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Air is becoming more and more of a rarity in moto. KTM/Husky/GG still use the "AER" (air) lineup of Xact forks in their motocross bikes but have moved their enduro bikes to coil. I don't follow the mx/sx stuff that much but I believe Tomac and Webb are on air right now (among others).
I've run both air and coil, both can be made to work well (similar to a mountain bike). @Suns_PSD - I'm going to disagree with your hypothesis however. While there is an adiabatic compression effect with air under very high shaft speeds, this is something we deal with in mtb too. Shaft speeds on the WC are the same as what a moto rider is going to see, so if this was really the catalyst, we'd never see anyone on air at the WC level (but we see a lot of it.) Anyone who has ever ridden an air spring then swapped to coil (and is going fast, hitting things hard) knows what this first hand. The air spring tends to feel a bit stiffer when running into stuff hard at high shaft speeds.
The spiking I'm talking about is far more dramatic. It literally can feel like the forks are locked out. I've had it happen with air, coil, and multiple damper configurations. My hypothesis is its either coming from a damper that has its roots in moto, where you aren't running into square edged bumps at 25mph (super high shaft speed) and it can't flow enough oil OR it has something do with the bushing design and the force vector essentially preventing the forks from cycling.
Final point, its moto, so I say forks. Which is so, so dumb of me.
stanchion guards are not needed. the only thing that hit my bike this year a lot are those cow gates:
Glad it's working out for you.
My lowers on the other hand after about 18 months of use.
The only Intend guard options I am aware of are the Rulezman carbon fiber ones (very $), or a newer option that looks to be 3D printed out of the Santa Cruz area.
https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/3998707/
Intend also offers all forks (?) as a Blackline option which is a different lower leg/lug design that includes metal guards. The Flash pictured above was ordered as the version without the guards as it needed to be Torque cap compatible. It is being run without guards for the time being, fingers crossed.
lower legs are made of cheese compared to stanchions. FWIW, the original intend stanchions are rather hard to score..(during transport, when most of shit happens anyway).
if you dont mind minor scratches in the crown you can get b-stock flash forks right now for less:
https://www.intend-bc.com/shop/unique-forks-b-stock/
If you were to really scratch a stanchion badly, what is replacement cost? Being its just one tube with a lug mated to it, I could see it being semi-reasonable. At least when compared to very expensive guards?
I believe lower leg replacement from Intend is only 70 Euro, so very reasonable.
It's the whole back and forth from Germany that could add some time and money.
Only thing I care about these guards is how rad they look. In the unlikely case I ever get one of these forks I make sure they're on
Rocks are pretty hard though, and depending on how you crash, rocks care more about bulk material properties than surface hardness. I do not see a USD stanchion surviving many of the dents and gouges my oldest fork has collected in its lowers (and which still functions just fine). My newest fork has no damage because I got better (or more likely more cautious) but I still wouldn't risk it.
getting guards (rulezman) would cost me about 4 leg replacements, so far i haven’t scratched them once
Does anyone know if there are stanchion guards that incorporate a mudguard to fit Intend's forks? Kinda like the ones that Push have (see photo). Its the one off putting thing about USD forks for me, especially living in Ireland where you need something year round really. I know Intend have their own mudguard that fits into the bottom of the steerer tube, but it doesn't seem like as clean a solution.
Alternatively, I wonder if Push's mudguard could be modded to fit with the intend forks?
That is an insane price if true
Unfortunately (for now), all of the guards on the market are way more expensive than just purchasing an extra stanchion ( 200-250 for guards vs. 70 for a stanchion). Makes way more sense to just have an extra stanchion on hand.
