrik 2 step. There have been a lot of problems with that model, at least early in the year and last. Not saying they aren't fixed but just beware before you drop that chunk of change. On the other hand the coil is plusher throughout the travel and is bombproof. Not sure if they make a heavy enough spring for you though, check in the clyde forum.

 

[Ventanarama]

Couldn't disagree more. I believe that coil springs are better for a heavier person. The high air pressure needed for a heavy guy could cause an air fork to blow out.

180lbs is at the limit for most RS forks WITH THE STOCK SPRING. I am around 200 and thought the firm spring was just about perfect for me, if a bit too stiff. You would certainly need the xtra firm spring. I've read that others that weigh around what you do are very happy with the performance with the xtra firm spring.

I disagree, I don't think even the stiffest spring they make for that fork is going to work for him. I have several customers in the 220-240 range who are getting correct sag with the X-firm spring. Simply not going to work for someone who's 290, air would be the only option for him in that fork in my opinion.

Larry
Mountain High Cyclery
[email protected]

 

[dascro]

I stand corrected. I highly doubt that at 180 you are at the upper end for a coil fork. But I guess 290 is way over.

 

[the.vault]

Couldn't disagree more. I believe that coil springs are better for a heavier person. The high air pressure needed for a heavy guy could cause an air fork to blow out.

180lbs is at the limit for most RS forks WITH THE STOCK SPRING. I am around 200 and thought the firm spring was just about perfect for me, if a bit too stiff. You would certainly need the xtra firm spring. I've read that others that weigh around what you do are very happy with the performance with the xtra firm spring.

Dascro,

The theoretical limit I referred to is not the one supplied by Rock Shox, it's the one arrived at by years of empirical testing by spring companies. If you look at a recommended design criteria for a coil spring for unlimited life and then look at the coil spring supplied in long travel bicycle suspension forks, you will see these springs are pushing the boundaries of what is recommended. Another thing, not everyone agrees on these limits. By not everyone, I don't mean people who post on Mountain Bike Forums on the internet, I mean the companies who design and sell these springs all day long, entities which might actually have an advanced understanding of the subject.

These springs don't fail catastrophically, they will stop doing what they were intended to y, slowly over time so the rider won't even notice it. No one post on the forums " After 2 years of riding and never servicing my bike, my shifter performance has slowly degraded". A post will be more like " My shift cable broke, SRAM deraileurs are obviously junk".

Savageman, the guy who asked the question, weighs 290lbs and drinks 'All Mountain Dew'. He is obviously an X-treme mountain biker. People of his size push the limits of what bikes are built to do. They can also create loading conditions that people designing bikes and parts would not think of.

He is looking at spending $600 - $1000 on new fork. I think he deserves information which he can use to make a decision with, and to clearly distinguish opinions from facts.

 

[dascro]

Dascro,

The theoretical limit I referred to is not the one supplied by Rock Shox, it's the one arrived at by years of empirical testing by spring companies. If you look at a recommended design criteria for a coil spring for unlimited life and then look at the coil spring supplied in long travel bicycle suspension forks, you will see these springs are pushing the boundaries of what is recommended. Another thing, not everyone agrees on these limits. By not everyone, I don't mean people who post on Mountain Bike Forums on the internet, I mean the companies who design and sell these springs all day long, entities which might actually have an advanced understanding of the subject.

These springs don't fail catastrophically, they will stop doing what they were intended to y, slowly over time so the rider won't even notice it. No one post on the forums " After 2 years of riding and never servicing my bike, my shifter performance has slowly degraded". A post will be more like " My shift cable broke, SRAM deraileurs are obviously junk".

Savageman, the guy who asked the question, weighs 290lbs and drinks 'All Mountain Dew'. He is obviously an X-treme mountain biker. People of his size push the limits of what bikes are built to do. They can also create loading conditions that people designing bikes and parts would not think of.

He is looking at spending $600 - $1000 on new fork. I think he deserves information which he can use to make a decision with, and to clearly distinguish opinions from facts.

Apparently I touched a nerve here. As a mechanical engineer with a background in material science I know all about that. And yes you are absolutly correct. I don't need to explain this all to you because you claim to understand it so take your word for it.

