jan profile

I did all those things....except overforking it ... and it's exactly the right bike ;)

+ forekasters incoming apres dust season

I reserved an XL Element shortly after the bike was announced and have been riding it for the better part of a month.  Mike's experiences are well aligned with my observations. I truly need to make a conscious effort to ride further forward as I've lost the front wheel twice on very benign flat/uphill corners. No doubt, some of my dumbest crashes. I'm used to piloting an aircraft carrier on singletrack as my other bike is an XL G1. However, my balance needs to be recalibrated since this rear center is about 20mm less..

My Element also came with the EC lower bearing. The dealer told me I could get a free replacement in August if I wanted. I went ahead and replaced it with an in-stock ZS Wolf Tooth. The Element thread on MTBR indicates EC bearings are more frequent than not on this first(?) production run, with some folks favoring the EC to compliment 120mm SID/Cast forks.

I'm also more or less in agreement with Mike's component perspective. My front pads were metal, my rear were resin. They're both now Galfer green with 203mm rotors. I imagine 4 pistons will be inevitable. The two volume spacers in my 34 GRIP were insufficient for my 185lbs. Three in a GRIP2 are superb. Ikons were the first to go but I'm still uncertain on tire direction. Next up are Vittoria Mazzas F/R.

The bike provides exactly what I wanted. It rewards voracious climbing days with a familiar fit to my 170mm G1, but forgoes 50mm of travel in exchange for shedding, ahem, 11 lbs__. I'm not terribly concerned with weight (or a disciple of Mr. Porter), but 11 lbs is significant. 

Looking forward to reading how you get along with yours, Mike. 

Would review

trade for a day? for science :)

I have had a similar experience with my Vesper on my G1. After ~6 months of fiddling with the preload nut I was able to dial in an appropriate preload with the rotor removed and the bike in-stand while freewheeling. That nut position would last a few rides until self-loosening, but ultimately held position with some blue loctite. Those 6 months of hub faff likely contributed to early bearing failures.

Tangentially, I'm currently mid-warranty with Onyx about a similar chain suck/freewheel friction issue. I believe the elastomer cage of the sprag assembly failed and tiny pieces of elastomer became lodged between the sprags and the inner race. Have you pulled out the driver to check on the condition of the sprags? 

Its pretty disappointing, particularly considering this hub was a new replacement after a spoke somehow managed to pull through the flange material this time last year. Ever seen a hub flange shear before a J bend? 

It's been a hefty price to pay for the sound of silence.

I haven't broken a WAO rim, but I have destroyed a hub that came from a WAO factory build. 11 months after receiving the wheels the vesper hub spoke flange sheared on a lap down Ned's. I contacted WAO for onyx warranty support and they built a new hub onto my rim. 

2 weeks door to door with a brand new hub laced up over the holidays and all I had to do was cover shipping. WAO ftw

I have a wheelset w/ Vespers on my G1. In comparison to the 4 sprag onyx hubs, vespers have a very significant "sponge factor". I have also run wheels with 350s (+54T) and the kickback was definitely noticeable but not inhibitive (not a fast guy FWIW). I think Ill try a few chainless runs to better substantiate any feedback from vespers that I might have not been noticing, but no doubt they are more muted than even the "slow" DTs

The last great BMW. Most impressed with the lack of dead cluster pixels.

Thought I recognized you, but coulda sworn you were Öhlins G1 guy, not Boxxer G1 guy. I may be conflating the Seymour G1 populace. I was going to ask for a comparison of  how the G1 compares to the Dreadnought, but from your G1 description it sounds like you've got it setup for DH duties.

I went with black. They still stick out a bit but are much less of a faff than the original straps. Indeed, only the Nanos work for this application. 

It’s been about six months since installing the SR Suntour AURON RC2 PCS. In my last post I was having some struggles getting the fork to perform to my liking. After reducing the pressure to about 73psi, running a single air spring token and fine tuning the low speed compression, I was happy with my setup. Having dialed in the progressiveness of the fork to my liking, I wasn’t too concerned with the high speed compression and left it open at 1. 

