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Mostly premature wear and very obvious noises(creaking) I guess would be the only reasons for warranty for your regular consumer.
In the interview it was noted that they did back to back runs with Alu and Steel axles and the riders all chose the steel axle for it's ride quality over the Alu axle, but they were rated same strength. As much as I like a good conspiracy theory the intention of the project was to build the fork with the least amount of friction and apparently the axle material was part of the equation.
Plenty could tell if something is way off. I have a RS Zeb that had the basic charge damper, which is designed for entryish level people. Had it tuned and it’s a night and day difference. Honestly that wasn’t a warranty issue just bad product. Point is you can feel the difference unless your just riding dirt sidewalks at low speed.
I think the truth is most likely boring but somewhere between "review forks are rebuilt by Jordi himself adding a pinch of magic" and they just get pulled out of the full normal production line.
It's very likely that review units AT INITIAL LAUNCH were not built on the full on assembly line like forks will be after release. This is just logistic of getting early units to reviewers.
I work in product development (not bikes) and there is 100% chance that switching from producing a handful of testing / review models to full scale production quantities will uncover an issue.
I assume, just to get forks in the hands of reviewers they are getting early limited production models. Those are less likely to have assembly issues like too much grease or not enough oil.
I've had one fork need 10 psi more (went from 70-80psi) after a rebuild with proper grease and oil to have the same approximate sag. Another had zero issues, but I pulled it apart before installing it. Assembly QC could certainly be more consistent.
The Podium is likely to have the same assembly issues.
now do the 2022-2024 x2 shock
re-read every review of the shock when they came out and then compare that to rider census.
People seem to think bike companies have way more time and money on their hands than they actually do......pulling 20 units together AT ALL, let alone people with enough spare time to strip them down and rebuild perfectly is close to impossible. They will for sure be getting some kind of once over but that's going to be pretty standard anyway for a new production run....the QC from those top brands are already really really good in my opinion and the amount of "problems" certain people try to make you think exist just aren't anywhere near that bad in reality....
You know it takes a good year or 2 for the extent of those kinds of issues to fully shoe themselves? You can only review what you have on launch day and the float x2 is a really good performing shock, so there's not much else they can do as far as reliability and durability claims go. A follow up review 2 years later would be interesting but ultimately not change a while lot. People will buy them anyway, plus the vast majority of products go to OE suppliers which are also locked in way in advance. In reality, we are only a few months away from 2027 OE spec being locked in so unless there is some drastic and real revelation very soon, these (and other products we don't know about) are probably already committed to being everywhere 2-3 years from now
and that is what's wrong with bike "reviews". not many do real long term reviews, most "reviews" these days are based on a few days of riding in a press camp to have it ready on launch day and then call it a day
First off, I don't think each fork has been taken apart by Jordi personally and sprinkled with fairy dust or anything, but the idea that they would spend all that money on a press camp and then just give the reviewers production line fresh, never checked forks seems wild to me. I'm not suggesting in any way that 1 in 20 forks has issues, but I bet 1 in 200 isn't the best example of the girls and not one that they would want in the hands of the reviewers. You think they are willing to take the 1 in 10 chance that one of the reviewers gets a (maybe only slightly) sub standard fork? I think not.
Even if it's just too much grease or not enough oil bath, in pretty sure most people on here have had a fork come like that.
In other industries the gold standard is to buy the products you are reviewing, so you do away with the question over this sort of thing. Obviously this is not feasible for all outlets and I'm not saying that a review carried out at a press camp are invalid or anything, it's just something to be aware of and keep in mind when watching these sort of things.
Complete aside here, and a bit of a thread derail, but your transition spur review convicted me to buy one. I still have it now and i think it's the most surprised I've ever been by a bike. I wanted a slightly burly xc bike and I got a very capable trail bike at not much more weight than a full on xc bike. I love it.
I have not seen a fork with legitimately too much grease or not enough oil from new in about 10 years. Are maybe a fraction less than ideal but the biggest thing is dry dust wipers (which is deliberate) or just a bit sticky from sitting around too long
I've taken apart my new on two new bikes, 36 and 38, the 38 was fine, sensible for what i would expect for mass production.
the 36 however was easily a token worth ontop of the air spring and a chunk under it.
-ive not experienced a Fork from any brand with no oil yet, low yes but not none.
10 years? I've serviced many forks now and ALOT of fox forks have been absolutely packed, Either you see very little new forks or a liar to protect industry connection.(not a personal dig or anything as I have not dealt or spoken with you)
There was a video of a Fox truck crew installing new forks on some media bikes awhile back, they were literally cleaning off the excess in the video - that video was edited, then later removed and reuploaded.
Theres several higher end shops in NZ who pull the airsprings on their forks and do that service from new.(im not name dropping because im not here to start a war)
I will continue to open new fox forks and make them perform better or as intended from new - you can do whatever you want.