However, how old is the fork on your bike? My oldest fork is 3 years old. You are assuming a unlmited life, which is simply false here. I am certain his spring will not break. It is possible/likely he will notice a gradual degradation over the life of the fork. But even so worst case scenario is he has to put a new 45$ spring in it in a few years. I doubt the air seals will handle the high pressure that long and he would be paying more to service them.

Also, lets not forget its not only the fork that will be experiencing these heavy loads, its his entire frame. I expect he'll be replacing something else before the fork.

Your mistake is you assume unlimited life for the spring. I haven't done the testing but I highly doubt that we can assume unlimted life on any component of the bicycle. Its the same in cars. For high performance cars the expected fatigue life is much shorter. We get that same problem in high performance bikes.

Apparently he is too heavy for a coil that RS makes so its pointless to argue, but to mention these reasons as a guy avoid a coil fork are weak at best, wouldn't you agree?

If you follow this logic, I'd like to know how you can be in the sport of mountain biking, these light frames are designed with a relatively short fatigue life. I'd hate to see how much a frame would weigh that is designed for an unlmited life for even an average 180lbs guy

So yes, lets give facts rather than opinions. I'll take this back if you are riding your 5+ year old fork...

 

[mrpercussive]

The Lyrik is awesome. RS has it down with Moco. Damping is awesome and it's smooooooooottttthhhhhhhh........

Dude, when we riding? XD

 

[the.vault]

Apparently I touched a nerve here. As a mechanical engineer with a background in material science I know all about that. And yes you are absolutly correct. I don't need to explain this all to you because you claim to understand it so take your word for it.

/QUOTE]

Dascro,

mostly you threw out an opinion, with no explanation, then these opinions get repeated like dogma (one of my favorite words), and become fact. This bugs me about the internet, about religion, the state of the current political process.

I am an engineer as well. I don't specialize in material properties but I understand how much of the knowledge is institutional and comes from statistical data, and not everyone agrees on things at the limits. Every car company has a different idea on how to design head bolts for a car.

I think people are better off if you give them information, and they understand the tradeoffs.

Assuming someone is not doing something unsafe. Then the answer is just no, yes doing that will cause great bodily harm and could kill you.

Something like "try the coil spring." Tell them you should replace them every couple years because they wear out slowly, and you probably won't notice. You can give a better rudimentary explanation of that than me.

Regarding the air spring fork exploding etc. I've pulled about forks and rear shocks they pretty much have the same seal. I run 60 psi in my fork and 180 psi in my shock. My fork has 6 inches of travel, my rear shock has 2 inches of stroke. The front fork has about a 3 times higher compression ratio. Doing a seat of the pants of estimate both should have about the same internal pressure at the end of the stroke. If his rear shock hasn't exploded yet the fork probably won't either.

 

[dascro]

Something like try the coil spring. Tell them you should replace them every couple years because they wear out slowly, and you probably won't notice. You can give a better rudimentary explanation of that than me.

I'm not sure if you are attacking me or agreeing with me.

Honestly, is a full explaination really nessesary? Most mountain bikers notice everything about their bikes. If we can't tell the spring is degrading then its fine for his purposes. If they don't notice then whats it going to hurt. It would depend on the cycles the fork is put through, of course this number will vary based on type of riding and how often the bike is used.

Let me ask you this, how often do you worry about the springs in your car? They are no different than those in a fork, and are often designed with the same compromises. Most people dont worry at all and replace them if they break. SOMETIMES replacing them after they see noticeable sag. Thats the guideline i'd recommend with these forks

Yep, I threw out an opinion(check his title), but I can promise him his fork will not catastrophically fail. I've typically stayed away from Air forks since a while ago when they had a problem with blowing out. I've heard this still can be an issue.

I'm really not an internet tough guy and have no intention of getting into a pissing match with you. You have very good points, but for our use in this application, those points are something that we shouldn't have to worry about.

 

[CharacterZero]

I will say that at 240, the x-firm spring is a bit oversprung for small bump compliance and doesn't quite bottom out on my normal stuff, so I am trying the firm spring next. Will the x-firm work at 290 (plus gear?!)...IDK. Doubtful though.

And for PSI and air seals, I have run Floats at 300psi, so don't doubt the viability and reliability of air forks.

 

[the.vault]

Dascro,

I was agreeing with you mostly. I think your initial comment, as a Mechanical Engineer especially, was a disservice.

