Pinkbike Awards: Suspension Product of the Year
It's funny how today's high-end suspension is able to make what we thought was amazing just a few years ago feel decidedly unrefined. That's especially true when talking about forks, particularly those in the mid-travel bracket. The top manufacturers are now offering incredible performance in relatively lightweight packages for the front of your all-mountain and trail bikes, with FOX's fresh 36 and Manitou's new Mattoc as key examples, while the latest Charger equipped BoXXer (which was also nominated this year) can trace a lot of its qualities back to last year's winner, the Pike. The sole nominee for out back is Cane Creek's DBinline, a shock that looks to bring the company's wide adjustment range and distinctive feel to lighter duty trail bikes. Enough build up, though, because it's time to pick a winner.
![Pinkbike MTB Awards]()
Suspension Product of the Year
FOX 36 160 FIT RC2
This year's award for Pinkbike's Suspension Product of the Year goes to the FOX 36 160 FIT RC2. Yes, it looks a lot like the 36 that came before it, but don't be fooled - this is an entirely new animal that is every bit as capable out of the box as last year's Suspension Product of the Year winner, but with more external and internal adjustments that allow a savvy rider to tune the fork exactly to their liking.
It would have been easy to discount FOX in 2014 given a few missteps on their part over the previous years and competitors that raised the bar during that time. It's probably fair to say that many riders did exactly that, and I'll even admit to not expecting much myself. That is, until late in 2013 when I rode a RAD-spec 34 fork, something usually reserved for Gwin and company, that made it very clear FOX was working non-stop to rebound in a big way. And did they ever. I got my first sampling of the new 36 160 FIT RC2 fork in May of this year when I traveled to Moab for the launch, but this get together was a little different than other countless product debuts I've attended: FOX told me to bring my own bike - a Knolly Warden with a Pike up front - so as to be able to compare apples to apples. Such was their confidence that FOX wanted their new 36 to be ridden back-to-back against the Pike, no holds barred, which is exactly what I did. The result? ''The new 36 equals the Pike on all fronts, at least in my mind, and while the basic layout of their FIT cartridge and appearance of the fork remains the same, they've obviously made huge strides in the execution of both,'' were my thoughts at the time.
The 36 160 FIT RC2 takes the 2014 Suspension Product of the Year honors, but I've also ridden both a 2015 version of the same fork and the RAD 36 on the front of Jared Graves' Yeti SB6c race bike that spawned it - things are going to get even better in the near future, despite the already mind blowing performance of the 2014 fork. Photo Fraser Britton
I've since spent much more time on a handful of other 2014 36s, with all of them not just reinforcing that initial impression from earlier in the year, but also convincing me that the new 36 160 FIT RC2 is the best mid-travel fork on the market. It doesn't only come down to the fork's impressive action, though, because FOX has also listened to those riders who were asking for both more adjustability and more options. Performance aside, it's the 36's level of adjustability that sees it stand out in my mind. You've got the same low and high speed compression, and low-speed rebound adjusments that FOX has long offered, but there's also the ability to change the fork's travel to five different positions in 10mm increments by adding aluminum spacers to the underside of the negative spring plate, as well as being able to tinker with volume tuning spacers. Oh yeah, you can also run either a 15mm or 20mm hub thanks to the 36's axle adapters.
www.ridefox.com
FOX 36 160 FIT RC2
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This year's award for Pinkbike's Suspension Product of the Year goes to the FOX 36 160 FIT RC2. Yes, it looks a lot like the 36 that came before it, but don't be fooled - this is an entirely new animal that is every bit as capable out of the box as last year's Suspension Product of the Year winner, but with more external and internal adjustments that allow a savvy rider to tune the fork exactly to their liking.