LOL I definitely have nothing to protect 😅 and I see new, or close to new forks every week, if not daily. I still do a quick tear down on every fork I sell or if a customer buys a new bike, but that's mostly just a once over so I can guarantee its at 100% of what it should be. It's just much easier/cheaper than waiting to find out somethings not right down the line.
I do often see forks in a really bad state because someone wiped too much grease out though!
Still and yet: what are the FENDER options? Got about 90 days until it’s wet every day in the northwest!
The X2? You mean the shock that every bike company and their mother spec’ed on their misaligned trunion mount bike that had about as much frame alignment as a couple of soggy noodles. Not saying I didn’t have issues with that shock (I blew up three of them) but as it turns out the bike I had it on ate pretty much every shock I stuck on it (3 x2 and 2 EXTs).
I don’t want to absolve any company from making shit, I really don’t. But at least in the suspension word everyone I can think of and ridden (RS, Fox, Ohlins) are doing some amazingly good jobs, and maybe (just maybe) the world of bike suspension is actually quite good and not in a state of piss-poor engineering/QC with people only looking to make a buck.
FWIW, the last 6 fox forks I’ve taken apart have been spot on, and each RS shock I’ve reshimmed/serviced has been great.
Basically, what I am saying is that I don’t think there’s some vast conspiracy to hoodwink consumers by giving reviewers product that are vastly outside the spec and QC of what they are mass producing. Do I think they might have had a service done before press camp? Maybe. Do I honestly think the stuff given to folks (Fox and RS) is a accurate representation of 98% of the products they release in the field? Yep, 100%. It’s just too difficult to do otherwise.
Yup! A huge amount of the x2 problems were the fault of the frame, they just had the unfortunate luck of being species on a ton of bad trunnion bikes. Same things happened to the 1st gen dB inline (specialized....) and 2019 DVO (giant) maybe those products weren't perfect but they got a huge amount of bad press because of the bikes they came in.
Maybe I'm in the minority of suspension guys but I go out of my way to not trash too.many products publicly, and I also don't have 1 brand I think is the best and everyone MUST but it.... I just try to make the most of what people already have. There's definitely a lot of people who like to make out everything is terrible but they are the only ones who can fix it, which only really works for a minority
Fair enough. I haven't had a new fork in probably 4 years, but I know that before that I have absolutely had forks arrive with little to no oil bath. On full bikes, not a new fork in a box, not sure if that makes any difference.
I think we're missing the more interesting question, which is how much of a difference, if any, minor alignment issues make when actually riding the bike. If we're going to rightly excuse a lot of shock issues due to misaligned frames, it's a little strange to assume mass produced forks are all perfectly aligned.
I don't pay a ton of attention to Diaz's content, but I've talked to him before and I didn't get the pushy, everything-is-crap vibe. Doing back-to-back testing with a pre and post Diaz-aligned fork would be tough for obvious reasons, but I'd love to see Vital ask a few different industry sources and Diaz himself about the whole alignment thing and its real world implications. Ideally, you'd find a misaligned fork, dyno it, send it off to Diaz, and then dyno the modified fork and see how much friction was removed. Any of that would be a lot more valuable than creating a straw man to summarily dismiss.
As far as press camps, it's not confidence inspiring to me that bike companies aren't capable of giving 20 forks the world-cup-racer treatment before a big press camp. As a consumer, I hope they do. I want the review to be of a product that's functioning optimally. There's not much value in trying to draw conclusions about QC from 20 forks ridden for a few days each.
EDIT - I should have also said the Vital coverage has been excellent and fascinating, even though I don't get to ride my big bike enough right now to justify the fork.
Just to follow up on a few things...
As a summary, we don't know if Fox gave special attention to these forks, where they came from or how representative they are of the actual production sample. For a lot of reasons, my intuition is "these are right off the normal production line with no special attention during assembly". Again, this is based off my time as a media guy, internal product tester, timing of the actual release, and tech/finance consultant for various outdoor industry companies over the last 15 years. I very well could be wrong. I have zero hard evidence to tell the group I'm right, and am more like the guy sitting next to you at the bar who has maybe had 2-3 IPAs and can't stand staying silent any longer (that guy is fun, right? LOL).
