Trail Bike of the Year!

Angus Young

Chunkers1980 wrote:

I'm not. But you said that was the first reasonable answer.

Well, it was a plausible reason for using a substandard wheelset. No conspiracy there - simple business.

cooldad

Surely marketing style over substance is a reasonable answer?

lawman

cooldad wrote:

Surely marketing style over substance is a reasonable answer?

This. If all manufacturers used the "best" parts at any price point then bikes would certainly look pretty much identical. They speced the wheels, big deal. For those not in the know it's probably a non-issue. Those in the know probably wouldn't buy an off the shelf bike anyway, they'd get the frame and build it themselves with their own pick of parts. Fwiw I'm willing to bet the number of people "in the know" is far smaller than those that aren't as clued up.

BigAl

cooldad wrote:

Surely marketing style over substance is a reasonable answer?

Exactly this

Angus - your mistake is thinking that a bike manufacturer wants to produce the 'absolute' best bike for £x.

In fact, what they want to do is produce a bike that they can sell the highest volume of, at £x, with the greatest profit. And who can argue with that? Hence 'crap' Fox forks and blingy wheels.

poah

out of interest - all the people dissing the CB wheels, have they actually owned a set and had something go wrong? have they had things go wrong with other wheels too? Hopes have a reputation for splitting and having issues with bearings and lateral play?

Thewaylander

Crank brothers wheels had a big remake last year, they are meant to be far more reliable now. I'm not a huge fan still as getting bits would be difficult but the idea of the flag ship bike is not so much the sales normaly but the look so people aspire to a design style (IMO).

Having ridden a set of the new version CB wheels they seemed to do a job and didnt explode in the hour or two hammering i gave them.

cooldad

Not owned (I'm not stupid or rich enough) but have ridden them (they feel fine), know people who have them, and have watched while they wait, and wait, and wait for parts and repairs.

jonnyashworth

This is probably going to open another whole can of worms but I'm saying it anyway.....
Over the years I have used a fair hew hope products in face my Blur LT currently has a set of M4 brakes, stainless BB and a set of Pro 3AM laced to Stans flow rims. I have to say I have never had a single issue with any Hope product and personally love the sound of a Hope rear hub :shock:. So much in fact that I plan (eventually) on building my Pro 3 AM rear hubs with a nice set of stiff/strong carbon rims when Bronson frames start popping up on ebay for sensible money 2nd hand

Thewaylander

This one thing with moutain biking or almost any past time, people go on there own experiences. the older pro 2 hubs from hope and a ton of issues but the new ones are vastly improved some will be put off by the old issues others will come back.

similar with CB wheels except here CB are not trading on the british tag like hope which i think gives hope a bit mroe leeway in this country at least.

benpinnick

I think more importantly if you do have a problem with a hope (or any 'standard' wheel)...

Parts are easily sourced
Spokes are standard J Bend
Rims are standard crest (or hope now).

Wheels break. They are one of the most vulnerable parts of the bike. The issue with CB wheels is not that they will break more often (that is seemingly fixed now but certainly a problem in the past) but when they do its a total pain in the butt. For all the issues original proII hubs had, at least fixing them was relatively quick and painless.

Thewaylander

Thats true enough, worth getting in spare spokes on any non standard wheel build IMO so if the worst happens you can get it sorted asap.

Kowalski675

Never mind the wheels, there's a far more important question - does it come in any alternative, less disgustingly gash and tasteless colourschemes?...

Angus Young

Kowalski675 wrote:

Never mind the wheels, there's a far more important question - does it come in any alternative, less disgustingly gash and tasteless colourschemes?...

You no likey Yellow, red or green?

Kowalski675

Angus Young wrote:

Kowalski675 wrote:

Never mind the wheels, there's a far more important question - does it come in any alternative, less disgustingly gash and tasteless colourschemes?...

You no likey Yellow, red or green?

The one in the pic earlier in the thread is black and gold - gash.

Angus Young

Kowalski675 wrote:

The one in the pic earlier in the thread is black and gold - gash.

It's a deep yellow from the pics on their site, though there is some gold on those peculiar wheels.

neilus

Hmmm. I haven't read this thread word for word but the gist of it seems to be "Fox components are shite". Considering they come as standard almost everywhere (im looking at 140mm AM/enduro bikes - Giant Trance, Canon Spectrals etc...all full of Fox gear), its a bit confusing...
Is this criticism directed specifically at the fork fitted on the Mondraker - the Fox 32 Float 27.5" CTD? Theres a somewhat bewildering array of Fox CTD forks, am I to conclude they are all pants? What about the CTD rear shocks?
Sorry for all the questions...!

Thewaylander

Basically at the moment 2014 fox forks suck monkey bits, but the rear shocks on the whole are fine. apparently it’s all sorted for 2015 but who can say till you can ride them but certainly in 34/36 area fox the Pike from rockshox a 35mm fork takes them outside has its wicked way with them and leaves them in a ditch head backwards.

BloggingFit

Nothing wrong with their forks per se. The 2013 models were very plush but had a tendency to blow through their travel too easily and I think for 2014 they over compensated and a lot of small bump compliance was lost. If they had developed the 2013 model more then I think they would produced a decent fork rather than panicked.