It would have been easy to discount FOX in 2014 given a few missteps on their part over the previous years and competitors that raised the bar during that time. It's probably fair to say that many riders did exactly that, and I'll even admit to not expecting much myself. That is, until late in 2013 when I rode a RAD-spec 34 fork, something usually reserved for Gwin and company, that made it very clear FOX was working non-stop to rebound in a big way. And did they ever. I got my first sampling of the new 36 160 FIT RC2 fork in May of this year when I traveled to Moab for the launch, but this get together was a little different than other countless product debuts I've attended: FOX told me to bring my own bike - a Knolly Warden with a Pike up front - so as to be able to compare apples to apples. Such was their confidence that FOX wanted their new 36 to be ridden back-to-back against the Pike, no holds barred, which is exactly what I did. The result? ''The new 36 equals the Pike on all fronts, at least in my mind, and while the basic layout of their FIT cartridge and appearance of the fork remains the same, they've obviously made huge strides in the execution of both,'' were my thoughts at the time.
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I've since spent much more time on a handful of other 2014 36s, with all of them not just reinforcing that initial impression from earlier in the year, but also convincing me that the new 36 160 FIT RC2 is the best mid-travel fork on the market. It doesn't only come down to the fork's impressive action, though, because FOX has also listened to those riders who were asking for both more adjustability and more options. Performance aside, it's the 36's level of adjustability that sees it stand out in my mind. You've got the same low and high speed compression, and low-speed rebound adjusments that FOX has long offered, but there's also the ability to change the fork's travel to five different positions in 10mm increments by adding aluminum spacers to the underside of the negative spring plate, as well as being able to tinker with volume tuning spacers. Oh yeah, you can also run either a 15mm or 20mm hub thanks to the 36's axle adapters.
 | This low-speed control, paired with the excellent spring rate, added up to what I like to call "invisible suspension." What am I talking about? It's a reference to when something simply works so well that you no longer register it during the ride, a sign that you've got a dialed setup going on. - Pinkbike, May 27th, 2014 |
www.ridefox.com
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No, what we're seeing here is after having given the 2014 a poor review, resulting in Fox having a bad year for incremental yoy fork sales, PB is making the most of the opportunity to get back on the top of Fox's preferred list of advertising partners.
But in any case, this is how this nice website is funded, and we all love reading about the new and shiny, so lets just suck it up, and move on.
Laynehip - please take a moment to inagine and visualize such situation when you are calling someone at Fox with such offer. Let's play, I will be a PR person at
Fox: Hello? this is Alicia Forsythe at Fox how can I help you?
r & d budgets marketing budget.
Hi Alicia, nice to talk to you again.
As you know we are doing our yearly Suspension Product of the Year award and we have been soliciting...well...let us call them "incentives" for the opportunity for one of your selected products to be named this years winner.
Now Alicia, I know what you are going to say, "Manitou is just going to outbid us again and we will have to spend the next month getting ribbed by them", but I can assure you that we are giving Fox first priority and will only solicit another company if you decide to refuse our offer.
For example, Fox could have promised to have more banners and commercials on pinkbike, or to send them more equipment, etc.
The same applies to every magazine out there, just look at Dirt and their favourite make YT, who just happens to have tons of commercials in every magazine.
But to say this happened here, or happened at Dirt or any other magazine would be speculation!
I'm pretty sure this happens a lot, but that's how this business runs, and even though I don't agree with this award at all, I don't really care, and pinkbike has a lot of good articles and features, so as long as nobody has proof, I would really hold back with any accusations!
Haha! Good one Alice, you almost had me going there. Next thing you will tell me that R2D2 really does prefer Pepsi over Coke, haha!
Anyway, if you could put me through to the owner of your "serious company standing by your excellent top preforming products" I can get on with making fun of his golf game and then collect the cheque for this advertisement.
yeah it's really hilarious (and pathetic) to see how you manipulate comments here.
