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Paper products from Germany can only mean one thing, new fork day! This is the Intend Flash 35, it can be run from 160mm to 190mm. Very similar to the Edge; but with a more robust crown, longer legs, and slightly different uppers. After initial riding and then a full tear down and inspection, there will be some parallel testing with a 35mm Boxxer. Both forks will be run at 190mm of travel on a DH bike. The capability of the 170mm inverted forks at Angel Fire was so impressive that a direct comparison of a longer travel version to...

PUSH is kidding you, this is not a normal thing and demand a replacement of the defective part.

Funny how it always seems to be an user issue/different vendor issue with Push if there is something unsual with their product. I get some Steve Jobs "you are holding it wrong" vibes from that...

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...

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....

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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

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.

Great video! Nice work, guys. FYI, in the video Charlie says Podium is more than a pound heavier than 38. Podium is only 314g heavier than a comparably spec'd 38, for the record. 1 pound = 454g. 314g equates to almost exactly 2/3 of a pound.

The crown on Podium is hollowed out. We tested multiple variants with more and less material removed, that's how we settled on the exact amount of hollowing there is on the production fork. We refer to these holes as "lightening bores". As Charlie noted, we were chasing the sweet spot of stiffness to satisfy our pro athletes and weight was a secondary concern. Some other USD forks on the market are lighter and while they may work well for many people out there, they are not being raced by the best riders at the highest level. We chose the name...

Fair question. Money is definitely one reason why we haven't bought an Intend to test ( or 2772 reasons). In a perfect world, I would love for Vital to buy all of our test products at MSRP, like Consumer Reports used to do (Consumer Reports is now a dead husk of their former self). But buying all our test products would require either a) more revenue from advertisers, or b) moving to a subscription model and charging viewers, which other bike sites have done (Velo, Radavist, etc), or c) more $$$ from advertisers AND charging viewers for a subscription, which...

I'll fly the pro USD flag, although I'm very biased... I think you're slightly underestimating the nuance between an amazing fork and a crap fork. At this point you might have rode two forks of the same manufacturer and model but yet they feel vastly different. To me, that's down to fork manufacturing being on the knifes edge of production manufacturing tolerances. For example, 4-6lbs of extra seal drag is garbage, .25deg misalignment of tubes is total garbage, and if a 14" long stanchion deviates more than .0004" (human hair is ~.002") - steaming hot garbage. You might say those...

Much prefer scrolling to swiping, thanks!

Much prefer scrolling to swiping, thanks!

Loam Wolf? I'd disagree, even this "review" aside. They released a video maybe a year or two ago about how you should peel the wiper seal back on your fork and insert chain oil into it. You read that right, chain oil, into a suspension fork. They got called out in the IG comments for how dumb it was, several suspension shops commented saying the same thing, and LW repeatedly defended it, claiming DVO told them it was a good idea. Even the RockShox IG account was throwing shade at it in the comments and Loam Wolf continually argued it...

Yes, I think this is a major consideration. They siad that the Mavens didn't have a lot of modulation---but they're running them with 220mm rotors, lol. I run 180mm rotors on mine at Whistler and have plenty of power and good modulation. I am 20-30lbs lighter than these guys, but a 220mm rotor on a Maven with sintered pads is more like a 200+ lbs rider's setup.

Interesting to hear about TRP opting out. Having owned most of these brakes (except the Shimanos, and have ridden those), I feel like a few of the brands do themselves a disservice with what brake kits they send out to reviewers for testing. The MT7s with HC3 levers look fancy and have lots of adjustments, but they lack leverage compared to their longer HCW aka Bruni lever. I owned the HC3 version but have ridden the HCW, and that dramatically reduces the lever resistance (increased leverage). Hayes sends out T4s which as you noted lack the tool-free reach adjust which...