I’m really struggling with this over simplistic, but apparently very successful, marketing smoke show that has folks automatically buying the idea that bigger diameter stanchions outright make for a stiffer chassis, never mind the notion that stiffer is always better. Hopefully after many edits I don’t come off as a total asshat here.
So, the Durolux is unchanged but for the air system and continues to use 36mm stanchions. _But_, it’s already a wicked-stiff chassis thanks to beefy AF crown and stanchions that were already rated for lithium-assisted bicycles. These new forks are just reaching its weight class because there’s a lot more involved in fork stiffness than stanchion size and the Durolux uppers have a tonne of material. I’d put it up against any single crown fork on the market in a blind test for rigidity.
Another awesome single crown chassis that’s plenty stiff and uses 36mm stanchions is the Ohlins RXF. If I was being facetious I’d bet that Fox has already had as many creaking 38 CSUs as Ohlins has had total since they released the 36mm chassis. Those Ohlins forks have had other issues though so just looking at CSUs isn’t really fair.
I’d love to see the folks at SRAM put out comparative numbers of Zeb v. other competing forks like the Mezzer, RXF, and Fox 38. Be surprised if they didn’t have them all.
July 7, 2020, 8:19 p.m. - Andrew Major
I’m really struggling with this over simplistic, but apparently very successful, marketing smoke show that has folks automatically buying the idea that bigger diameter stanchions outright make for a stiffer chassis, never mind the notion that stiffer is always better. Hopefully after many edits I don’t come off as a total asshat here. So, the Durolux is unchanged but for the air system and continues to use 36mm stanchions. _But_, it’s already a wicked-stiff chassis thanks to beefy AF crown and stanchions that were already rated for lithium-assisted bicycles. These new forks are just reaching its weight class because there’s a lot more involved in fork stiffness than stanchion size and the Durolux uppers have a tonne of material. I’d put it up against any single crown fork on the market in a blind test for rigidity. Another awesome single crown chassis that’s plenty stiff and uses 36mm stanchions is the Ohlins RXF. If I was being facetious I’d bet that Fox has already had as many creaking 38 CSUs as Ohlins has had total since they released the 36mm chassis. Those Ohlins forks have had other issues though so just looking at CSUs isn’t really fair. I’d love to see the folks at SRAM put out comparative numbers of Zeb v. other competing forks like the Mezzer, RXF, and Fox 38. Be surprised if they didn’t have them all.