[Jm_]

Old school Zokes are the best from a reliability standpoint, but they're the worst from a suspension performance standpoint. They're "dumb" and as such, reliable, but the market shunned them as other companies started putting SPV, CTD, RC2, AC-DC, R2D2, and a whole host of other acronyms in their forks. Now Zokes suffer the same reliability flaws, but is replacing a $30 set of seals and $5 in oil every once in a while really that bad?

But therein lies your answer, for a while at least, mountain bike shocks were designed with an oil bath and constant lubrication, forks and rear shocks. This stopped for forks a while back, yet there are ways to add compensating pistons and still "make it work" as a full bath. Even the older "regular" full bath can perform pretty damn well with a decent damper (RC3 Evo V2, avalanche cart, etc), as I learned when I had one, but it won't be as consistent in terrain, but miles better than something with a crappy damper. The only remaining problem if you add some sort of compensating piston is that it's still heavier than it could be, so we sacrifice reliability for weight. The new 380 DH fork seems to address all of this, so we'll see how it works. Semi-bath can work, but it might need to be more than a few CCs that can easily come out of the fork, or at least have some simple easy way of being recharged/purged.

 

[maxyedor]

There's a couple things going on here. Full bath vs partial vs sealed cartridge. Those have their own set of reliability challenges. The oiling system is part of why modern forks need seals so often vs the old Zokes.

The damper is a whole different set of challenges. Simple dampers are reliable, but they don't perform the way people want their suspension to perform these days. I still believe the most advanced damper technology can be reliable, but maybe not at a price-point the market can accept.

Really excited about the Emerald, new upside-down X-fusion, and the 380. The 380 makes a lot of sense from a design standpoint, and I think it's going to be the fork to beat. What remains to be seen is if the more expensive stuff X-fusion and Emerald, are as good as they claim to be, and even if they are that good, will the market bear the price.


Another thing I thought of. Whatever happened to fork boots? I still run them on my dirtbike, just a simple neoprene wrap, and they work wonders in keeping my fork seals alive. Are they just uncool on an MTB?

Don't know any desert riders who don't run them. I still have to change the oil fairly often, but seals are fine since the stanchions get cleaned off before the dirt has a chance to reach the seals and jack them up. Oil change intervals are equivilant to what most people ride in a season on their MTB.


My second random fork maintenance thought, who here has been playing with forks long enough to remember Judy Butter? Constantly having to grease everything to keep your fork "supple". Those were the good old days...

 

[kgm]

Servicing suspension isn't nearly as big of a bitch as people make out to be. Spend 30 minutes and make your fork happy. I have dropped my Lyrik's pants 3-4 times this year and running the same seals still. 5 minutes and wiping it out, and throw some fresh oil in and you're good. Remember how you swap your car's oil after 3 months? That thing cost $25,000 new!

I have a jar of Judy Butter. I put it on my toast. Soooo buttery!

 

[ianjenn]

Servicing suspension isn't nearly as big of a bitch as people make out to be. Spend 30 minutes and make your fork happy. I have dropped my Lyrik's pants 3-4 times this year and running the same seals still. 5 minutes and wiping it out, and throw some fresh oil in and you're good. Remember how you swap your car's oil after 3 months? That thing cost $25,000 new!

I have a jar of Judy Butter. I put it on my toast. Soooo buttery!

I change my truck oil about every 8 months. Though it holds 16 quarts of synthetic oil so......

 

[jackalope]

Servicing suspension isn't nearly as big of a bitch as people make out to be. Spend 30 minutes and make your fork happy. I have dropped my Lyrik's pants 3-4 times this year and running the same seals still. 5 minutes and wiping it out, and throw some fresh oil in and you're good. Remember how you swap your car's oil after 3 months? That thing cost $25,000 new!

I have a jar of Judy Butter. I put it on my toast. Soooo buttery!

I'm not sure what kind of damping cartridge your Lyrik has, but if its a sealed cartridge like a Fox FIT, you still need to disassemble it pretty regularly to maintain functional damping performance. Probably more of an issue with a trail fork where you can easily hit the recommended damping cartridge service intervals in a couple months, but damn if isn't a pricey service. Love the idea of a lightweight sealed cart, just wish it was easiky serviceable.