Mike, please stop treating us just like idiots, and stop manipulating comments by giving positive or negative props as appropriate. I thought PB was a Canada-based company, but now it seems you have opened a branch in some Communist dictatorship.
for the validity of this argument though, the Pike is less adjustable because it doesn't need it, same with the boxxer. I was a non believer until I got a charger damper. It is actually that good. more adjustments in general isn't always usefull.
Journalists have to be very careful. They are accountable to the readers, not their friends (real friends) in the industry. That doesn't mean the journalists are intentionally dishonest, but they might pull punches on a crappy product. Example: the Commencal Hiphop got a luke warm review full of words like "we like" and "shredder" and yet reading between the lines clearly it was not a good bike for the money. Why didn't the journaist come out and say it sucked?
The DB-inline on the other hand offers piggy-back shock performance in a XC-damper package. Now that is a big thing to me. not only does the Inline fit most bikes designed for a regular inline shock, it's also only around 100g heavier than a standard Fox CTD.
Bringing big bike shock performance to trailbikes is something new, bringing pike performance to the same bike in a slightly different package is just more of the same.
From your intro:
"It's funny how today's high-end suspension is able to make what we thought was amazing just a few years ago feel decidedly unrefined."
How can you wright that and not give the Inline the award?!?
Granted, a lot of reviews may suger coat the bad news as to not piss off advertisers. Sadly, it's the way of the world.
To me, this theory is cooked up by some Pike owners that can't accept that the Fox might actually be a little better.
www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=6513
www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=6637
The idea that Fox paid for this is silly.
I had my fox 36 serviced last march rode the shit out of it in the crappy wet gloopy NorthShore conditions , fianlly had it serviced at LynnValley Bikes in North Vancouver. It still had enough oil in it and the oil was still nice and clean and my seals were fine.They did the maintenance anyways per request after calling me as I didn't know when I'd have time to do it later. 11 months is not excessive maintenance imo
Btw i had my tuned for by "Suspensionwerx" in north van , sweet job they did..
In last november I had a bargain on a brand new 2013 34 (factory, trail adjust, 160, 27.5).
I rode the 34 once before the snow started to fall, and it was obvious that the pike was far better : there was not enough LSC in descend mode and in trail mode causing the fork to dive, and static frictions were absolutely unbearable once you tasted the pike.
So in december I reached the fox service center here in Montreal (OGC) in order to check what was feasible to improve the 34.
They proposed to change the whole 2013 CTD trail adjust cartridge and spring for 2015 parts, at a very low price.
Those guys were the most professional people I ever met in the bicycle business. They did the job in 2 days, including new cartridge shipment from Vancouver, and spent a lot of time in explaining what precisely has changed between 2013, 2014 and 2015 cartridge, and how to tune them.
I went in the south of France for christmas and rode both forks back to back for 5 days (the pike was on my Devinci Troy, the 34 on a Norco Sight, my wife's ride).
What I can say is that the 2015 CTD cartridge is now smoother than the pike's from stictions point of view. The descend mode still lacks LSC from my opinion, but thanks to the trail mode and its 8 positions, I was able to correct that and find the sweet spot without loosing small bump compliance. The air spring is now a little more progressive than the pike (with 1 token).
So if 36 stictions are equivalent to 2015 34, with fully tunable LSC, HSC and spring, with the same weight and a better rigidity, I have no doubt that the new 36 can be at least as good as the Pike.
For the quick release comment about taking off front wheel on enduro timed section, well, if you have to, it means that you have to change your tire or your tube, so you're dead for ranking anyway, with or without quick release.
Being that the 2015 model was revamped and probably noticeably better performing then the 2014 model is pretty huge. I have a 2014 talas 36 180mm and it handles some pretty rugged stuff like a boss. If the 2015 model is in fact better I would be very impressed. That being said I don't believe the pike changed this year and even though it may be #1 or #2 it qualifies lower then the new 36 simply because the 36 is revamped and "new" for this year.
Am I retarded? Well, I dont think so, but who knows.
