888 Sl Ata
- Thread starter Kntr
- Start date
A bit. I would definately want to play around on one before buying it. In the past Zoke air stuff hasn't worked out too well so I'd be a bit skeptical about running a Zoke DH Air fork, but maybe it'll be awesome? Like I said, I would have to ride one before even considering owning one.
Cautious....but there's a good chance I'll run one for next season. Newer Zoke air forks seem to be pretty good and I've always had good experiences with the company and their products.
having just ridden whistler on my brothers 66sl (mine is getting warrantied) i love it!! feels like a coil fork only almost a lb lighter and easier to adjust for different feel without owning multiple springs.
ill put them under a few rilly rilly fast racers that would really hate me if they dont work out well, im confident they wont disappoint, too bad they arent in stock as of today at least.
i have a doppio air trail fork and its great, my only concern would be it possibly being a bit wallowy in the mid stroke as the boxxer WC, i found out the other day that the ATA cartridge has a separate bottom out chamber so no worries on that end (like todays PAR). anyhow if zocchi can make a much smaller air volume fork feel good with air, im sure these will too.
if you had a major air leak the fork would sink into the travel, but mind you thats pretty way out there in terms of probability of it happening. id considering something like the fork suddenly losing oil to be a lot more likely. on top of that, of the possible leaks you could get in a system like that, only a leak thru the top cap, where you have a shraeder valve (pretty reliable and with a threaded cap to boot) and a large, fine threaded top cap with an o-ring (almost zero chance to have a major air loss w/o a huge, deforming impact) would make the fork sink ito its travel, and even if that happened, there would still be some air in the bottom chamber.
VERY carefully. like if it blew or something? it'd be bottomed out. that sure would ride weird. you may damage the internals.
but since its running on the same amount of psi the other coil forks have been taking instead of the preload knob. it should be pretty damn good
not quite, it seems from the info posted on their site, that ATA includes a separate bottom out chamber to make the spring rate progressive towards the end of travel, no idea about at what amount of travel this kicks in, but airing up this chamber (i dont use it on my marathon) does prevent the fork from collapsing when i remove all air from the main spring. of course, a fork with no air in the main spring would ride way "weird", but i dont think you would damage the internals more than your hands.
kanter: to my knowledge it hasnt got springs
Ahh, all air. I guess I need to research it more. I read AIR Spring and thought it had air in one leg and a spring in the other.
Being all air, little oil and no springs, why is it only a claimed 1/2 lb lighter than the 888WC? It seems like it would be more like a full pound or more lighter.
Being all air, little oil and no springs, why is it only a claimed 1/2 lb lighter than the 888WC? It seems like it would be more like a full pound or more lighter.
It does have oil - the bushings still need to be lubricated.
Well the 888 springs do not weigh a lot (thus the minimal difference with the ti springs). The air chambers (3) require a fair bit of material and seals. The 'ATA" also requires some mechanics that do not exist in the 'standard' 888s.
I wish that they would have NOT put the ATA in that fork and just made a light weight air version of the 888.
DH racers would be more likely to want the weight reduction tha air offers, but no DH racer wants ATA. That is a great feature for FR, but IMHO freeriders would prefer that durability that coil offers.
Their should have been a single coil ATA and a non adjustable air 'race' fork. Must be a European thing..
yeap I agree, at least to my conserne, they should have made a one side spring and one side air dh racing fork or full air, a have not gone with atta, a whole new systema that would really compete with RS on the weight factor, did you hear... the travis is getting air as well
the springs in the 888wc probably weigh around 1/2lbs, probably a bit less than that even.
the weight savings with regards to the 888wc are part from removing the springs, and part from removing the oil that was present in the end-stroke compression cartridge the ATA cartridge replaces.
i really do not think the ATA can be that much heavier, as you correctly point out, there should be 3 chambers (or 2 and a spring but i think its 3 air chambers) and this would not change if the ATA function was removed, there is probably some weight increase but i doubt it can be more than 50g and if the adjuster knobs can be removed that can even be brought a bit down. take a look at the dual air v/s u-air pikes for instance, RS lists the weight diff for those at 90g.
i guess we will see if the SL-ATA becomes a hit with racers, maybe they bring out a full bling nickel coated stanchion and bare bones SFA air racing fork, wont be much lighter probably but it would be all-out.
I take it the Avy is out again for this year?
J
J5ive
Guest
Do you guys think you will be able to drop the SL cart into a wc? I quite like my boxxer wc, but the new bike comes with the 888wc and I'd like to keep the fork. But I have a mission to get this bike light as possible. In the same boat I don't want to sacrfice performance 
I for one think the ATA would be beneficial, at least on a taller fork like the 888.
On my DH bike, the boxxer WC lowered my BB 0.4 " clean over an 888 with flat crowns (both at lowest height), so I know if I ran the 888SL (on my current bike) i'd definitely run it at 7-7.5" at least to keep my geo in check.