I personally like their rear shock and find CTD useful.

neilus

BloggingFit wrote:

they over compensated and a lot of small bump compliance was lost

Sorry im really not very fluent with technical terminology...do you mean the fork is stiff even if it were set to "descend" when it should be plush?

supersonic

The descend function is plain daft. Just when you need some supportive damping they recommend you turn it totally off!

lawman

supersonic wrote:

The descend function is plain daft. Just when you need some supportive damping they recommend you turn it totally off!

I think what CTD should be treated as is a simple 3 or five position low-speed compression adjust and ignore the marketing tags they put on them, like descend, trail etc. just treat as you would a normal low speed compression dial. Not many folks run forks with wide open compression anyway, so if anything sticking it in trail mode is probably similar to how folks would run other forks with normal low speed adjusters. Forget the marketing acronyms and actually think how you would set a fork up and it's not all that bad. Sure it's less adjustable than the old RLC damper but I've found it relatively easy to tune any CTD forks I've tested to feel similar to my own 32 rlcs. They just need to sort the chassis out more than anything!

Thewaylander

BloggingFit wrote:

Nothing wrong with their forks per se. The 2013 models were very plush but had a tendency to blow through their travel too easily and I think for 2014 they over compensated and a lot of small bump compliance was lost. If they had developed the 2013 model more then I think they would produced a decent fork rather than panicked.

I personally like their rear shock and find CTD useful.

Ride their forks, then ride the rockshoxs and say that. Rockshox are stiffer, lighter, better small bump, better mid-range support and cheaper for these years

neilus

Ok...so basically youre saying when looking for a mid range 2-2.5k 140mm am/enduro, avoid anything with Fox forks from 2014?

BloggingFit

neilus wrote:

BloggingFit wrote:

they over compensated and a lot of small bump compliance was lost

Sorry im really not very fluent with technical terminology...do you mean the fork is stiff even if it were set to "descend" when it should be plush?

Over smaller bumps, yes. Think trail centres with hard pack stone surfaces or small tree roots. I noticed a distinct lack of front end grip on these surfaces with the 2014 fork compared to 2013 despite fettling with pressure and rebound settings. To me they just felt too stiff in the initial first third of travel and that there was always a compromise with performance. In the end I found riding them open (descend) in most situations apart from climbing helped. Perhaps reducing air volume and reducing pressure would help these out.

I've swapped them out for Rockshox Pike and found they perform very well in comparison. Good feel and grip over the small stuff without blowing through travel on the larger stuff.

BloggingFit

neilus wrote:

Ok...so basically youre saying when looking for a mid range 2-2.5k 140mm am/enduro, avoid anything with Fox forks from 2014?

Depends on your experience with bikes and forks etc. A vast majority will be very happy with a 2014 Fox product having not ridden one in the past or after a great deal of time.

paul.skibum

BloggingFit wrote:

neilus wrote:

Ok...so basically youre saying when looking for a mid range 2-2.5k 140mm am/enduro, avoid anything with Fox forks from 2014?

Depends on your experience with bikes and forks etc. A vast majority will be very happy with a 2014 Fox product having not ridden one in the past or after a great deal of time.

I bought a Bronson with Fox Evolution series Float 34 CTD (cheapest Fox 34 fork often fitted as OEM forks and distinguished by the word evolution at the top of the decals on the fork lowers) - in Descend mode they are next to useless - small bump is good on flat/gentle downs but hit anything with any substance or get on steeper slopes and the fork dives through its travel with no damping and tries to pitch you over the bars. IN Trail mode it has little small bump and lacks composure on the trail meaning braking becomes a struggle and corner traction is hit and miss then from time to time you hit a bigger bump and beat the compression damping and blow through travel again. In climb the fork is basically locked out and any sort of technical terrain will stop your wheel rolling as the fork doesnt move.

I have asked around for upgrades/tuning and the cost is basically 2/3rds the price of a new fork for something that in would be the Factory or Performance model grade which still gets only OK write ups.

If you get Factory or Performance on a bike you might be happy with it, if you get evo unless you ride towpaths you will want to disembowel Fox employees with the steerer of the forks.

paul.skibum

Just to add to what I wrote above, the Float 34 Factory CTD with Kashima and what not got a 7 in a recent MBR test.

A Suntour Auron which costs £550 less got a 7, the BOS deville, similar price to the Fox got a 9 and the Pike £150 less got a 10.

Cqc

But that includes price to performance scale, not absolute performance, so if two forks were identical but one costed £500 more, it would get a worse result. So basically the score is saying that the suntour is 7/10 for a £350 fork, and the fox is 7/10 for a £900 fork, so not entirely true what you are saying, but yeah, not too impressive considering the price

BloggingFit

You could take the forks off from new, sell on ebay and use the same amount of money to buy a set of pikes

neilus

Just found this by way of another thread-
http://www.yt-industries.com/shop/en/Bi ... icked-650B
Not a Fox component in sight! 2099 euro so about 1700 quid...any thoughts?