Öhlins RXF 34 – First Trail Impressions

There has been a great deal of coverage on Öhlins’ first mountain bike fork, from its twin tube damper to the integrated crown race set-up on its one-piece crown steerer, to its conservatively sized 34mm stanchions. It has a very clean appearance from its unapologetic tool-required axle system to the smoothly contoured details of its lowers, and its relatively narrow stance compared to other forks in the aggressive single crown market hide some very unique features. (If you missed our tear down out of the box – click here)

Hard compound tires leave you thankful for all the traction you can get: Öhlins delivers.

The majority of suspension manufacturers use simple to set-up air systems that rely on a single Schrader valve to set sag. Some of the RXF 34’s competitors, like the Fox 36 or 34, RockShox Pike, or BOS DeVille, use self-balancing negative air systems that equalize to your main chamber pressure, while most others rely on a coil negative spring to make their forks initialize subtly. Öhlins uses three chambers in an effort to control spring rate through the entire stroke, and requires the rider to set their positive air chamber pressures separately to control how supple the initial stroke will be.

Air system on the Right. Damper on the Left. Anyone who has ever misted their rotor/pads with oil letting air out of their negative air chamber says thank you. To make their forks initialize subtly, Öhlins uses three chambers in an effort to control spring rate through the entire stroke and requires the rider to set their positive air chamber pressures separately to control how supple they like their initial stroke. The third air chamber, which regulates negative pressure, is self-balancing.

The dual valve set-up required more playing around to dial in some base settings, but in the end I used the main chamber positive range of a rider ~+20lbs heavier than I am, but used my exact weight to establish the pressure in the secondary (bottom) chamber. If you are more of a set-it-once-and-check-it-monthly type, it’s worth noting that it will take a few rides to get the most out of the RXF’s myriad tuning options.

Multi air chamber configuration with valves for positive pressure on top and bottom and a self balancing negative spring. I found it necessary to run the recommended air pressure for a rider ~+20lbs heavier to get proper sag; the fork initialized smoothly no matter how firm it was run.

The most unique feature of the RXF 34 is the damper. Where the Low Speed Compression (LSC) adjuster functions as you would generally expect – providing initial hold and reducing braking influence on the suspension – the High Speed Compression (HSC) adjuster affects fork performance in a way that is quite unique from competing RC2 forks. Where generally your HSC adjuster affects fork performance in situations where the wheel is being accelerated relatively deeply in the suspensions stroke, on Öhlins’ system the HSC adjuster’s function would be better described as a mid-stroke adjuster or ramp up adjuster.

Low Speed Compression on top; High Speed Compression below. Differing notably in function from competing RC2 products, the HSC adjuster on the RXF 34 might be better termed a mid-stroke adjuster.

This proved to be my favourite feature of the fork. Not only do the settings of the HSC adjuster provide an excellent, non-lock-out, climbing platform, they were also useful dialing the fork in for different terrain allowing you to adjust how soon in the travel the mid-stroke support would ramp up without compromising air pressure settings.

The relatively narrow stance of the RXF 34 has no effect of chassis stiffness. The fork is at least as stiff as the RockShox Pike that it replaced.

On the Intense Carbine this adjustment also made it very quick & easy to match the lower leverage ratio and increased support of the short travel 125mm setting or the higher traction, initially softer, DH bike feel of the higher leverage long travel 140mm setting. Yes, it’s ‘just’ 15mm of travel, but if you’ve ridden a Carbine you know how Jekyll/Hyde its two personalities are.

Trying to stay warm on a “Gore-Tex” kind of day with some hard out of the saddle pedaling. The RXF 34 is fluid through its stroke but offers a great deal of support uphill and down.

We were asked quite clearly to compare the Öhlins fork to competing products, which can be very challenging. Firstly, attempting to differentiate between the highest performance suspension products quickly turns into a game of splitting hairs (assuming they are equally well serviced, set-up, etc.). Secondly, to some extent the differences in how a fork is adjusted or feels is going to be a reflection of personal experience or preference.

Armoured trails for rainy days. When traction is at a premium the RXF 34 delivers. So do the awesome trail builders slinging boulders on our local mountains.

With all the caveats out of the way… Riding the RXF 34 will immediately be familiar to those who have any time on BOS’ excellent DeVille fork. It is extremely smooth off the top – no matter how firmly you run the air pressure or damper settings – but not in the unsupported way that an underdamped or much-too-soft air pressure causes a fork to collapse into its travel. From the first little push you can feel the damper supporting you and – in the case of the RXF 34 it depends greatly on your HSC setting – the harder you push into the fork’s very smooth travel the more support you start to feel from the damper. The rebound and LSC settings are both easy to dial in as, despite a broad range of settings, you definitely feel that each click makes a small but consistent change to the fork’s performance.

Fox Float X2 air shock and Ohlins RXF 34 fork played very nicely together. The Intense Carbine offers two very different rides between the 125mm and 140mm travel settings and once your base setting is dialled it takes less than 5 minutes to dial it in one way or the other – including finding your shock pump and allen wrench and opening a beverage.

For fans of the RockShox Solo Air system, the RXF 34’s air system will feel much more linear through its travel if you are running +2 or +3 tokens. In this regard it is similar to Fox’s 36 RC2 in that you will be running less than 20% sag (Öhlins recommends 15%) compared to the 23-25% that you would likely run on a Pike.

Chassis stiffness was obviously on the manufacturer’s mind. Much of their marketing material deals with how it’s possible to engineer a 34mm stanchion chassis to be as stiff as a 35mm or 36mm chassis. The RXF 34 is at least as stiff as the Pike it replaced on the Carbine, and its weight (~2140 grams) puts it firmly in the category of aggressive single crown forks (Pike, 36, DeVille, Metric, etc) none of which I find to be flexy. It was right at home on this stiff carbon frame and high-tension DT Swiss wheels.

The stance of the fork is relatively narrow looking compared to other aggressive single crown forks… but then if you’re looking at that while riding, Mischa the Trail Dog would suggest you have bigger problems.

As I noted in our initial tear down article, quality of both manufacturing and build are high and the feel out of the box was excellent. There has been no deterioration in ride quality after our initial experiences and, as expected, I have had to increase positive air pressure after the initial break-in. One concern that has been discussed is the possibility of wear/corrosion between the steel bearing race and anodized aluminum crown interface but a generous layer of grease was applied and there are no signs of wear to date.

The understated all black Ohlins’ RXF 34 generally goes about life as un-noticed upgrade but for the keen eye of serious bike nerds, or lovers of the gold-logo’s moto rep.

My plan going forward is to the push the Öhlins fork to its ~100hr service interval on a couple of different bikes and to look at any deterioration in performance or wear on the chassis. If you have any specific set-up questions we are more than happy to answer them in the comments below.

Finally – a quick thank you. While the RXF 34’s integrated crown race set-up works with the most commonly spec’d headsets on performance bikes (Cane Creek’s excellent models), it wasn’t immediately compatible with our available test bikes. Jared Walker and Bryden Rigets from OGC (Fox/Intense) stepped up with an Intense Carbine and Fox X2 from their 2016 demo fleet, so I was able to hit the trails right after the tear down with our friends at SuspensionWerx. Thanks guys!

I have a feeling we’ll soon be surrounded by big wheels. How does the RXF look to you?