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Felt this needed an echo to show that Fox is still Fox, inverted or not.
You think the forks they sent Vital, PB, and all the other media outlets are like this. 😉
@sspomer & @TEAMROBOT - just wanted to drop a massive internet high five to you guys for putting out super enjoyable and digestible content around this fork. I'm not in the market for anything like this at the moment, but somehow you got me to read the whole review, listen to all of Charlie's interviews, and listen to the entire AMA. Awesome stuff, keep it up 🤘
Like I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm also hesitant of any content from anyone trying to sell a product/service that has massive jump cuts like this. I think there should be a level of skepticism around all claims being made right now about the new fork.
Though for some reason, I just really trust @TEAMROBOT, must be his mustache. Wonder if he could give the same test as what is in the video on his fork.
That this new shiny thing is the best thing ever and has unbelievable suppleness and bump eating properties is the usual spiel for any product lunch for any suspension company since forever.
All the reviews for 36 grip2 were like that, and we all know how that played in the real world - with qa being just not good enough, and inherent chassis and dampers issues that were brought to the light later. That’s not to say that they were probably an improvement in some ways over the previous generations of similar forks.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is, sadly, a big difference between what is being sent to media for a review and what is available for a purchase via your local shop. (I assume that all media isn’t paid to do good reviews and thus biased). Hopefully Fox with their financial woes has money to fix that, if it’s even possible in such a great scale operations.
Rulesman
Hambini
Diaz
[I’ve redacted my comment about Dale Stone because I’ve seen two of his videos and that’s not enough to draw an informed conclusion]
These are all content creators who seemingly never have anything nice to say about the big companies. According to them, everything’s terrible all the time and they’re the only ones calling it out, the voice crying out in the wilderness. I agree that the big companies do things that suck and that drive me crazy, but if you can’t ever say anything nice about the bigs, even when they notch a win? I have trouble trusting that kind of person, because it seems like they have an axe to grind.
I will happily call out things that suck, but for me this fork has been amazing. I can’t comment on Fox’s production QC for Podium forks that are being shipped right now, I can only comment on what I’ve ridden, which is a stock product. It’s not like there was a fork with my name on it, mine was randomly pulled out of a box with 20+ Podiums in it, as me and a bunch of journalists and Fox people swapped forks in a hotel’s underground garage in Leogang. What I rode was phenomenal, which is at least a proof of concept. The Podium concept seems to work, and N=20 journalists or so all seem to agree it’s not just good but great.
I certainly hope Fox’s QC is able to consistently deliver what I rode to customers, and if they don’t, luckily we have online forums like Vital to call that out and hold Fox to their claims. But color me suspicious of Diaz and others rush to condemn the entire business model based on N=1.
And I welcome a discussion from the nerds and specialists in the forum speculating whether manufacturing tolerances are easier to hit in a machined aluminum inverted chassis or a cast magnesium RSU chassis. Honestly, I don’t know, but I know we have a lot of engineers and manufacturing/production people in the forum.
I think most of what you're saying is fair and makes sense... but I'd also be SHOCKED (no pun intended) if Fox, RockShox, etc. didn't triple check the product they bring to press launch events on a dyno or something just to make 100% sure that they didn't bring any outliers that slipped through manufacturing QC. There's people here on this forum for example, who've said that when they worked for Specialized, they would carefully go over every single bike brought to a press even to make sure it was running perfectly. I have no doubt that Shimano did something similar on all the test bikes for their wireless DI2 launch - you can bet that their mechanics made the shifting and brakes were set up perfectly on every one of them. That's different than claiming Fox stripped every fork down and gave each journo the pro racer treatment. But I'd bet actual money that if those same 20+ journos had purchased the forks from, say, Jenson, you'd have more outliers in the first impressions.
no one is denying that the product that goes to press camps isn't dressed up for the best experience. they're just stock products, however. there's nothing special about them aside from prep, so a "camp" product feeling amazing is certainly within the capabilities of every customer fork, right? if i bought at $2000 fork and it didn't feel amazing, i'd sure be asking fox or the dealers why and would get them to make it feel that way or give me my money back.
Fox or whatever brand it is, IMO if the fork is new in a box with uncut steerer, you want it to work properly considering the rather large cost.
I get what he's saying I've bough several new aftermarket fox and rockshocks forks over the years and it can be a lucky dip. Been bike nerds, we know alignment, bushing tolerance and lubrication is key to a forks ability to operate correctly. For every one of us nerds, there are 9 other average joe people who ride a sub-par product and ending up dropping 10psi at a time wondering why it "hurts my hands"
At a price point like the podium, intend, push etc in the hyper fork realm. A QC Check of functionality should be standard affair IMO.
