[Montana rider]

Shopping for deal on a closeout fork for my (as yet unridden) Santa Cruz superlight

I live in Bozeman, MT, and rides can take me 15 miles from my car, so my MAIN priority is durability and am consequently leaning towards coil shock over air shock (i.e. reliability > weight)

Narrowed it down to 4 deals on 2004 shocks -- in this order:

$320 for Fox Vanilla 125R (coil, 4 lbs)
$300 for Manitou Minute 1.0 (coil, 4 lbs)
$420 for Minitou Minute 3.0 (coil/air, 3.8 lbs)
$370 for Skareb Platinum SPV (air, 3.3 lbs)

Anyone have particularly good/bad feelings about any of those choices?

Based on reputation, leaning towards Fox -- but bike came with 108 fork (Duke XC) so wasn't sure how much a change moving from 108 to 125 would be to frame geometry if I get the Vanilla, although I doubt 17 MM would make much difference... and presumably could change Vanilla to 100 if needed...

Please enlighten me!

Alfie

 

[jacksonpt]

Are you an aggressive rider? Strictly XC? What do you weigh?

I think the Skareb is going to complement your bike the best as it's the only true XC fork on the list, however the fox is probably going to have an advantage in the reliability department (though probably a very small one).

I think either would be a good choice... I personally would go with the Skareb.

 

[McGRP01]

I agree w/ Jackson. The Skareb will compliment a Superlight the best. I just got a '03 Skareb Super myself.

 

[douglas]

I am happy w/my skareb

you looking at the 80 or 100?

 

[Westy]

You will void the Superlight warranty not to mention wack out the geometry by putting on a fork that has more than 100mm of travel.

 

[Tashi]

I gotta agree, a 5" fork is risky on a Superlight. A good buddy ran his that way for a while, said that it let him get into situations that were guaranteed to break the bike if he rode that way regularly. It's expensive, but it sounds like it might be good to keep the XC parts and put them on a heavier duty bike and fork (Heckler + minute?)