Jan. 25, 2021, 7:27 a.m. -  Andrew Major

For what my experience is worth, have seen a fair few piles of badly neglected forks and air shocks with the old gold/grey/brown anodizing where the bodies & stanchions were totally fine and I think there’s a decent argument that in many cases going to black - for cosmetic reasons - was a step backwards in durability. RockShox is maybe the exception there. I don’t have enough data - anecdotal as it is - to compare SR Suntour or X-Fusion before/after. The real advantage of a Kashima coating for our application is that it’s harder than anodizing (by how much depends on the level of Kashima purchased) and should hold up better to abuse. When it first came out (2011 model year) there was more of an argument for it in terms of friction reduction as SKF low-friction fork seals hadn’t showed up yet to disrupt the market.  Now they’re ubiquitous with high-end suspension forks and I couldn’t tell you the difference between Kashima and non-Kashima forks - both fully serviced - in a blind test (if I ever could).