I’ve noticed that the suspension world seems to be heavily populated with people/companies that market themselves by shitting on others. This isn’t unique to MTB either, moto, offroad, etc all have it for some reason.
Personally, being told that I need a product/service because something else is bad or other people are stupid makes me pretty skeptical.
I’ve noticed that the brands with truly good products tend to not need to market like that.
Eh, I have a few thoughts to add for the hell of it. Some may remember, but I have had the privilege of playing "bike review guy" for Vital in the 2010s and also got to do similar work in the ski and motorski industry. I've also had a behind the scenes look into the industry at various points over the last ~20 years and can say I've never seen anything to suggest media product is somehow different than the product the public buys.
That said, most of these "big" launches include a mechanic (or two) as you implied. Hence, these people act as a last in line QC gate to ensure the product is functioning exactly as its intended. Though I've never seen a part swapped out ahead of camp, I'm sure it happens.
Here is the kicker, if you buy your stuff through a bike shop, this would be commonplace (Ie, a mechanic double checks its all functioning before sending you out the door with it). As good as all these companies are in trying to control their product for quality, shit happens. Things come off the line and go to customers that should be yanked from being sold. The real rate at which this happens in the mountain bike world is not widely published but most big companies aim for a warranty rate below 1% when it comes to higher end parts suspension parts. I know David could probably comment more precisely being he monitored warranty rates closely with respect to the shocks he engineered at SRAM (and it was shockingly low...pun intended...but he may not be at liberty to share).
I'd bet that odds are if 20 forks went out and were not "run through" by anyone they all probably were totally within spec and functioned great. As much as I want to believe I'm special (as a product tester) companies are strapped around launches; just getting product there on time usually a challenge. Its a total cluster to run these media camps against highly complex supply chains and limited "wiggle room" (can't really move the camp or the launch).
As to the voodoo suspension tuners out there, I'm obviously intrigued. Who wouldn't be? But it reminds me a bit of snake oil supplement sales or chiropractic care. Something strikes me as being off about the whole thing...especially considering how many forks I've serviced where this does not appear to be an issue. But I could be wrong, as always...
I sometimes wonder if being sociopath / borderline psychopath is requirement for success in the custom suspension trade.
Here’s a follow up with no cuts or edits. You can see the moment the alignment falls apart. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLats-VBq-e/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
I agree most (all) of these guys have attitude and ego problems, but I think specifically what Diaz is calling out here is of value. Even if it doesn’t reflect Fox’s quality control at all (though I think people are right to be skeptical after the last few years), people will throw money at damper upgrades and burnished bushings when the root cause can be much more simple and less obvious.
Maybe it's different in other places, but none of the shops around here drop the lowers, clean excess grease off, check oil levels, and do a simple push test at 0psi on every fork they sell. I've never heard of them doing that even on forks that come on complete bikes. At most they're going to take down rider weight / skill and set it up according to the chart's baseline settings and bounce up and down on it in the parking lot. And you definitely don't get that from online retailers, which probably account for most of the retail volume of bare forks sold.
This is not what I was implying any shop would (or should) do.
A few remarks regarding the Diaz video, since he is a suspension service tech, especially for new fork models, all the issue he sees are extrapolated by the fact that customer send him in case of issues, there probably a good amount of new forks in Diaz market that don't have those issues so they don't get sent to him. Same for any other suspension service center with fresh out of the box forks.
Also fork alignment work in tandem with the tolerance of the front hub used. Not every front boost hub is 110.00 mm wide. This can have the impact of splaying or pinching the fork and messing with bushing tolerance. Judging on the linked Diaz video, this could the case that even with the floating axle and pinch bolt, the hubs is still too narrow for this specific fork and installing slim shim behind the end cap could fix the issue even if the hub is exactly 110.00 mm wide.
You don't think those 20 forks have been stripped and grease/oil volumes double checked and bushing clearance/how free they run without damper and spring in place?
I think Fox would be insane to spend all that money to run a press camp and not make sure that those 20 forks were the absolute best version of the product that they could be.
I don't really engage with Diaz (apart from posts shared in this forum) or Rulesman but I have absolutely seen positive reviews from Dale Stone and Hambini
Alright who will be the first to Kashima the uppers?… well… cuz moto.
Give it the proper USD Kashima treatment
I've reviewed a few forks for print. They're absolutely given more attention as far as QC goes.
One distributor ran the fork in for two days, gave it a full service, then dynoed it before handing it over to me. Joke's on them, that one broke immediately.
edit to save a new comment: Mr ROBOT, i appreciate the content you're making. It's rad, you actually have a valuable perspective, and quite entertaining for techy interview stuff. Please continue.
Moto forks have this because they have an upper bushing attached to the lowers right? So it slides in the uppers.
Doing this to the podium would be purely cosmetic.
