SR Suntour Durolux RCA - Eurobike 2010

 Lots of guys use Duroluxes in my country, was able to try one on an as-x once, and it was better than expected, it may surprise people, the only unknown quantity will be durability.

 You could say the same about Norco or Saracen bikes, or about Marzocchi a few years ago (when they were being made in the Suntour factory - oops). What Suntour need to do is spend a few years rebuilding their image by improving the product and changing peoples minds about the brand.

 Quit saying that Suntour Forks and Parts are bad. I ride with a fork produced by their brand and it works well. In my opinion, some of those who just say that they're bad or lame compared to bigger brands is because of the branding itself, or it's just that they think that just because it's an asian company, it cannot be trusted. Most of the guys here in our country who ride use these forks and they work well. I admit that I am just a budget builder, but I have seen how good their parts are. PLEASE STOP BADMOUTHING THE COMPANY.

 mhailo & Steezysix what the heck are you talking about?! What image building? This is the company making budget products, and what's wrong about that? I think the stuff they do for the price is damn great! And graphics, a visible part of the image, includes in that opinion.

Companies like that are vital for bike-ecosystem because they make entry level bikes cheaper so more people get into the sport. All products incl. high-end stuff get lower prices thanks to that too. Suntour guys don't compare themselves with RS or Fox or MZ. It is just some Forum idiots doing it!

A person relating Suntour with crap is just a shortsighted idiot, in most cases the same guy/girl bit*hin Fox for prices. A person expecting high performance and low price, that doesn't dare to totaly dis the expensive stuff cuz that's surely fantabulastic, but eagerly bi**ches on cheap products like Suntour, just as if he had Fox 40rc2. It is easy to throw crap at these because they are simply worse than the best ndaaa.

If the world was organized according to these basterds, average joe wouldn't ride bike at all waiting 15 years to afford Intense M9 with deemax ultimates and sram XX all over. Then they would be happy!

 Right on the mark dude!

 I don't know what people think of them in Poland, but over in the here in the UK, most ''proper'' mtbers don't like them. I'm not talking about the Epicon/Durolox etc. the lower end models - the ones with seals made of swiss cheese and bushings made of plastic bottles, nd weigh a bloody ton. Most of the budget bikes here come with Suntours, budget being the steel full suspension 50lbs beast, branded as a 'Mountain Bike' - this is what gives them a bad rep, aswell as not being the most functional of forks.

If you say not all riders need fancy suspension, why put them on in the first place?! Rigid forks would do the job, but no it's just a gimmick.

Go onto most MTB forums, ask should I get this apollo with sr suntours? Most people will say no, spend a little more for some Toras etc. or go rigid.


EDIT: And of course image is part of it, a company with good rep is gonna sell better than a company that gets alot of stick!

 suntour have a bad press in britain mostly because most brits dont know who or what suntour are. we see a crap fork on a supermarket bike and we say 'oh haha look a suntour'. the fact is suntour dont actually make that stuff (thats often RST or zoom), their range is closer to the lower to middle range of rockshox. if you feel that suntour is not what you want on a bike then fair enough, youre obviously not their target market, but for many people suntour are an affordable alternative to mainstream brands.

 All these companies are doing budget stuff. Whether something is good or not depends a lot on perspective, doesn't matter if it's a fork, frame or grips etc. As long as someone keeps on comparing Suntour to RS, Fox even Manitou (which is damn retarded) you are going to end up saying Suntour is a crap. because if you ask me to change from Lyrik to this I will say go shag a wee sheep beauty! But I have a well paid job and have had few bikes and forks in my life.

But if you ask a 15 yr old kid with 150 quid for a fork, or my Mom wantig something so her wrists feel better after a ride to a grocery, then stuff gets different, isn't it?

Now Suntours bad reputation is always going to be there because not everyone sees things in perspective. Shortsighted(dicked) stupid people are among us, we can't kill them, we have to help them... explain calmly or just say : you are stupid! (actualy helps a bit too) if you feel like "being an a**hole makes the world a better place (just as a mojority of forumers worldwide does regardless of topic)

 I know some people can't afford it, and it's the bike manufacuters fault, who put them on their bikes. Like you say the average buyer for a budget bike won't necesarily know about them.

But i'm glad to see they're making some nice stuff

 Magazines and people who can not afford more expensive stuff will test it to proofe whether these are worth considering in the future, once good feedback received more people gain confidence in the product.