 

[tabletop84]

Another thing I thought of. Whatever happened to fork boots? I still run them on my dirtbike, just a simple neoprene wrap, and they work wonders in keeping my fork seals alive. Are they just uncool on an MTB?

Well there's Ka$hima...

 

[Jm_]

There's a couple things going on here. Full bath vs partial vs sealed cartridge. Those have their own set of reliability challenges. The oiling system is part of why modern forks need seals so often vs the old Zokes.

Agree, but as far as lubrication and why we need seals/why seals don't seal, it's due to the semi-bath and doesn't have anything to do with the damper, and though simpler dampers lend themselves a little better to "full bath", I don't think it costs any less really to make that simple crappy damper compared to a simple one that works. The oiling system is it though. Some of these come with only 5cc. That's a pathetically minuscule amount.

Another thing I thought of. Whatever happened to fork boots? I still run them on my dirtbike, just a simple neoprene wrap, and they work wonders in keeping my fork seals alive. Are they just uncool on an MTB?

Don't know any desert riders who don't run them. I still have to change the oil fairly often, but seals are fine since the stanchions get cleaned off before the dirt has a chance to reach the seals and jack them up. Oil change intervals are equivilant to what most people ride in a season on their MTB.

Not sure, in the desert I came from (Arizona) no one used fork boots on their mountain bikes. There were people running guards over the stanchions due to all the sharp rocks, on normal and inverted forks. I think in those environments any dust or grit that gets trapped in there quickly aids in destruction. It also goes back to the 5cc thing. The boots will help draw up the lube, off the stanchions, then it will need more replenishing by the fork, and all of a sudden it's dry. It was also "established" that we didn't need fork boots when we had better sealing forks that utilized a pressure-type oil seal in addition to the double lipped wiper up top. Course now we're kind of back to square one

My second random fork maintenance thought, who here has been playing with forks long enough to remember Judy Butter? Constantly having to grease everything to keep your fork "supple". Those were the good old days...

And then there was Prep-M and Slick Honey. I had multiple forks from that time period. It was sad when you had a decent damper (TPC or TPC+) in a horrible chassi, knowing that it would perform well for a little while, and then stiction and the lack of lubrication would take over. They did do a cool grease-port version for a little while, not a bad idea IMO. They NEED something like that for semi-bath forks.

 

[Kanye West]

Another thing I thought of. Whatever happened to fork boots? I still run them on my dirtbike, just a simple neoprene wrap, and they work wonders in keeping my fork seals alive. Are they just uncool on an MTB?

Funny, I don't know ANY desert racers who run them.

Conceptually, they're great. In reality, they don't prevent 100% of dust from getting past them, but they prevent 100% of dust from getting OUT from under them, especially if you don't clean them out often. So, if you commit to taking the time to keep them clean, they'll work well. Unfortunately, the same can be said about your fork seals without them as well.

 

[ChrisRobin]

A local shop had a small can of Rock Shox Judy Butter... they wanted $20 for it. Pfffft!

Back in the day I had this type of RockShox grease that was dark blue and super thick. I ended up using it to lube the door hinges and hood latch of my late 80's Z24.

 

[IH8Rice]

In my opinion, and experience, a fork should not NEED service every year (I still do it anyway, or at least did for a long time.) My '06 Marz 66RC2X happened to perform flawlessly for 3 years with no service, and when I poured the old oil out it looked new. This is regardless of how often and how hard you ride the thing. I've been mountain biking religously for over 20 years and have gone through more bikes than I can remember, riding them as hard or harder than the average guy -- and I have to say that I've had more trouble with newer products than I ever did in the early to mid 2000's era. I just think we ought to demand more out of our products considering we're PAYING more and more for them every year.

i guess your opinion and experience trumps all the suspension mfg's recommendations about servicing their own products. maybe they missed the memo while doing TPS reports.
i went almost two years before changing the oil in my '10 888 and while it still performed awesome, the oil was not even close in terms of color or viscosity.
and as mentioned, newer Marz forks are much better then they were in the past.

 

[Bikael Molton]

Don't ride a 40, but enduro seals seem to last longer than OEM on my Boxxer. I know some people complain about seal stiction on the Enduro seals, but that may be the price you pay for a more set-and-forget maintenance

 

[Bikael Molton]

PS I want SKF seals for everything I own. WHEAR TO GIT??