I just think PB has lost its way lately, becoming a cash register and losing its credibility. But of course this is only my thought, maybe I am wrong.
I am just saying it is a conflict of interest when your primary source of ad revenue supplies you with products to objectively review. It is a tightrope walk for any journalist to not be captured by the industry in such a situation. After all, if I am a reviewer who receives all the bad fox forks (of which there have been many) and calls a spade a spade, it is possible fox will not buy ads on my site, or even invite me out to the next trail day to test their forks. Then I am out of the job. Modern journalists at major networks are nice to politicians because if the politicians stop talking to them they are out of the job. Same problem. Real thing, not a conspiracy theory.
"After all, if I am a reviewer who receives all the bad fox forks (of which there have been many) and calls a spade a spade, it is possible fox will not buy ads on my site, or even invite me out to the next trail day to test their forks. Then I am out of the job. "
I understand what you mean but I suppose that it works in both ways:
- journalists cannot be at the hand of big companies because they risk to loose credibility and audience drop
- big companies cannot blackmail big users communities like Pinkbike because they risk to loose visibility
So I guess the truth is in between, as usual.
In the climbing community, most of publication do not publish review of products that did not work. They prefer to not talk about it, only publishing good review of good working products instead of publishing a bad review of a bad product. Okay, the challenge is not exactly the same in climbing, a bad product in climbing can be harmful.
But as a parallel, I do not see a lot of review of avid elixir brakes last years on Pinkbike for instance.
I found that Pinkbike was quite fair both with the user community and the companies, at least with fox forks in the last 3 years, subject that I am quite aware.
Pinkbike was not always fair with fox.
From the pinkbike review of 2013 CTD product :
« The reason for us staying in the Trail position the majority of the time was due to what we feel is too light of valving in the Descend position. It was light enough, in fact, that we actually spent nearly all of our time descending with the fork in the firmer Trail setting, defeating the purpose of offering three different damping levels. There was just too much fork dive when with the CTD damper set to full open, allowing the bike to pitch forward and compromise the geometry when braking hard for corners, as well as not giving us a firm enough suspension 'platform' to push against when trying to work the rocks and undulations of the test track. »
Etc...
www.pinkbike.com/news/fox-suspension-2013-float-ctd-first-ride.html
So, despite the huge offsets pinkbike get from the industry, allowing Levy, Katzimmer and Cunningham « the Godfather » to spend most of their time in exotic remote places like Sedona and drive luxury cars filled with supermodels, they consciously chose to reveal that fox products were quite shitty in 2013...
Aware that they stand on their laurels for some years due to lack of concurrence, blew up their reputation with 2013 CTD and take a beating the last 2 years from RS with the PIKE, fox engineers
1. FIRST tried hardly to overcome their fate with 2014 products,
From
www.pinkbike.com/news/FOX-34-TALAS-FLOAT-X-FIRST-IMPRESSIONS.html
« Our biggest question about the 2014 CTD forks boiled down to if FOX rectified their 2013-spec damper, which they have. The revised damper features ''increased compression damping of CTD system across the board'', meaning that riders can expect a more controlled feel to the fork in all three of the CTD settings. »
2. Then REALIZING it was not good enough, totally overhauled the cartridge with RAD inputs
www.pinkbike.com/news/Riding-FOXs-RAD-34-Fork.html
(Read in details for upgrades description, not only conclusion)
And apply these upgrades to production versions that you’ll find back in the 2015 cartridge.
www.ridefox.com/content.php?c=2015-3234
3. FINALLY, after 2 years of work trying to get their ass back from RS domination, they strike back and produced the new 36, which characteristics seems really good (LSC, HSC, rigidity, stictions, weight ) and maybe, from tester’s experiences, good enough for being the suspension product of the year.
End of wandering.
PS : Hollywood, this scenario is for sale.
PS 2: Fox, If you can reach me discretely, I will gladly accept a new 36 as an offset for my contribution.