I initially installed the fork on my hardtail where I briefly tried using the fork with a 27.5 x 3.0 Surly Dirt Wizard, however the clearance was simply not there to accomodate a plus sized tire. Fair enough, that is well outside of the design parameters of the AURON. For the remainder of the test I ran this setup on my Santa Cruz Hightower in conjunction with a CC DB Coil IL with 29 x 2.4 wheels. Since installing the AURON, I’ve racked up about 2000km of riding and feel comfortable reporting on it.

The 29er setup traveled with me on a trip back home to Colorado. During that time I was able to revisit the trails where I learned how to mountain bike in the Front Range. For the most part, these trails consist of casual XC single track with a rock garden or two strewn about. From sprinting through smooth singletrack to navigating chunder through a rock garden, the AURON felt balanced and poised with whatever you might throw at it. It was in the rock gardens however that I really noticed how noisy the fork can be during the rebound stroke. While not exactly detrimental to the performance, I did find it a bit distracting while focusing on line choice / keeping it rubber side down. 

I tacked on an extra week of my trip in Colorado to join some friends in bike packing through the San Juan mountains from Lake City to Durango on the Colorado Trail. I  borrowed what gear I could from friends, strapped it to my bike and got going. Over 5 days we covered about 200 km and 10,000m of elevation gain. With the added weight of the loaded bike, I increased the air pressure 10 psi and and left the single air volume spacer alone. Though bikepacking often implies much slower riding than one might consider during a normal day ride, the added weight of the gear was a great way to test the fork under technical descents. At the end of the trip, there wasn’t a time where I had experienced noticeable flex in the fork, brake dive, or really any reduced performance whatsoever. 

Following a summer of adventures in the Canadian and US Rockies, I was happy to be back in the Northwest and soak up as much fall riding as I could. I’ve been riding several times a week on my favorite local spots, mostly around Mt Seymour in North Vancouver and in Sudden Valley area of Bellingham. The one area of the fork that I had yet to really feel confident about was the high speed compression damping. The AURON offers 5 adjustment settings, however I wasn’t sure I had ever made use of the feature. There was one trail I knew I could reliably bottom out my fork on (the final drop on Ned’s), so I took to some suspension bracketing to try and make sense of the damper. A series of jumps later, I still could not personally feel a difference between the performance of the fork with HSC fully closed or fully open. In comparison to other forks with high speed compression circuits, I think this is the most obvious area of reduced performance when considering the SR SUNTOUR AURON.

To date, my fork stills feels as plush as the day I first installed it. That’s great, but is also a bit of a shame as I was hoping I would have been motivated to open it up to change the seals and oil. From a look at the online service videos, there seems to be quite a bit of information available, however it’s rather poorly organized. You have to really know what you are looking for in order to get at the info. The product manuals don’t exactly help in that department either, as they seem to feature outdated models in current manuals, or more deluxe dampers that are unavailable in your chassis (i.e. why talk about R2C2 if it’s not available in this generation of the AURON chassis?)

Overall I am incredibly impressed with the fork. Once setup, it offers an impressive range of adjustability of the low speed compression and rebound circuits which provides incredible amount of traction and support for aggressive riding. As I’m left wanting a bit more out of the high speed compression damping, there are a few other noteworthy issues that are worth discussing. For one, the brake hose clamp is pretty flimsy and I’m sure I’ll crack it one of these days. It would perhaps be advantageous to offer a threaded solution. While impressively designed, the Q LOC 2 axle system isn’t as set-it and forget-it as a tried-and-true threaded axle. I experienced improper installation of the axle twice due to improper preloading of the collet; once by myself, and once by a friend putting my wheel back on. It’s a simply and easy system, and an impressive way to save machining costs and weight on the lowers, but it’s not idiot proof and for being a component so paramount to system safety, it really should be.

In a time where suspension companies release new products faster than Apple releases iPhones, the AURON is a great option for those who want to think outside the RockFox. Riders looking to trim extra seconds off their stage descents and inflate their strava fueled egos will find more tunable options to support their lifestyle, however I think the SR Suntour AURON 34 is a great option for the vast majority of the mountain biking community. It was impressive enough for me to sell my 36 RC2. 