I've designed a couple coil springs. One of the engineers I used to work with did the internals on the first generation Hydracoils. Talking to him and looking at numbers, any coil spring used a in long travel single crown fork is at ~150% (partially made up number) of their expected fatigue life for normal people. These number come from spring companies. Spring companies data and predictions are not optimized for minimum weight, so....

I think recommending a coil spring to a heavier person, without mentioning the caveat, of hey the spring might not perform at optimum for ever, is a disservice.

You had an air spring fail, when those give it isn't incremental, so it is noticeable? Sure throw it out there. Although you should recognize the significance of that event, is magnified, anecdotal mentions of failure stick out in peoples minds, when a product works they are invisible. That gets into a lot of psychology and sociology and is way off topic, for discussing Lyrik forks anway.

Regarding my car, I don't worry about the springs in it. I'm not hauling Olympic lifting weight in the trunk of my car every day either. When I was growing up and would load up the family pick-up with a cord and a half of wood, that would worry me then and now.

 

[Jim311]

I heard some stuff about the 2 step air being prone to problems but it might have been an issue SRAM fixed.

 

[dascro]

Dascro,

I was agreeing with you mostly. I think your initial comment, as a Mechanical Engineer especially, was a disservice.

I've designed a couple coil springs. One of the engineers I used to work with did the internals on the first generation Hydracoils. Talking to him and looking at numbers, any coil spring used a in long travel single crown fork is at ~150% (partially made up number) of their expected fatigue life for normal people. These number come from spring companies. Spring companies data and predictions are not optimized for minimum weight, so....

I think recommending a coil spring to a heavier person, without mentioning the caveat, of hey the spring might not perform at optimum for ever, is a disservice.

You had an air spring fail, when those give it isn't incremental, so it is noticeable? Sure throw it out there. Although you should recognize the significance of that event, is magnified, anecdotal mentions of failure stick out in peoples minds, when a product works they are invisible. That gets into a lot of psychology and sociology and is way off topic, for discussing Lyrik forks anway.

Regarding my car, I don't worry about the springs in it. I'm not hauling Olympic lifting weight in the trunk of my car every day either. When I was growing up and would load up the family pick-up with a cord and a half of wood, that would worry me then and now.

Well I guess I assume everyone knows those things. We are doing extraordinary things with peices of metal that weigh 30lbs or less. I think most here know that they are using products that have a finite life. Every part on the bike will fail from fatigue eventuly, fortunatly most of us get rid of the parts before they do. I guess I don't feel it nessesary to give that disclaimer before every comment I make here.

I myself weigh around 200lbs and ride very aggressively with parts that are underbuilt for that purpose. I never concerned myself with spring life. There are plenty of wear parts in forks that will require maintenance long before I notice a problem in the spring. I inspect the parts for failure and replace some parts for precations. But the coils are not an issue. With the advances in technologies in bikes and forks in general I expect I'll have a different one long before the fatigue life comes into play. That goes for everyone on this site.

I've actually been able to see noticable spring sag on cars. I had a 10 year old explorer that sat noticably lower at the end of its life. I grew up on a farm where we would use pick up trucks until they were junk and we would see noticeable sag there as well as the occasionaly snapped spring.

My point is, and you can search to prove this, that there are complaints about every possible issue with part durability on these bikes, but I can't think of every hearing someone talk about snapping a spring. if it happens, its rare. Fortunatly, its not like headtubes or handlebars and if it fails it only means a walk back to the trailhead rather than a likely trip to the ER.

 

[Phil_S]

I disagree, I don't think even the stiffest spring they make for that fork is going to work for him. I have several customers in the 220-240 range who are getting correct sag with the X-firm spring. Simply not going to work for someone who's 290, air would be the only option for him in that fork in my opinion.

Larry
Mountain High Cyclery
[email protected]

Just to put some #s to what he's saying above: I'm 230# with a UT Lyrik on a 5Spot with the X-firm spring (heaviest avaiable) set at 145mm travel for all-around use. In the seated/petaling position I've got 15-20% sag. In the attack/ more centered position, I have 30% sag. I would not think the coil version would work very well for your weight unless you were cool with 40 to 50% sag and didn't ride very aggressively as bottoming might be a problem.

Its a shame as the UT version with its fine travel adjust allows you to dial the handleing characteristics you like in very easily. I know some like the adjustment speed of the 2 or 3 position systems but to me, that trade off is not worth it.