 They are trying their best to serve both the masses and the dedicated riders and i think they're a good company getting people started on riding. Not everyone can afford a Fox or Marzo fork on their first bike. Not everyone needs a high end dedicated fork for riding. I admit, I really wanted a Fox fork before, but I'm just a student. I can't afford high end parts without pissing my parents off to help me budget on new mid end parts. It's not about the brand, it's about how much you want to ride that you won't mind using a cheap fork or be brand conscious on your parts. I ride Suntour because they are durable and affordable while providing performance I want without the hassle of robbing your parents of hard earned money.

 wow, you're really passionate about suntour...that's admirable but the bottom line is they don't hold a candle to a 36, lyrik, or vengeance. If you're worried about a budget, get a 2009 one and it'll perform better. i've ridden their stuff, and it really isn't that great. it is coming from me, when i pretty well only ride higher end stuff. if you don't know any better i'm sure it's fine though

 nmpearson: he doesn't seem passionate, he just wrote what he actualy thinks looking kind of true to himself what is extremely rare in here. Unlike a pack of kids or older wnkrs who believe that writing something good about Fox 40 and tossing crap at Suntour makes them sound knowledgable, waiting for a round of applause for saying: Suntour is crap! or this is siiickkkk!!!

If more people would be giving such feedback as pierrotlefou we would get better products. For most that manufacturers hear is the attitude of: I need Fabien Barels 62 head angle, gee Athertons suspension setup, Im a tough racer, I see myself at world cups in few years time, I never go home before I go big, I need one!

Carlos MC - exactly my thought with Domain

 a new suntour(because you won't find 2nd hand ones) will be about the same price as a lyrik(i'm selling one for 400 for a friend), 09 36 float rc2(just sold one for 450), and vengeance(sold a few HLR's for people for 500). You get exactly what you pay for. The domain is a way better fork, that's something i actually would recommend.

And yes, I would never ride a suntour. Call me elitist, but I usually only will run high end rock shox or fox. and no i'm not rich, i just know how to buy and sell efficiently.

 if I had FOX, RS OR MARZO I wouldn´t change them for suntours(even when I have a suntour duro fr20 on my blmrkt)... I´m not saying that these are better than those, but the reality and the fact is that for the price suntours are very good and totally an option when you don´t have the money for a major brand fork . !!you can´t compare them because of the price and sometimes the rider makes a big difference!!

 Let's seat ourselves comfortably and wait until masses of truthful, idealistic, performacne oriented, hand made advocates, weigth weenies, all with huge wallets bring their guns Best one should get the NSOD award. "neg speech of the day"

 Let me start: Damn they new ones look so nice. Opps, I did it wrong

 am i the only one that enjoyed riding his old suntours:S yes they were crap but my god did they take a beating... and zero maintainence too

 they do some shitty forks that cost about 30 quid too, that go on toys r us bikes, so people think all their forks are poor. their higher end forks, i.e this one aren't so bad. obviously not as good as fox or rockshox but good for the price

 yea but thanks to these guys you can afford a bike fro your girlfriend, mom, wife, kids etc. Sorry here for not remembering the exact numbers and the name of one great Welsh guy who started trail centers, he said that according to his research more than 80% of sales of mountain bikes are ATB bikes. Dhillers and Freeriders were less than 1% or so... So if someone like Suntour provides products for this 80% in suh a package then: THUMB UP boys! + I choose this Durolux over RS Domain anytime...

 right.....I own a suntour duro and it feels very good... got it new for the half price of a "good fork"(marzocchi,rockshox,fox or whatever)and worth every cent !!I think it is a very good fork for the price!!

 hardtailfreerider93 one thing i have to say is you can crack any forks like fox 40s...i own a pair of these forks there cheap (good for someone like me who doe not get all my stuff bought for me) and are really amazing for there price only costing me £250! for light 180mm sink forks.

 chris russel - that was a stupid comment, you cant say you enjoyed riding them but also say they were crap haha

 sorry oliscale... ill try and live up to your londoners expectations in future...

sometimes you need to put the product based balls to one side and just ride your bike for once? no matter what spec... try it... its fun...

 i had a pair of duro's which are the 100/80mm versions and they where very poor quality the left side of the leg had elastomer with a Jelly as lubrication and on the right side some poor quality spring with bearly any oil, the whole time from out the box the stancions where always dry to be honest it felt like i owned shock absorbers rather than suspension as they rarely went over 30mm and it would take a lot of force to make them go any further.
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maybe i hope they have changed for the good i would like some longer travel forks that dont require a loan to pay for.

 Most people buy bikes with suntour forks on but its not just the fork which is crap. Its not even the bike which is crap, its being bought for the wrong purpose. Therefore when the bike, and therefore forks, is used for jumps and such like, it breaks. Its not just the forks which break, the mech and other smaller components break also but because these are cheap to replace or easy to fix then they get overlooked. Moral of the story; bikes (and therefore their components) should be bought for what they are designed for.

 chris russel - i used to ride the shittiest kona for about a year, it was seriously bad but i still went riding every week so dont tell me i dont ride.