FWIW, after owning my Edge for 3 years, I had my first major stanchion scare the other day, and I wasn't even riding. Had my bike propped up just outside my garage, my son bumped it, and the stanchion hit the corner of the brick entry and proceeded to slide down the brick corner, grinding the whole way.....not a single scratch. Not gonna lie, my butt did pucker watching it happen from across the driveway....
nothing to mount them against. rulezman uses some stick on holders but they wont hold that much weight so answer is no
afaik https://visionvelo.eu/ wanted to look into making something more custom for intend forks this fall, but haven't heard anything recent yet, but probably something like their ext vaia fender: https://visionvelo.eu/product/ext-vaia-mx-mudguard/
Whoever can make an aftermarket Push-style mudguard for the Podium that sits closer to the tire is going to make dozens of dollars. I know I'll buy one.
The legs are priced reasonably (on the standard, not the Blackline which is a single piece and therefore surely more expensive) but also require a press. The issue is that the Intend forks are claimed to be carefully part matched so your particular parts don't bind.
I'd rather spend $250 more to protect the legs than mess with all that down the road.
For me, it's not a fork I'd own if I could not rig up some quality fork leg protection.
Anyways, I'm building up a new bike for the Fall to replace the Relay. It'll likely be a Regulator, Sidekick hubs laced to M8 Enve rims & probably the Intend fork.
I do want to work a bit more on getting happier with my Avy Hybrid Mezzer though. I've ridden units that have been amazing, but mine just isn't.
They would need to make sure that they had a licensing deal in place with us before doing that. We have a pending global patent in place for our fender system.
That was smart, k mean the other one up the crown is pretty much useless I don’t understand why everyone is not doing it like this
I had a brief look for other options and then bought Rulzman ones. I wasn't so concerned about damage, moreso that usd forks look shit without them 😅
Because back in the day it was way of life …
Do you even THE bro?
Back then? Sweet, now? Dumb, i mean to each their own, but I see no point in these mudguards that far away from the tyre if not huge, and they’re ugly already
ugly, yes.. but they do the job as far as I experienced. Perhaps cause so different and out there closer to you compared to what we are used to now...that one just cannot accept it. It grows on you though, moto style.
They probably cause less trouble on chairlifts too
So my intend came with the guards already installed fron the previous owner. I think they look good but the main advabtage is that they might let you keep enjoing a riding day that could have been been ended when you would habe scratched the legs of the fork and instead you scratched the fork guards. When you are out and about, the cheap price of a part is not gonna get you far, only if you carry it with you. But im pretty sure noone is carring a spare stanchion on a ride, right?
Finally someone who understand common sense.
Better to have it and not need it than not having it and needing it.
It's just the same as riding with a mudguard all the time(unless you live in the desert...) because then you just know it's sorted. Personally I ride mixed conditions all the time and I'd never spend my time considering when and how badly I need it or not for this or that ride, which means I'm better off just having it mounted all the time.
The other aspect is that we all live in different places, with different terrain, different trails and types of riding etc etc so to act like stanchion guards are not needed is seeing it through the narrow lens only as 1 person, except there's 8 billion people on this planet. It's wise to broaden one's perspective so one could see that just because it hasn't happened to you will never automatically mean it cannot never happen to you nor anyone else.
funny how that viewpoint is always coming from someone not owning one.
Kanista's reply is right above mine, and his first three words of his comment was this: So my Intend...
Proving you wrong is easy.
There's also been other people even with pictures of lowers with scratches, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if scratches on the lowers of a conventional fork has happened, you can simply mentally visualize what that would do to a USD fork. You somehow believe that you actually need to own a USD fork to figure out what can happen to it. That's wrong as I just explained very easily.
I know you would just simply find other excuses once I got an Intend fork on my own bike, because that is the behavior you are showing. No need to think you're better than anyone because you own a product from this brand because all you accomplish is to prove that you managed to purchase a product. I could teach that to a 5 year old...
non owners a fixated on 3 things:
- they think the chassis is a noodle (mostly debunked these days)
- they think they need a damper upgrade right out of the box (slowly getting less too these days)
- they think they need leg guards (still very common)
get one, ride it, get rid of your prejudices…
Nobody's telling you that you need them, but I'm into things that can save me time and money if I screw up.
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