Fox Updates 36 Fork With Lighter, More Durable Crown
It's probably fair to say the Fox 36 has been overshadowed by its bigger brother, the 38. Most of used to think it was a perfectly capable enduro fork, but the arrival of the 38 has relegated it to shorter-travel bikes, despite Fox claiming the latest version (launched in 2020) is actually slightly stiffer than its predecessor. But with people asking ever more of single crown forks (go to any local DH race and half the field will be on enduro bikes, to say nothing of the insanity that is a modern EWS race course), it's no surprise that people are wanting burlier forks.
For similar reasons, it seems that a small but significant percentage of riders have had problems with fork crowns starting to work loose and creak where the steerer tube is pressed into the crown. When I asked various suspension companies about this, Fox was more candid than most about the problem: "We realize this can be a frustrating issue for riders", they admited, and hinted at a running change in the pipeline to help address it: "we’re close to introducing additional updates that we feel confident will provide an extremely robust long-term solution".
Today, Fox is introducing an updated 36 with a new crown. They say this crown features "updated design and engineering for more steer tube overlap improving durability and maintaining stiffness while dropping 20 grams."
The all-important region of overlap between the crown and the steerer has been lengthened by 4 mm. This should reduce the stresses on the join, and so reduce the chances of the steerer starting to work loose inside the crown and making that annoying creaking sound.
The claimed weight of the 2023 36 can be as little as 4.28 lb / 1942g (29”, 160mm Travel, KaboltX axle, Fit4 damper, 165mm steerer length with star fangled nut), which is just over 20g lighter than the claimed weight for the previous version. With a Grip2 damper and a less Hobbit-specific steerer tube length, expect the real-world weight to be north of 2,000 g.
Must Read This Week
147 Comments
Step 2: All the money.
* No warranty and don't recommend riding on, around, over, near or within sight of rocks.
Better quality
Fox have been plagued with this issue for about a decade now- theyve been anything BUT open, and us as consumers have not held them nearly accountable as we should have. Marzocchi all but disappeared for less 15 years ago.
Forks are consumables at this rate. You have to replace them damn near as frequently as tires these days because of creaking crowns, on a product priced like it's built to last for decades.
If this fixes it, cool. But I donno if they should get "props" for fixing something that should never have been an issue in the first place, and I certainly don't know if they deserve props for claiming their revolutionary new weightloss trick (that was what started the problem in the first place) is going to fix everything after an actual decade of introducing new weight shavings that invariably increase creaking.
Next we're going to hear about Shimano fixing their wandering bite point and they'll get a "props" too I bet.
Not to mention there's a risk of injury with it, as cranks separating mid ride is a major safety concern and could lead to a massive injury or crash.
The amount of stuff the bicycle industry gets a pass on is nuts.
I get it. It's hard to build good long lasting products. Shit happens.
I'd way rather the company own up to it, be clear in communication, and fix the damn thing. Not pretend it's not a problem.
The musical chair blame game obfuscates so much too. "Oh it isn't our fork that's creaking, its your headset. Oh you tried that? It must be your brake calipers. Not that either? Maybe it's your crown race. Already switched that out? I bet it's your stem! Or your bars! Or your stem bolts! Or your rotor bolts! Not any of those things? That's crazy, you must be the first person to ever have one of our forks and have the crown start creaking. Anyway its 2.1 years old and our warranty is only 2 years, so that'll be $470 for some new crowns please."
Creaking forks ruins the experience of riding a bike.
While I read a lot of these coments and reviews of creaky CSU and wandering bite points, I've never had them.
My shimano brakes are awesome, granted it's a two piston with gigantic rotors, and always on Suntour CSU, that never have creaked on me. I'm a heavy rider that is always fighting with rocks and trees.
20 years ago Marzocchi were the benchmark in terms of reliability. They were bombproof compared Rockshox and manitou, and fox weren't even a blip on the radar. They dropped the ball around 2006-7 ish and in 2-3 years lost that reputation and closed shop. Fast forward a decade, and they're bought by fox, and in manu ways are back to being more reliable.
what animal are you talking about?
Average human bladder is 400ml to 600ml, so 0.4 to 0.6 kg.
Average human poop is 113g to 450g.
What oil are you using for the lowers?
The problem is that you had to make use of the warranty in the first place.
FOR YEARS this has been a known issue with a known solution, yet Fox doesnt take the neccessary steps to fix it.
Other fork manufacturers selling creaking forks also doesnt make Fox any better.
I’m guessing we’ll end up with dual crown trail/enduro forks at some point. If it means a reliable, straight tracking chassis at reasonable (compared to a 38 or Zeb) weight fork, I’m in.
It's far from being a rider weight issue. Not to mention that the energies exerted on the bike and fork depend more on speed than mass.
This issue should occur on maaaaybe 5% of their forks and 0% on their factory series. In reality it happens in much larger numbers and across their product line.
www.pinkbike.com/news/x-fusion-trace-rl2-fork-review-2014.html
Horses for courses and all…..