Super duper thanks to everyone at NSMB and SR Suntour who allowed us laypeople take part in such a neat product test. I hope we were able to help you achieve what you had envisioned from this forum-testing base. 

TLDR

Positives

• Sleek design, despite not being one of the ‘big guys’ in the suspension scene

• Ease of user serviceability

• Adjustable air spring volume 

• Relatively light for its market category

• Impressively stiff 

• Excellent traction and support throughout the stroke

Negatives

• Noisy rebound strokes

• compression adjustment knob could be more ergonomically designed

• Lackluster high speed compression performance

• Very progressive air spring could be tricky for lighter riders

• Axle should be idiot proof

• Service information could use some organizing

I have returned from my trip to the Rockies having racked up some substantial hours with the Auron on my Chromag Surface. I had a taste of Revelstoke, Kananaskis, Canmore, Bragg Creek, Fernie, and Rossland which totaled around 300km and 7000m of climbing (/pushing). Overall I am quite pleased with the performance and support of the fork. I'll agree with Gord that the noise of the rebound circuit makes for one of the loudest forks I have ridden, with the majority of my riding still at 9 clicks back from fully closed on the rebound.  The 34mm stanchions are plenty stiff for my purposes. The steerer tube, obviously still quite new, hasn't made a peep or creek. And I'm really enjoying the use of SR Suntour's proprietary axle Q-LOC2. Looking for a "backcountry epic" ride in Fernie, BC, my friend and I found ourselves on the Mountain Lakes backcountry route through the Three Sister's Wilderness area. The all day route required a fair amount of bicycle-portage and bushwhacking, however I was happy to see the Auron come away from the affair unscathed. 

The initial stroke is relatively supple and the mid stroke support is very supportive, too supportive in my case. Only during one specific huck to flat did my travel o-ring indicate that I had come within 2mm of the full 150mm fork travel. For the most part, my maximum travel used on the trail topped out around 140mm. Glancing at my stanchions after finishing my Seven Summits ride in Rossland, BC, I thought gave a good summary of my travel history. 

My initial impressions left me playing around with the air pressure so much that I was pushing 30% sag (the upper recommended limit of SR Suntour) to actually use the full suspension travel. Without access to a 27mm socket on my travels, I was stuck riding with the 2 air volume spacers. I'm back now and have removed one volume spacer from the air spring top cap. Aside from finding a 27mm socket and grinding down the edges (I'll never touch a fork with an adjustable wrench, no matter the occasion), the process was very simple. 

I downloaded the manual from the SR Suntour website and noted an 85psi suggested pressure for my 85kg rider weight. Also noteworthy is the manual chart nomenclature of "Aggressive", "Balanced", or "Easy" to signify the level of exponentiation of the air spring curve. I guess I like it 'Easy'? 

With my Auron back on my Santa Cruz Hightower, I pumped in the suggested 85 psi resulting in 26mm of seated sag, or just over 17%. Not great. I reduced the pressure to 80 psi which measured 20% sag and went ahead there with my starting point. 

To some extent I recognize that my comparison of the Auron on the hardtail vs full suspension bike are not entirely equal. Hardtail riders certainly weight their forks differently while riding, relying on a supple early stroke for traction and a relatively more progressive spring-ramp to account for changing bike geometry and greater load demands. That said, having experienced the fork on my hardtail with a spring rate more progressive than I felt necessary for my performance demands (or preferences?), I'll be interested to see how the fork performs back on my hardtail with a less progressive spring curve, and if the compression damping circuits can provide a meaningful difference when mounted between the full suspension/hardtail.

So now I've got just a few rides in on the fork since removing a volume spacer, however I'm already noticing the fork riding further up in the travel even at 20% sag. I'm yet to bottom out, but I'm more comfortable with my travel use up to 145mm regularly on larger drops and faster chunder sections of trail. My rebound adjustments have not changed, however I've been running both LSC and HSC fully open. 