You have hit that nail on the head.
To those who call this a "conspiracy" or "shenanigans," purchased/leveraged media hype is very much the standard in the outdoor sports industry (and in many many others). I was an account manager at one of the 5 outdoor sports PR companies in my town of 10k (yes that's right, 5 PR companies for 10k people) and most of what we did was "influence" media outlets to publish positive press about emerging or tarnished brands. 95% of positive press/reviews/awards do not come without a certain degree of tampering from the PR industry. I'm not saying it's absolutely what happened in this case, but it is certainly suspicious that a product that has been floundering for the past few years now suddenly wins this award for being "on par" with a superior product that was released 3 years ago, in spite of most of us riders still preferring the superior product.
regdunlop - I write this only because you are not some barking kid on his way to get better. I see where you are coming from, but I think you could spend some time thinking of the positives of the idea of "presumption of innocence", because if we all behaved like you, you would hear assumptions like how your mom behaves when dad's not home and that he may not be your dad, and then a bloke like laynehup could say - we will never know, and bloke like you in this situations would say that he is a lawyer working with divorces and say it is perfectly normal. Sorry for such drastic comparison but well...
Well, at least you speak with your age's moderation ;-)
I liked BOS very much some years ago when I got a Deville + Viper (first version) for one year in 2010 (my last 26’’ fork). At this time it was uncomparably better than concurrence, contributing to take fox out of the hot seat. But in the following years, with RS gaining momentum, I found that the range reduced between bos and the others.
Working in a shop you should know that bos is not for everyone, their products are very good but quite touchy, there is a lot of use preconisation and manipulations, like to not put the Deville upside down to not unprime the cartridge for instance, but there are many others.
So for me BOS is really performance oriented and is not « grand public », or for all audience, for the mass.
You just have to check the huge number of factory settings for their shocks (almost one by existing bike) to understand what they aiming at.
But you Swiss are well known to comfortably deal with technical complexity so maybe it is not a drawback for you ;-)
If you read french you surely know about the Bos forum on Velovert. forum.velovert.com/topic/98268-bos-engineering/page__st__19360
I tried one of the new Deville in 27.5’’, it was still more controlled in the midstroke than my Pike and less flexy laterally, but the huge drawback was the ridiculously small tire clearance at the arch, like less than 1cm with schwalbe Fat Albert in 2.35, so I cannot imagine with Magic Mary’s.
And this post is about suspension product of the year (and for the mass I guess), it didn’t seems that BOS produced anything new last year, except the update of the idylle cartridge with inertia valve, but it is quite anecdotic.
Hope they update the Deville casting this year, and I will forget the new 36.
Also, myself and many others out here race/ride the pike, I know a slew of Pro's on the pike. I haven't heard people complaining of this issue you speak of. I am not sure I'd use the phrase "well known downside" at this time.
I love those "but with more external and internal adjustments that allow a savvy rider to tune the fork exactly to their liking." - I have no freaking idea what is good for me, I turn a few dials and as soon as it feels quite alright I leave it there. If I sense after some time that it doesn't feel right I turn a bit more. I am ashamed of myself, so I envy online engineers* having such high tuning demands* for being able to setup their suspension exactly as it should be*. I wish I could reach the elusive Optimum.*
*Cynicism is a sign of helplessness and inability to ask for help.
99% of riders have no idea how to adjust all of that, and they end up making an otherwise capable fork work badly. No matter what the "online pros" here say. So basically hanging a ton of knobs on the fork is not a "feature" especially when other forks like "Last years winner" are well loved by people who have tried them without needing a degree in suspension tuning to make it happen.
Here is a great moto article i just found explaining things: www.sportrider.com/technicalities-suspension-damping/?image=3
All it really says is that no other suspension product came out this year was better. Which is a sad state of affairs when the Fox is £300 overpriced.