Long story short, Mr. Robot is right, the fork is really good, like really really good. Tried to burp a little air out of the fork and got a little oil on my rotor but other than that, setup was straight forward and I am happy.
Conspiracy theory: Could the steel axle be for wear characteristics rather than for ride characteristics, but they don't want to spook customers? I have a broken rib so I have nothing better to do than come up with bad ideas and put them on the internet right now.
If they had an alloy and a steel axle with "the same stiffness" the only things that can really affect the feel is the weight, the damping characteristics of the material, or different ratios of bending stiffness vs torsional stiffness due to the different wall thicknesses of the different axles. Damping characteristics i don't think would matter here, the frequencies where that will come into effect are not ones that we care about on bikes. The difference in ratio between bending and torsion will be small also. I'm just not really seeing it. But the hardness of a hard steel is measured on a different scale compared to aluminium, it's way harder... so is it for wear?
The USD axle is much more important for stiffness overall, meaning much higher loads are going through the axle, and the axle is probably flexing in different ways compared to normal forks. The hub is going to move around on the axle and wear the surface, every single fork I've ever owned will wear the ano on the axle out eventually and I'm sure this is no different, perhaps the unique way that the axle/wheel behaves on this means the hub bearings are moving around in such a way to cause more wear? I can see Fox saying "yeah it just felt better" instead of "this fork just chews up alloy axles so we couldn't use one" because people would definitely read that and think that it's a sign that the fork is too flexy.
All three of these want to sell you something that they say is better than what’s on your bike, and to do so they first need to convince you that what is on your bike is not good enough.
In the video posted above there is very well illustrated where the issue lies and surprising that there is not only one thing that is not right with it.
While it sounds reasonable, I think everyone else is using alu axles in their USD forks and they don't seem to be causing any issues.
Yeah I'm grasping at straws trying to figure out the actual advantages of using a steel axle if its not stiffness. The only other reason I can think of is that it doesn't look as heavy because it's not as thick walled?
No other single crown long travel fork is mass market though. Larger manufacturers are way more of a slave to random little things like that because there's 4000 people complaining online if they fuck it up. Intend could have the same issue and solve it by sending out a tiny amount of axles a year to the complainers.
Ha, now you could be onto something, cost of producing steel axles in numbers fox is pumping out could very well be significantly lower to 7 series aluminium with all the machining/surface treatment needed.
I think it's an angle to market/get past the number that most still think is important. It's easier to disguise those few hundred grams when in the same discussion as a 50+lb bike.
I can't speak to this exact launch (obviously), but I highly doubt these forks get a full teardown and rebuild before going to media. Maybe they dyno this batch at HQ, but having tested plenty of product myself, including from Fox, all indicators point to companies pulling stuff directly out of the "for sale to the public" pile and shipping it directly to a tester. I realize press camp is a little different, but I still do not believe Jordi himself is hand-building forks (or shocks) just because they’re going to Vital or PB.
In a way, some of you are implying that Fox's QC is so poor there's a real chance 1 in 20 forks is out of spec straight off the line. If that were true, it would be a massive issue. A 5 percent failure rate out of the box is not a small thing. It suggests a fundamental problem in production. That’s very different from a warranty rate, which accounts for failures over time. If 5 percent were defective at delivery, the true long-term warranty rate would be much higher, and the product line would be in real trouble.
Online commentary distorts reality. A 1 percent warranty rate can sound like 50 when you're in echo chambers. I'm not saying Fox hasn't had issues (the X2 comes to mind), but when a company with thin margins eats a warranty, it matters. One return can easily turn a sale unprofitable when you include cost of capital (their EBITDA margin is sub 20% rn). Maybe that's not the case with a $2,000 fork, but we don’t know their margins or COGS on this one. I’d assume they’re high for now since they haven’t amortized tooling across volume.
We also don’t know where final assembly happens. Manufacturing is likely in Taiwan, but assembly could be done in the US. Fox mentioned this on a recent earnings call. If these are assembled stateside, it may be by senior techs. Maybe that helps QC. Maybe not.
Bottom line, we can disagree. But this idea that Vital or PB gets a magically better product just doesn't hold water to me. Fox knows buyers like me (and the rest of this forum) exist and will call it how it is. Racers talk. People talk. Word gets around. If the product sucks and there is high amounts of variance, it won’t take long to find out.
There is a touch of irony to all of this too. Lets just say Fox isn't a company I really care to fanboi all over. I ironically bumped heads with them when I was testing "professionally" so if anything I have every reason to go "yeah, fuck Fox, I bet they have problems, I bet they are fleecing us and I bet their QC sucks on this one..."
I just don't think that's true.
How many average riders can actually tell if a fork performs to its full potential? How many would be able to come up with a plausible argument for a warranty action?
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