[Ridemonkey.com]

Fox Racing Shox drops some big news about their new line of front suspension. Read on to discover what Kashima Coat is all about.
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FOX Racing Shox to Utilize a Slick Technology in its 2011 Mountain Bike Suspension Fork Product Line, Kashima Coat.

Source: Fox Racing Shox and Fraser Britton

For the last couple of years, race fans have been noticing various suspension companies prototyping different coatings on the stanchions of top Mountain Bike World Cup riders’ forks.

This last year saw Fox Racing Shox testing a new gold colored compound under Gee Atherton, Jared Graves and a couple of others. Rumours were rampant that they were trying out the same type of Titanium Nitride hardcoat that competitor Rock Shox had used several years ago. Fox technicians were tight lipped on exactly what the compond being used was, but riders raved about how stictionless the fork was, and how much more durable it seemed when they inevitably put it down in the rocks.

Fox has now come clean and is ready to officially announce that it had been testing Kashima Coat, from the Miyaki Coporation of Japan. As of 2011, this high end stanchion coating will be available to consumers world wide, as Fox will be featuring it on select models of aftermarket forks.

Here is what Fox has to say about the properties of Kashima Coat, and how it can be of benefit to the every day rider, not just the world’s best.

“The Kashima Coat technology has been used for years across the motorcycle and automotive industries in suspension components and clutch and valve train assemblies because of its low-friction and ultra-wear resistance properties.

In the revolutionary Kashima Coat process, lubricating molybdenum disulfide is deposited, via electrical induction, into the billions of micropores on the surface of hard-anodized aluminum. The distinctive gold colored, Kashima coated stanchions maintain better lubrication characteristics, and the lightweight aluminum components treated with Kashima Coat attain a level of hardness and abrasion resistance four times tougher than standard hard-anodized aluminum.”

Basically, the Kashima Coat can lead to a longer lasting fork upper due to better lubrication properties and better wear and scratch resistance than standard fork uppers.

“Before we started using Kashima Coat, we’d been testing and racing on electroless nickel coated upper tubes during the past two seasons,” explained FOX Racing Shox Mountain Bike Race Manager, Mark Fitzsimmons. “Although the friction properties were decent, the nickel’s durability was not. The Kashima parts we raced on maintained the low friction requirements we were after and exhibited excellent durability — a very rare combination to find at the World Cup level with its wet and muddy conditions.”

The molybdenum disulfide fills all of the micro pores in the aluminum which greatly increases it’s friction coefficient and actually allows sliding parts to be run without oil. The Kashima Coat also gives the aluminum it coats a new hardness rating of HV 400, about 4x that of regular aluminum, helping to protect your uppers from surface scratches that can occur fairly easily with standard stanchion coatings. This means it can be used in applications that before required stainless steel.

Many will ask what the difference is between Kashima Coat and the Titanium Nitride coating process that other manufacturers have used in the past, and that the machining industry has used on cutting heads for the last few dozen years.

We spoke to Fox Engineer and Executive VP Mario Galasso, and this is what he had to say about it:

“Hmmm….great question.

Here’s the hmm part. Ti-Nitride is lower friction and harder/more wear resistant than aluminum…IF it is applied properly…and IF it is used in the right application.

You have to chrome plate or electroless nickel plate the aluminum first. Then Ti-Nitride on top of the chrome or en. Chroming or en-ing aluminum is prone to flaking. And since the chrome or en, and ultimately the ti-nitriding is so much stiffer than the aluminum base metal, it is even more prone to flaking/delamination in applications that see flex loads, like fork upper tubes.

Kashima provides most of the wear resistance and low friction properties of tinitriding, but does it in a very stable, repeatable and less expensive way, with none of the downside delamination/flaking issues associated with tiNitriding aluminium and/or flex load applications. It is also more environmentally friendly”

Fox racers who had the opportunity to run these unique gold uppers in 2010 reported a noticeable increase in suspension performance due to the decreased friction that Kashima provides. Gee Atherton, Sabrina Jonnier, Justin Leov & Jared Graves were among the lucky few.

“When you are racing on the World Cup level, a huge percentage of races can be won or lost in the preparation of the bike — the seemingly small details that take the bike from good to excellent,” said 2008 Downhill World Champion, Gee Atherton. “The Kashima coating made the forks so much more reactive to the small hits that I would normally feel on rough terrain. When the forks were skittering over tiny bumps they could soak up the impact much more quickly, without giving me so much feedback through the bars. That’s a huge advantage on long courses.”

Kashima coating wound up on quite a few podiums last world cup season, unbeknownst to most race fans. The biggest podium of all was at the World Championships, as Fox Supported rider Jared Graves rode his Fox 831 Fork to victory, and a set of rainbow stripes.

“We’re a race-driven company,” said FOX Racing Shox Executive VP, Mario Galasso. “We are constantly looking for performance advantages that may lead to race victories. Kashima Coat is, without a doubt, one of those advantages. Since we also pride ourselves on racing exactly what we sell, we’re proud to offer this new performance advantage to our customers, through Kashima Coat.”