Suntour Raidon LO R

voodoo254

The fact that the Suntour Raidon LO R was present on the two bikes that won MBR Hardtail Of The Year award (Voodoo Bizango and Vitus sentier 275 VR), does that not suggest that its actually a pretty good fork in comparison to forks that are nearly twice (and more) its price? Or was it just the fact that it was present on good bikes and thus it got lucky?
As a newbie in the world of MTB, i've gathered that not too many folks are fond of this make...Any thoughts?

welshkev

I believe they're a pretty decent budget fork and suntour are upping their game. the durolux (sp?) for example is a very good fork from what I've read

cooldad

Suntour make some terrible forks and some really good ones.
Annything from XCT downwards are rubbish. XCR acceptable, Raidon upwards start becomming OK.

rockmonkeysc

The Raidon is a good fork for the price. I wouldn't say it's as good as forks costing twice as much.
The Raidon is around £140ish so double the price is Rockshox Recon Gold RL and Reba RL which are lighter, more adjustable and better damped.
The two bikes you mention are very well specced for the price and a lot of similar priced bikes come with much cheaper forks like the Suntour XCM/XCT/XCR or the Rockshox XC28.
Suntour do make some good forks.

The Rookie

I'm with CD, the XCT is awful (and they make even worse!), the XCM is OK if it has a hydraulic damper (it seems about 50% do - look for HLO/Hydraulic Lockout in the specs), the XCR a deal lighter and nearly all (but not all) have a damper, above that the Raidon and Epicon are both decent to ride and good value for money - they also seem to be improving reliability (the seals!), lets not forget that RS also make the Dart range which is pretty much identical to the Suntour XC range and can be just as dreadful. The Raidon/Epicon can be compared fairly well to the RS Recon Silver/Gold, I would take the RS from choice (fairly small margin) but the Suntours are probably better value for money. Of course the 2 bikes above have scored well on value for money, they aren't necessarily the very best bike.