Still if you're in America, it might be worth saving your cents now, cos with a strong dollar and oil prices as low as they are, the 36s might start to see proper discounts later this year. Woop
However, I want to point out that I certainly do not feel it is sufficient if my new fork that just cost me over 1000$ is "squishy".
The point is that the 2013 Fox34 was very bad. It had no mid-stroke support, meaning that, at the right pressure to get a proper sag, it would use at least half of it's travel just by braking in the T mode. The D mode so underdamped it was completely useless...and who cares about the C mode? Basically you needed to increase your pressure a bit too high if you wanted to avoid blowing through your travel all the time...resulting in a significant reduction in small bump sensitivity and a harsher ride.
Every body complained about that and it should have been a recall issue. Fox revised the damping very rapidly and made the 2014 damper modification available in June I believe. Fox also believed the customer should pay (again) to get this new updated damper, after they had already paid a high price for the fork to begin with (I am talking about the Factory Series with full-Kashima bling-bling treatment).
I am just here to make sure this does not get forgotten...
Maybe they can make also a decent shock to go with it.
www.vitalmtb.com/product/feature/Spy-Shot-Prototype-FOX-Air-Downhill-Shock,293
I think they like to review the good stuff, when really reviewing the bad stuff would be more helpful so we know what to avoid.
BTW - I'd love to see a shootout of "affordable" trail/am forks from the likes of Xfusion, SR Suntour and whomever else is making solid forks closer to the $600 range.
Maybe an award for best "premium" suspension product and one for best "value" suspension product. I'm f*cking tired of $1,000 forks, $2,000 wheelsets and $9,000 bikes. F*cking tired........
Plus I'm pretty sure that if I had a new Pike or 36 I wouldn't be bitching about either or hating on the other. Can't we all just get along?
anyone else slightly bipolar here?
but fox on the elite wc field, men and women's had more victories than rock shox, so what's your point again? and the freeride guys any top of the line fork is equal to them ,they are mostly taking big hits, not reading the terrain
yes, i read that, but that was the initial opinion, when they have ridden it like 2 days, i'm not saying a pike is a bad fork, i bought one(that has to go to warranty without it being riden yet because it's not doing full travel) but the main reason i bought the pike it's for the price, in my opinion i would prefer the 36 and i think it is better , but is 400 and something euros (like 500 bucks) more expensive, and it isn't that much better, so as i am not swimming in money i went with the pike, the best offer for the money
the prices in america on this product's are way lower, probably because they are american brands or UE taxes and import charges
Here's the thing:
A lot of the Fox hate comes from the 34 CTD. There are quite a few people on this comment board who got this fork( myself included) and had problems with the compression( as in it doesn't work very well).
When fox redesigne the fork after it's 1st year because it was that bad, they then charged an additional $100 for the customers who paid for a bad design in the first place.
That soured a lot people on the company in general, and they haven't done much to change their image since then.
I am aware of the CTD flop, but this is a new fork, I am also aware of rockshox 2007 reliability issues and 2006 2009 Marzocchi quality control issues. I was unfortunate to own a dud lyric from 07 and a 08 888 with horrible bushing slop, however I like new rock shox and Marzocchi products, they both pulled it together and make better products than before. I feel people are jumping the gun here, I mean really how many people have actually tried the new 36? To say it is shit. Also the 36 never had the CTD cartridge and currently doesn't.
What does that even mean, because the reviewer likes the 36 people are gullible fools? Or because you bought a CTD fork and didn't like it? This is a review about the fox 36, and believe or not it received a good review, or I guess that's a conspiracy
I call for a shootout... Pike vs Zocchi 350 vs BOS Deville
Explain where they are outperforming .... Mostly riding and (good) reading are not very much departed in my experience...
Not basing my opinion on 1 review
Ans still the Pike should be there ... cause in the bikeworld it is the benchmark to beat atm...
Sounds great man! And it is something new right? So how many miles on it now and what is your weight?
