jethro10
Über Member
- Location
- Lake District, UK
Just fitted a Manitou Minute MRD Absolute 130mm (2009 model) fork, from Chainreaction, here
http://www.chainreac...9&ModelID=36039
Black, was £399, lists at £649!! but is an old model, still odd ones available mind, for £500's elsewhere. so you could almost call £400 a bargain ;-) Obviously discounted as it's end of line.
I had a Rockshox Reba SL Dual air which has now gone to the wifes bike.
My bike is a roughtly low 10Kg home built hardtail
Shock is not remote lock out liek the Reba, but 8 position manual adjust for hardness of lockout, it's a single air fork with rebound adjust.
1530g about 100g lighter than the reba, but again not a deciding factor.
We nearly just bought a fork for the wife for an upgrade, but for various reasons, mostly an extra 30mm travel in the Manitou, I gave her my old one - my expectations were not massivly great, just though I could use the extra ground clearance and softness of more travel - Mostly health reasons which is not worth getting into here, unless anyone is interested - see a topic in the "Know How" thread for more on that.
I live in a village and "out of the back way" is tarmac for 1/2 mile, then a very rocky, tractors and possibly Landrovers only track of about 3/4 mile which is an up then down hill, approx 50/50. which is something I'm very familiar with and where i did my comparison.
Lockout seems to feel as though the first three positions are identical, ie. full suspension movement, remainder get progressivly harder. On hard bumps, when rebounding, you can hear the fork quite loudly if it's quiet around you, you can hear loudish sounds like air or oil in the damper squishing through it's hole. sounds no different on any of the 8 lockout settings to me.
On the road, feels it little different if at all.
On the rough, well I would not have believed how much better it could have been. Even on slight roughness it feels like a tarmac road, and on the fast rough downhill, best I can describe is someone has laid a carpet over the surface, smoothing it out a lot - the difference is night and day - absolutley massive.
To me, a fork will track the ground well until you go too fast for the terrain, or the terrain gets too rough for the fork - at this point you lose a lot of traction as the fork is not in proper contact with the ground as often. To me, the Manitou holds on for a lot longer before the roughness of the terrain starts to get the fork out of it's comfort zone.
Feels like the difference between a 300 mile trip in a cheap Hatchback car compared to a Lexus or Merc or BMW
I Went to a 130mm form from 100mm for health reasons, and that's worked great, but a massive benefit on the plushness of the fork and ability also was a present I did not expect to get.
well happy
Jeff
http://www.chainreac...9&ModelID=36039
Black, was £399, lists at £649!! but is an old model, still odd ones available mind, for £500's elsewhere. so you could almost call £400 a bargain ;-) Obviously discounted as it's end of line.
I had a Rockshox Reba SL Dual air which has now gone to the wifes bike.
My bike is a roughtly low 10Kg home built hardtail
Shock is not remote lock out liek the Reba, but 8 position manual adjust for hardness of lockout, it's a single air fork with rebound adjust.
1530g about 100g lighter than the reba, but again not a deciding factor.
We nearly just bought a fork for the wife for an upgrade, but for various reasons, mostly an extra 30mm travel in the Manitou, I gave her my old one - my expectations were not massivly great, just though I could use the extra ground clearance and softness of more travel - Mostly health reasons which is not worth getting into here, unless anyone is interested - see a topic in the "Know How" thread for more on that.
I live in a village and "out of the back way" is tarmac for 1/2 mile, then a very rocky, tractors and possibly Landrovers only track of about 3/4 mile which is an up then down hill, approx 50/50. which is something I'm very familiar with and where i did my comparison.
Lockout seems to feel as though the first three positions are identical, ie. full suspension movement, remainder get progressivly harder. On hard bumps, when rebounding, you can hear the fork quite loudly if it's quiet around you, you can hear loudish sounds like air or oil in the damper squishing through it's hole. sounds no different on any of the 8 lockout settings to me.
On the road, feels it little different if at all.
On the rough, well I would not have believed how much better it could have been. Even on slight roughness it feels like a tarmac road, and on the fast rough downhill, best I can describe is someone has laid a carpet over the surface, smoothing it out a lot - the difference is night and day - absolutley massive.
To me, a fork will track the ground well until you go too fast for the terrain, or the terrain gets too rough for the fork - at this point you lose a lot of traction as the fork is not in proper contact with the ground as often. To me, the Manitou holds on for a lot longer before the roughness of the terrain starts to get the fork out of it's comfort zone.
Feels like the difference between a 300 mile trip in a cheap Hatchback car compared to a Lexus or Merc or BMW
I Went to a 130mm form from 100mm for health reasons, and that's worked great, but a massive benefit on the plushness of the fork and ability also was a present I did not expect to get.
well happy
Jeff