As to @sethimus 's suggestion, sure I'll play along. Maybe my writing isn't so clear, but I'm strongly suggesting there is a difference between a product not performing correctly from the get-go and a warranty issue over "X" time horizon. The latter is what the X2 suffered from, and if you do go and read reviews from the 2022-2024 era you will see media types did call out durability as a potential concern. As a reminder, the X2 came out in 2016, and this architecture basically ran all the way until last year (with bikes still being sold with it). Why is that important? Well, media outlets rarely review small iterations within a generation of a component. IE, don't plan on Robot comparing this model year Podium to the MY + 1 Podium. Plus, the shock has always received high marks from a performance standpoint, which is really what a "first look" type of review is. Put differently, if you are looking for real durability data from an N=1 review, you are doing it wrong. Plus, its well known product testers have to motor through a ton of product in a limited amount of time. While the good ones are incredible at parsing what something is doing in a relatively short amount of time, its rare for a reviewer to have the bandwidth to really put something through its paces for hundreds of hours. Some do, but this is where talking to a mechanic at a well trafficked bike shop that serves your kind of riding in your area holds a lot more water than what someone on the internet does. But you all probably know this.
Overall I am merely hoping people see there is no big conspiracy in the bike world to fleece the consumer through media reviews. They absolutely have their shortcomings, but these shortcomings are so obvious. Take everything with a grain of salt. Anyone buying one of these forks based of 20 people's opinions over days of riding should know they are taking a risk. First generation of a product, first run of that product. There are far likely to be quirks and issues than a year or two from now (barring a pandemic that shuts down the supply chain and causes vendor/labor issues cough X2 cough), this is with any company, not just fox.
Finally - thx to anyone who ever has nice things to say about my "work" as a gear reviewer. I can't believe people listen to what I have to say, but its nice when it helps someone find something they really like.
Cheers.
Here's another wild theory - the thin-walled steel axle is a bit more flexy and more comfortable to ride than thick Al alloy axles so it became the riders' favorite. I think I feel a bit of the same when switching from quite flexy to very stiff front hubs wheels in the Intend. I am probably just crazy.
Could be. Could be that two axles that test on a jig or in FEA or autocad or whatever to have "the same stiffness" can perform differently in the field, especially when bolted into a dynamic environment like the bottom of an inverted fork holding a big 29" front wheel. I would kill to get to try out the other axles that didn't get chosen.
I would love suggestions for this test idea: One of the things I've decided after all the Podium/Intend/Dorado/Push comments is that we need to do an apples to apples torsional "handlebar twist" test on video for comparison between the Podium, my Zeb, the Push Nine One if and when we get it in for testing, and any other forks I can get my hands on. What's the best way to get a reproducable consistent test? Twist it as hard as I can? Ask someone smaller than me and less strong to twist it as hard as they can? I feel like "try to twist it at 80% effort" will produce wildly inconsistent results.
Also any bright ideas of how we can measure deflection? I guess if we video it with a tripod with a consistent lens and vantage point we can measure angle of deflection by looking at the video results after the fact.
Fix your front wheel in a stand and hang a scale off one end of your handlebar. Pull on the scale parallel to the ground with a predetermined force and measure the displacing at the handlebar.
This will yield predictable results, but it doesn't necessarily translate to riding experience.
Agreed that it won’t translate directly to riding results, but it would be nice to have some sort of way to talk objectively about torsional stiffness. Once you have a common metric of comparison, then maybe we could have a more educated conversation about the subjective stuff.
And Blake, that’s a great idea. A Feedback Sports hanging scale and some lumber screwed onto my work bench is not a crazy investment.
clamp the front wheel into something, then attach a spring scale on one end of the handlebar and pull it with x amount of force, repeat with all the other forks. use the same laser i used: https://thingswecre8.myshopify.com/products/thingswecre8-staystraight-d…
yeah this was basically my thought - you could hang the bike on a wall and clamp the front wheel, then hang a weight off which should be very repeatable
Fox were comparing an aluminium and steel axle of the same stiffness, so no, not more flexy. Which is why i figured they might have chosen the steel for another reason than ride quality.
I think wear is a reasonable guess, but cost is a more likely one as someone else mentioned. Fox wouldn't be likely to admit that they went with steel just because it's cheaper when its being used on their most expensive fork.
Stiffness is just displacement under a given load. Steel and aluminum will have different material damping and rebound properties even when their stiffness is identical. I’m imagining the legs of an inverted fork can be thought of like a tuning fork, and axle material will change how that tuning fork sounds.
Not much to ass to the topic, but from my time in the industry
A) Big bike companies ABSOLUTELY have the money to service 20 forks nicely for a launch. I wasn't at Fox but where I was we definitely made sure anything going to some media event was mint.
I actually believe one of the motivations behind the podium is solving the creaking CSU on the 38.
How many forks are torn down to bits / serviced per vendor in an average DH WC race? Would you not want the same mechanic(s) to do the job on all forks sent to media?
I thought it was interesting that neither Slaw or Richie ran the Podium (and ended up 1st/2nd) this last weekend, considering what the course conditions looked to be. Lots of traverses over shitty off-camber roots, tight & steep French turns, etc. Basically conditions where you'd expect the Podium to shine, but they ran the 38 instead. In the photos, I saw two Yeti junior racers who had it on but all the other Fox athletes ran the 38.
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