On my DH bike, the boxxer WC lowered my BB 0.4 " clean over an 888 with flat crowns (both at lowest height), so I know if I ran the 888SL (on my current bike) i'd definitely run it at 7-7.5" at least to keep my geo in check.
cant see why not, its probably a bit more involved than "dropping in" a cartridge in the sense that you will need hardware and adjusters, but the structure seems to be the same so why not.Do you guys think you will be able to drop the SL cart into a wc? I quite like my boxxer wc, but the new bike comes with the 888wc and I'd like to keep the fork. But I have a mission to get this bike light as possible. In the same boat I don't want to sacrfice performance
I really cant decide yet. I do a lot of traveling and riding in BC Canada and have had to replace seals at Whistler on my 888. Im just sort of worried if I had problems with the Avy, while traveling, it would be harder to find parts. Also, I dont want to have to run the double damper since its heavier. If I knew I could get away with the single dampner, that might be a different story.
Im riding the wifes bike right now so Im not in a huge hurry.
I don't think seals have ever been an issue with Avys, but if it was a concern to you, you could always order some spares and keep them for emergencies.
True, but then the single vs double damner comes into play. I have decided that I dont want the SL. Now its between the WC and the Avy.
As a DHS owner who has ridden avy fork on friends bike ,i for one cannot justfy the weight and cost over a well tuned 888.
The weight is a tough one to get used too, however I could never get my 888 to ever feel right. Large hits it always felt great, small stuff it always felt like sh*t.
The ATA is way ahead of the previous doppio air system... Much easier set up for sure... From what I have heard from the guys that have been on the fork, the performance is really good... I'll have some first hand experience when I get my All Mountain SL this year..
As for the travel adjust feature, I talked to several racers at the show that liked the idea of being able to easily adjust the travel for different courses.
Brian
As for the travel adjust feature, I talked to several racers at the show that liked the idea of being able to easily adjust the travel for different courses.
Brian
other ata forks have 40mm travel adjust so thats probably where the confusion comes from.
With my 66SL, the experience has been fair to good. After a day at the bike park I'm usually running 150mm of travel as opposed to the 170mm I started with. I've got a leak somewhere, or the seal lips have worn enough that air is sneaking through.
This season the fork has been rebuilt 3 times. Still on original seals, but second set of valve cores. Doppio overhauled twice.
I guess I can't complain. I've bottomed this fork more than any I have ever owned (and HARD). It's seen more than 170 runs at Whistler, a number of meat hucking days and a handful of shuttles. Numerous cases and a few (accidental) flat landings.
The Doppio cartridge can feel like ass if it's not maintained. Rebuilt with a redrum/gs7.5 combo it feels great. Bottoms out only on the harshest hits (I like to think I'm pretty smooth) and is nicely progressive and very predictable to jump with. Small bump performance definately is not up to par with a coil fork, but I have to say with the RC2 cartridge it's still very impressive.
After seeing the ATA cartridge first hand, it looks interesting, and strange.
I for one will be running a coil fork next season. The SL is light, but I ride enough bike park that adjusting the pressures all the time gets tiresome, so I'll put up with the added weight.
Now all I have to do is decide if I want to be able to x-up. 888rc2xwc, 66rc2x, totem soloair? oh the drama...
PS. I was a single crown non-believer. For those of you that don't believe in 1 1/8th singles... believe it. These forks are burly as anything and take one hell of a beating.
This season the fork has been rebuilt 3 times. Still on original seals, but second set of valve cores. Doppio overhauled twice.
I guess I can't complain. I've bottomed this fork more than any I have ever owned (and HARD). It's seen more than 170 runs at Whistler, a number of meat hucking days and a handful of shuttles. Numerous cases and a few (accidental) flat landings.
The Doppio cartridge can feel like ass if it's not maintained. Rebuilt with a redrum/gs7.5 combo it feels great. Bottoms out only on the harshest hits (I like to think I'm pretty smooth) and is nicely progressive and very predictable to jump with. Small bump performance definately is not up to par with a coil fork, but I have to say with the RC2 cartridge it's still very impressive.
After seeing the ATA cartridge first hand, it looks interesting, and strange.
I for one will be running a coil fork next season. The SL is light, but I ride enough bike park that adjusting the pressures all the time gets tiresome, so I'll put up with the added weight.
Now all I have to do is decide if I want to be able to x-up. 888rc2xwc, 66rc2x, totem soloair? oh the drama...
PS. I was a single crown non-believer. For those of you that don't believe in 1 1/8th singles... believe it. These forks are burly as anything and take one hell of a beating.
170 runs a year at whistler, can i have your life?
I just picked up a 888SL for my wife last week. She went from an 05 888rc to the 888SL ATA, and is loving it. She is very impressed at how much better the fork tracks for her than the coil 888. She is very light at 115#, so it has always been tough to spring a fork light enough for her. I am amazed at how plush the fork is out of the box, and found it easy to tune. I like the way you can use the two air chamber to tune the spring rate. I had no problem setting it up super soft off the top with a nice gentle rising rate through the stroke. I have briefly ridden the air Boxxer a couple of times and thought it felt pretty nice for an air fork, but the 888 SL felt like a coil 888 that was more tune-able. I think I'll be running one this season instead of the 888WC.
depends where you blow a seal, if you blow a seal in the air chamber in the fork, it would then pressurise the rest of the fork making that an air spring (ala air assist) but with out doing any calculations i cant say how firm or soft that would be. if you blew an oil seal or dust seal the fork will still work fine, except that some oil might leak out. if you blow the shrader valve then you will have decompression.
but all of these are very very unlikely, just look at the boxxer wc, two years and i haven't heard of a blown air cart.
you are more likely to blow your compression or rebound cart...