Nice bike btw !! Yealous
So the choice will be for me, BOS Deville or Marzocchi 350 Ti.... both european products, I like to invest in local companies...
Your Remedy build looks pretty sick too! My old Remedy was a 2011, kind of flexy back then. I've heard they are a lot better now. Enjoy!
I way around the same... like 85 kg's...
PB: Hi Alicia). RockShox told us that they do not want our offer cause their products speak for themselves, so I have a good offer for you today regarding our "product of the year award".... Are you interested?
Alicia: yes! Stick it in!
I was always happy with my forks and i had many of them... All Brands , all sort of forks and it was Never The Fork that Held me back. So Common guys, it is just anward that has nothing to say about how good a Production is or an other isn't.
Congress to Fox for making Good Produkts again and for The Rest we all love your products.
http://www.churchoftherotatingmass.com/2014/12/02/are-we-not-journalists-part-2/
Half the fun is reading reviews where the reviewer is clearly having to balance their professional integrity with the need not to slag-off a new product big account, when it's clearly a bit of a dog. I feel like pinkbike do a good job of this balance on the whole - you can usually read between the lines easily enough.
any suggestions?
I am sooooo anxious for this fork... Ti or no Ti ?
I call for a shootout... Pike vs Zocchi 350 vs BOS Deville
The BOS Deville and the 350 NCR air are far far better than the pike.
Between the BOS and the 350 it is a very close game. I like the performance of the 350 better but I like the fact that you can adjust the low speed and high speed compression on the BOS.
That been said the BOS is $300 more than the 350 at MSRP...
Pike I loved for a year... but now it is producing sounds in the CSU and midstroke is a diver... (always was).
I can get the BOS and Zocchi for the same price in Holland atm.
Service Intervals are important to me too... start hanging to the BOS for now as a nice match to my Kirk Shock...
Still ... hard to find the black Devilles, mostly white's in Europe.
Would it be interesting to buy a second hander and send it over to Avalanche? Might even get better results for same price, or not?
I also found it to react to the high-speed stuff(chatter, braking bumps etc..) quicker, and with more composure, and where it REALLY shined, was the deep-travel shit. Jumps, drops, etc. Where the Pike either blows through its stroke and cries like a sissy-mary, or when the 'Tokens' are installed-blows through its stroke, then rebounds like it was shot out of a freaking cannon-, the Fox(sans tokens) stays composed. It sucks up the hit just like it's any other bump/hit, doesn't really flex, and I'm on my way.
Oh, and unlike my Pike's(2 of the three sets have had to be returned to SRAM for the air check-valve to be replaced/rebuilt/looked at cross-eyed), the Fox performed the last day just like the first(sadly, it was on my 29" Enduro which I replaced with the 27.5" version).
The first Pike I bought on purpose, to replace the OE Fox Talas 34 on my '13 26" Enduro. The next two unfortunately came stock on my 29" and 27.5" Enduro's.
I'm a raging idiot, otherwise I would've better planned this all out so I would have the Fox 36 on my 27.5" right now
I have no doubts about this, completely agree, is the best fork, besides it is expensive.
The reason being that if they bagged on a product and called it garbage that company would never advertise on PB again. Makes sense. I don't think they are calling companies extorting money for review awards.
I just think it's a bit odd that the MRP gets such a brief, dry initial review with several complaints about the axle setup which through experience I can say is as easy just as easy to use and intuitive as a Maxle (benchmark for a great axle). No mention of some pretty revolutionary adjustments or the versatility of being able to run one fork on a 26" or 27.5" bike. The Fox 36 review was incredibly long, detailed, and full of glowing praise and bright photos about all the "new" design features and its versatility. No mention of the huge issues people are seeing with the pitting in the dropouts (forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/2015-fox-36-a-914572-15.html) in the initial review or in this article.
It just makes it seem like it was somehow a foregone conclusion that the 36 was getting this award from the start.