While most of my experiences thus far have been overshadowed by managing the spring progression and air pressure, I've found the sensitivity of the LSC and HSC settings to be relatively limited - i.e. the feel of the fork betweenLSC/HSC  full open and fully closed does not have a drastic change on the performance of the fork. This is something I'll explore more in the coming week as I continue to suss out the Auron's capabilities.

Every pair of Shimano levers I have has eventually developed a bit of play in the levers. In my XTR M980 levers this has recently happened, I assume from a sloppy brake bleed. It's a shame the bushings seem susceptible to degradation when exposed to mineral oil. I've googled around and not found an easy fix. I love these brakes, but would really be keen to find a solution to this worn bushing. 

Anyone have a solution or idea to test?

I'm out in the Rockys with the Auron mounted to my Chromag Surface. I'm still in the process of dialing in my suspension settings, without yet finding my sweet spot in the tune. While I've been enjoying the fork in its general all-around performance (more on this in another post), I am really struggling to use the full travel. I dropped my pressure to 65psi from 75psi, which sat at 30% sag (up from my initial 25% sag). 30% sag felt like the fork was sitting too low after an initial test so I went up to 70psi. Sitting now around 27% seated sag, I'm still having trouble realizing all 150mm. In my efforts of achieving a good suspension feel, I always feel most confident with my settings after going through an iterative bracketing process of assessing my options, akin to Newton's method. 

My philosophy is that while I shouldn't be bottoming out the fork frequently, in some applications I would expect myself to reach that travel.  Recently in the Kananaskis area on a particularly rough section of trail full of imposing rocks and roots on a steep and extended alpine descent, I tried riding "through" the chunder in contrast to my usual (attempted?) style of a more selective line choice and riding "above" the rough. I was by no means riding slow, but still managed to never use more than 140mm of travel, even with LSC/HSC fully open. 

At this point, I'm considering going the opposite direction of Gord and removing a volume spacer from the air spring just to appease my curiosity. On paper I would expect myself to be achieving full travel with an open damper at 25% sag while thrashing around at high speed. However since this is in fact a review, I'll assess the fork with a less progressive air curve and report back with my findings. Until I find a chamferless socket on my travels in the Rockys, I'll continue investigating lower air pressures with a greater reliance on the damper.

I'm looking forward to hearing what other reviewers are experiencing with their fork settings and respective riding weights.

I'm pretty happy with my DHR2 front and rear all year around, but I might be looking at a 2.5 DHF and Aggressor when the new WT offerings come through. For super dry conditions, I have found that WTB Trail Boss 2.4 have pretty exceptional performance in loose dry stuff.

I think I'll go about my reviews with a weekly photo dump of my experiences which I'll continuously link and update. These can be found on my NSMB album here. Some of the photos I'll put directly in the forum, but more can be found through the link.

So I too received my fork last week, thankfully without delivery qualms. I won't go too far into detail of the unwrapping. The fork came in a standard box with an extra rubber volume spacer, aforementioned socks, and a how-to-sag support pamphlet + CD. I don't own a functional optical drive, so no comment on what's on that CD (2017 yo, a QR code would suffice).

The socks - 10/10 fit, excellent mid weight material, and an inspiring message about wrenching less and pedaling more. Fine, but I like wrenching too.

Initial out of the box impression - good looking fork! I tend to appreciate more subdued styles, but I don't mind the large and frequent AURON graphics. The lowers (magnesium) are a nice matte black while the stanchions and crown are a glossy black finish. The brake hose clamp is simply a plastic clip which feels like something I would break rather easily. The included Q-LOC2 axle is an elegant piece of hardware which allows for the axle cam to be placed on either side of the lowers. It seems almost unnecessarily complex (in design, not function) in contrast to a standard threaded axle system, but it works. Maybe it offsets machining costs of the lowers? I have no concerns about potential tire interference with a fender in the arch as clearance with the 29x2.4 DHRII is excellent.

I chopped my steerer tube to 195mm, pressed on a spare crown race and hammered a star nut in the steerer tube. I initially installed the fork on my XL Hightower and set sag to my go-to 25% which worked out to be 75ish psi (± analog shock pump uncertainty) and left the two pre-installed volume spacers as they were. These settings agreed with the online product manual recommendations for my 85kg riding weight.

