I've been using an '08 Revelation and and DHX 5 coil on my current bike, but I've been very much looking forward to the '16 Fox 36 and Float X my new bike is coming with. Just hoping I can set it all up right and it's going to be amazeballs, as reading the comments in this thread has be worried!
I wouldn't be too worried BT180. I've no doubt they'll genuinely make for a nice change-up from what you've been riding & the bottom line is that there are plenty of aftermarket options out there for those wanting to play with the performance qualities of their fork & shock.
In terms of performance, OEM or otherwise up to now, I think the truth of the performance of Fox suspension might lie somewhere in Duckmeister & Poodle's response on the subject- certain Fox products work for certain people & styles.
I've found, both from my own and customers' experience, that Fox rear shocks tend to suit lighter riders, while the Monarchs are better for the heavier guys. The Fox have lighter breakaway & more suppleness in the top stroke, which suits the lighties (like me), but blows through too soon for the heavier dudes, while the monarch is the opposite - better support in the top & mid-stroke, which is good for the porkers, but too firm & chattery for flyweights.
As for forks, they've both had their good & bad eras. There was a time when I was just starting the conversion from roadie when RS were considered technified spaghetti for all the stiffness they didn't have, while Fox were the duck's nuts, and then CTD came along and Fox lost the plot, and RS found it.
Yep, that resonates with my own experiences of Fox's air sprung rear shocks, particularly the factory RP23s. I'd have been between 80-85kgs (wet/loaded) & don't ride like a plow cow, but I'd often touch on the end of the rear travel just riding some of the more "tech" bits of the southern end of Yarra trails. Always felt like once the wheel had moved through the first 1/4 of its travel there wasn't sufficient dampening for me thereafter.
Totally agree with you re every fork manufacturer having gone through their woes be it product design, manufacturing, support or their business structure as a whole. Rode Marzzochis & Manitous through the early 00s (Z1, Z3.5 OEM/Sherman Firefly, Sliders & Dorados)- look what happened to those two former big hitters; I then rode Fox & RS through the mid-00s before kind of just sticking to RS forks/shocks across my HTs, trail & DH bikes. Id' say it was primarily because of the whole price/performance/service/reliability/support equation of RS that it's ended up that way for me, & my experience with forks is largely based around aggressive trail or DH chassis.
It's not so much how Fox performs, it's more the whole package of Fox, particularly when I look at the entire equation. As someone touched on before, maybe it's Fox's acquisition by a private equity group that has been the telling change for where Fox has found itself in the last few years.
I must be missing something. I've got a fox rears on both my bikes, and fronts on one. I've used a lot of their stuff over the years and always been stoked with the feel...even when I've had warranty issues (twice with a fox vanilla 160 about 10 years and once with a fox Talas 160 last year). I will always love the classic feel of Marzocchi the most, Italians know how I want it.
In terms of that last sentence, between you, me & the stanchion leg we know there's just not enough lube in the world for that, Poodle. Loved my Marzocchis too, but God it was disconcerting once the cryo-fit on the crowns started to go & the creaking began:shocked:
When I started working with suspension the only choice was Fox because they made real dampers with damper technology which could be serviced and tuned with accuracy, RS made unserviceable replace only plastic crap that felt ok but you couldn't do much with and frankly wasn't worth it unless you wanted to make a complete assembly, and thats the same reason why guys like Vorsprung/Push do alot of fox stuff, because you a refining a good product not reinvinting a poor one.
If you ask alot of the guys like push/vorsprung etc why they make upgrades for fox its because its worth upgrading. eg a slight refinement on a compression housing on a CTD vs a complete boxxer cart eg Elka or old school Ohlins etc..
I think the main issue with Fox is OEM/cost, Fox is expensive product, so you buy a 3k bike which comes with a $300 fox shock, you replace it with a $600 RS and it feels great, that comparison makes for some unfair assumptions. eg. you need to compare a Factory 36 to a Pike RCT3 not a Evo 32.
I would also like to add that sometimes other factors come into play eg, that Giant killed RP23s by supplying 1000s of bikes with a shit tune. I spent 2 years of my life retuning 2-5 RP23s a day to suit Giants. The propedal worked on every giant RP23BV but the tune selection and linkage made it totally ineffective.
I think the market is only just starting to understand how complex suspension is,
and with regards to supply of service manuals, I handed out a few bits of info like IFP settings etc for DIYers. 90% of these shocks ended up in the shop getting major rebuilds and often getting binned because the lever of detail required to do a good job is way beyond most shops let alone most DIYers, anyone who has ever bleed a shock the way a RS manual tells you to and ridden it and thought it worked well is on drugs, or doesn't understand anything about bikes
Yeah, there were some pros & cons with the RS mo-co units (& a few cartridge failures on the Boxxers) but for the non-DH applications cartridge death was mainly isolated to the serial fiddlers who would either set them up incorrectly or wound up their floodgate & expected the mo-co to be able to cater to stupidity. Personally I loved that 06-09 era of mo-co dampening, particularly in my Pike 454s & they're still a very stiff fork for a 32mm 2kg package- incredibly simple & effective with performance to boot for the price, & outperformed my equivalent era Talas 36s despite the Fox's barely being a tad stiffer & silkier when running primo. You did have to keep on top of your service intervals (well surpassing my Fox intervals though) to keep the 454s running mint but they had a great range of low speed compression & the corresponding high speed dynamics were then determined by your positive & negative pressure settings in the left leg. It was indeed quasi-dampening, & for some considered a toy, but in the 9yrs of putting a set through absolute hell & abuse across DJ & trail bikes I've never had a mo-co fail, seal leak/blow on either pos or neg chambers. Still running them on my Stanton Slackline.
I get a little uneasy or cynical at major suspension manufacturers (especially those that charge a premium) when they establish themselves in the market by producing very, very good suspension then go questionably south while continuing to charge that premium across the price & service aspects for well documented under performing or realistically unserviceable suspension. In Fox's case factory non-OEM performance forks in particular leave one squinting at the price tag in an apples with apples comparison, & yet OEM & Factory Fox owners alike, across all chassis & most ranges, make up the lion's share (if not all) of business for Push, Vorsprung & Mojo. Does that not seem extraordinary? Surely Fox owners aren't just an overly finicky bunch when it comes to their suspension.
On the other hand look at Fox in the off-road motorsport arena (where I was originally familiar with the Fox Suspension brand) & they kinda ARE the Rockshox of that industry. That lack of translation through mtbing at a performance/service level in the long term from Fox is probably one of the things that has surprised me.
That situation you described with Fox & Giant sounded like a shambles for both manufacturers, and yourself. What bikes were they coming off?
Can't vouch for RS' serviceability pre-2013 as I was riding Fox coils & RP23s. My experience with air sprung RS rear shocks only extends to the last few years with a Monarch RC3+ & the new Monarch RC3+ Debonair & they're definitely a pretty straightforward item that most inclined & capable owners can service, tune & ride with a result as per it would if sent to Monza/SRAM for servicing.
I'd definitely love to see Fox back on their game like they used to be.
Good mix of responses & experiences from people.