 Yeah, it's basically like RST. They usually do the low-end stuff. However, there's a change of wind, they try to bring out new products to fit high-end category as well. A great example of a brand already doing this is X-Fusion. Few years ago it was basically the same thing as RST/SR. Now though, it's producing products that appeal to high-end users and actually doing good. All in all, for any of these brands, I guess it was just a matter of time until someone figured out the potential set in taking low-end brand and make it high-end to expand the business, make it stronger and more notable.

 I choose this one over Domain and cheaper 66 anytime...

 SR suntour and Suntour are not the same thing. SunTour (the old roadbike drivetrain gruppo manufacturer) was a Japanese company, who actually invented the modern slant-parallelogram design rear derailer. They were a pretty high-end component back in the day - typically better shifting than all but the top end shimano or campy stuff - until the yen crashed in the mid-80s. The company was bought out by a different party and moved to Taiwan where they started producing the low-end stuff they make now.

 Well that would make thngs pretty much the same as marzocchi then, shame would be nice to see some of these old school brands right up there with the best, raleigh being another that springs to mind.

 t0rch you don't have a full grasp of the facts. There were two companies (Sakae Ringyo and SunTour) now there is one. The manufacturing moved from Japan to Taiwan and China. The management structure is still made up of many of the same Japanese management from the major drivetrain years. They are passionate about cycling all the way to the top too. www.bicycleretailer.com/news/newsDetail/1302.html

Other bits, the office in Europe has been involved with Megavalanche since it's inception and also sponsor World Cup XC team BH-SR Suntour and the Duro Werx DJ crew in the video. Roger Rinderknect won Val di Sole WC for 4x this year and has been on the forks helping with development for a couple years now srsuntour-cycling.com/SID=si001eb14ea7fd868ec52ff8fbf6a8d4/index.php?screen=ne.detail&pid=732&type=news

It will take a lot of effort to win people over but SR Suntour is here to play. We know we have to earn the trust of the riders and will work hard to make solid products.

BTW I'm the guy in the video.
Cheers,
Darren at SR Suntour

 Thanks Darren, I stand corrected - I was misinformed.

...and, that will probably be one of the bigger media battles you're going to have ahead of you: people seem to have very little knowledge about SR Suntour, excepting the fact that the lower-end bikes tend to be spec'd with their stuff. Especially here in North America. I've worked around bikes for quite a while and only recently learned that Suntour fields a full line of suspension, all the way to dual-crown downhill forks. Prior I had thought they only made super-low-end stuff, because that's all I'd ever seen. It's my understanding that Suntour's top stuff is big in most of Asia and Europe, but out here in North America it's pretty hard to find...

Anyway, advertising and media aside, what really sells things in the bike world is word-of-mouth, so if you build a superior product, and people know it, you're in.

 It's good to see bike companies try to produce value products. Now it'll be up to Pinkbike testers to see if these value products can also be of good quality. Now wouldn't that be something. While I can appreciate why people are a bit hesitant, what's the harm in keeping an open mind? If these Suntour forks are good quality surely that's a win for the consumer

Props to Suntour and to you Darren for giving it an honest attempt

 lol i have a sr suntour fork on my everyday bike... if you adjust the compression and the rebound you cant feel any difference even from max setting to min, and it flexing like 1/2cm back and fourth, worst forks i have even used lol

 *They are flexing and *Ever not even... lol sorry for my bad English.

 look at saracen, they did it in a year, so probably yeah your right

 the guy said in the vid that they have been working on these forks for a few years now

 That doesn't have anything to do with brand image. It could be the best fork in the world, but it'll take time for people to trust a brand normally associated with budget forks.

 damn, redrook stole the words out of my mouth

 That's how everyone should do it. They should never evaluate the quality of lower end parts by the name itself, which is biased to what they usually use.

 That shock looks bliiiiiiiiiiing

 whats the cost.... he didnt say

 they are about 400euro over here, thats a complete bargain compared to ANY RS or Fox 180mm fork

 yeh but they are sr suntour.

 im loving that axle, so simple but yet so good, id say overall well done SR suntour

credit where credits due i think suntour have really out done them selves!

 They are 35mm

 Why not?

 they fall apart, they may look good on the outside but the internals are bad quality, well at least the 2010 range where the rebound adjust just stops working after a few weeks

 They have the 2010 At CRC and its about $350 US Dollars. www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=49118
I never knew about these forks and looks like a good option for the budget minded rider who wants longer travel. Lets see how the pinkbike test goes before we all jump to conclusions, but for the price it sure looks likes a good option.

 DANKE ScHON

 Rear fork?????

 Yes, I never see rear fork from SR Suntour

 there's no such thing as a rear fork.. maybe a rear shock dude..