GT Avalanche 1.0 2009 & Suntour MAG 32

Carrera anyday.

GT has Suntour forks, much prefer the tora's...search on here and you'll find that people love them.
GT has no-name rims.

The Suntours on the Avalanche 1.0 are pretty good, mine are totally smooth as butter even 2 years on, they've done the rounds on 4 hack bikes in total, due to general opinion on Suntour I'd never flog them for a decent price so I'll keep em! They've probably done more miles than my Fox Floats and Rock Shox Rebas put together

The most common complaint seems to be the spring being too soft, I'm 14 stone and mine have been alright though, very active travel, the rebound damping is fixed but seems to be set sensibly. The Tora's on the Fury are quite a bit more adjustable though, both in travel and rebound damping, definitely better forks, there's nothing wrong with the Suntours though. If anything I'd have more faith in those aluminium stanchions lasting longer than the cheap steel ones on the Toras.

Same goes for the Aurigas on the GT, pain in the arse to service but you can buy some tubing on ebay and do it youself. Fantastic brakes, very similar in design and feel to a set of Juicy 3s. I've bled mine once in 2 years, once again, I stick them on hack bikes and get a lot of use out of them, they've been really reliable. The pads are easy to replace as well, quite a few places stock the right type.

GT has no-name rims.

Random comment, the SX-24 things are found on a few bikes as OEM, much like the Sun XC rims on the Fury.

The rest of the spec is very similar, Deore with SLX rear mech compared to X5 with an X7 rear mech on the Fury. If you get chance I'd ride both and see if any fit you better, both are steals to be honest.

supersonic wrote:

Interesting on the tora stanchions, tapered heat treated cromo steel are much tougher than alu! But are heavier lol.

Both are good forks, one lighter and not as well made (SR), other tougher and more adjustable (RS)

Tougher, more likely to corrode though if you get water sat in under the seals surely? :P

The Suntour isn't amazingly light either really, it's very smooth and reliable though, the lockout is fairly crap but aside from that they're just fit and forget.

Anyway, as I said, that was purely "I'd have more faith in", the Toras I had on my FSR XC a couple of years back were dire, got a dodgy batch there I think. Very jerky, sticky travel, no idea what went wrong there. Saying that, the missus bike sat about 10 foot from me has some Darts on, they're beautifully smooth. I'm sure I'll forgive Toras one day :P

Similar with either I guess really on the wear front, once the finish wears off on aluminium forks stanchions they'll get sticky.

The stanchions will last untill you hit a tree or a wall.
No aluminium or steel will prevent them from bending.

And I don't see any reason to fail under normal use.
That's my humble opinion.