During my initial backyard/street testing I noticed that the ~50mm of initial stroke was extremely sensitive. Playing with the LSC adjustment at either end of the 18 ( I think?) clicks left me feeling like there was actually very little damping input. A backyard test is by no means a proper way to dial in damper, however the difference between fully open and fully closed was less noticeable than I had expected. To compensate for the stroke sensitivity, I set the LSC to 9 back from full closed, and HSC at 1/5 (full open)

The rebound knob is tucked away in the lowers and allows for 26 clicks of adjustment (again, very hard to actually feel these 'clicks', but I'll chalk that up to the new-fork-feel for now). I settled with 9 clicks back from full closed.

Other suspension companies often include "factory baseline" settings, however after searching online and in the provided literature I didn't see any recommended start points. I'll be interested to read the settings of other reviewers.

On Sunday (July 16) I was able to get out for a quick initial shakedown ride in Bellingham, WA on a 25km loop with 1000m of climbing in the Blanchard Mountain area. The trails are on the mellow end of the PNW difficulty spectrum, however there are a few gems to be found with optional jumps and high speed (short lived) rock gardens. For the most part, the area provides fast and flowy descents with relatively straightforward single track climbs.

Immediately when pedaling I increased LSC damping to three clicks from closed and was happy with that position for the remainder of the ride. I left the HSC open at 1 for the day expecting to increase it as needed, however due to the nature of the trails I was not in a position to observe the effects of changing the HSC. My biggest ask of the fork was about a meter drop which felt very supported, using only ~90% of the travel. Overall the fork felt great, and I'm looking forward to more demanding rides in the coming days, dialing in my settings, and reading how the other testers are setting up their fork.

I'm Jan, the fourth tester, and am (impatiently) awaiting the delivery of the fork. UPS delivery is planned for next Monday the 10th, after which I'll be posting an unboxing, initial impression, and setup. 

I'll be testing the 150mm 29er fork initially on my 2017 Chromag Surface, followed by a longer test period on my Santa Cruz Hightower. I have 27.5+ wheels which I'll simply comment on fit, but fork testing will be on 29" wheels. 

My favorite trail areas to ride are Mt. Seymour, Bellingham, and Pemberton, however I'll be bringing this fork with me on a trip to the Canadian Rockies as well to Colorado in August. 

My experience with SR Suntour products is ... zero. I'll be honest and say that I often wrote them off as a base model OE - relatively low performance company. That changed when I saw Brett Tippie was riding their suspension, so if it is good enough for Tippie, who am I to judge. 

I'll primarily be comparing the fork with my experience on a 2016 Fox 36, so I'm excited to explore the performance of the RC2 system of the Auron. 

Finally I'll conclude with some appreciation to the NSMB editors and SR Suntour for including me in the testing group. Thanks!

refreshes UPS tracking

I'll buy you a six pack if you tell me what you rode after the climb :)

I'll add another nod of support for my POC VPD air. Very comfortable to pedal in, my only qualm is that they are less flexible in the cold and I suspect they forgo some of their non-newtonian properties in the winter.

Posted by: tehllama42

[...] I think some of the magic is added capability up front. I got to beat on the full Enve/X01 demo build, and it still wasn't that snappy climbing (technical or flat) - just eminently capable. Longer shock isn't going to take that away. 

Since it's already a bit of a bulldozer downhill anyway, I can see the appeal of adding A2C while keeping the bb drop close to stock.  On a larger negative air spring shock, some of the kinematic hyperactivity from punchy pedaling efforts calms down slightly, while achieving a more supple feel on small stuff. The other contributor to why people love their long shock setups is that many went from a Monarch RT3 DBA, a good but not great shock, to a Float X2, Topaz, Ohlins TTX, or Vivid Air.

That's a good point.  I went from riding a Hightower with a Monarch RT3 (once on a demo) to a CC Inline Air (long stroke) to a CC Inline Coil (long stroke). I don't exactly have a control group for my testing. And I've always been on a 160mm fork. Either way, I'm really happy with the current setup.