Push Industries is Making an Inverted Fork - Sea Otter 2023
Behold!
Push Industries has a long history of manufacturing high-end suspension components and modifications, with their flagship ElevenSix shock now standing synonymous with boutique suspension. However, one thing has been suspiciously lacking from the lineup: a fully Push-made fork. That's changing now, as Push unveils their new inverted all-mountain fork.
The deep crown overlap certainly looks skookum.
The steer tube appears to be pressed in, as per usual.
I bothered Darren - the founder of Push - as much as I could, but he's being pretty tight-lipped about any details with the new fork. All he could say was that the model you see here is a pre-production version, and that there will be some details that differ on the final model.
From what I can tell, it's geared towards the trail/enduro bike market, with long enough travel to match the other big single crown options on the market. It seems to be made completely out of aluminum, with some plastic guards for the exposed stanchions. There's a little cable guide attached to the casting, and some mysterious tapped holes on both legs that could probably be used to attach other accessories like a fender.
Looks stiff, hope it proves to be on trail.
Bolt-on everything.
The dropouts at the bottom of the stanchions are bolt-on, and have a massive interface with the axle, which should hopefully abate some of the torsional stiffness issues that inverted forks have had in the past. With a double pinch bolt on each side the assembly certainly looks beefy.
Maybe a fart valve, maybe a retention bolt, maybe an oil port?
And a simple little cable guide.
That's all I can speculate on for the time being, but you can guarantee that we'll be pestering the Push folks for more info as it comes out. Darren left me with two quotes that felt worth sharing, so keep these in mind:
 | It'll change your life. |
| Coming soon. |
A classic Push damper arrangement, and boy does it have a nice click to it.
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I'm in at $2800.
Well, then I'm going for 2799
2400
"But sir, you have 21?"
"I too like to live dangerously."
Still I didn't try the intend single crown nor the fast suspension one (did they finally make it?) but I remember the old Shiver SC and that thing was not fun. DC USD forks are fine but Single crowns may be a bigger issue
The fore aft stiffness only benefits the fork in doing its job properly. It allows it to move freely without binding, especially under fore aft load. Since that is the exact direction in which the damping of a fork is supposed to work in the first place, this means less fatigue for the rider.
I don´t see any scenario where this becomes a negative. Of course the damping needs to be up to par and not reliant on flex to compensate for low frequency impacts, but i assume they got that covered. Also the tendency of fore aft flex to make the fork ping back under load imho is still a major problem as far as control and fork feel go, so eliminating that is a huge plus in my book.
Now as far as single crown USD forks go, i´m right with you. Having ridden the Dorado it does have noticeable flex, but imho it really is not yet quite as pronounced to where it influences riding performance. I can´t imagine more flex than that not impacting steering precision though and i can´t see how these single crown forks aren´t much worse in that regard. I´d be happy to be proven wrong though.
The DVO emerald fork comes to mind. This was a very good inverted DH fork but the pro riders didn’t like it and chose to run the normal forks instead and it never took off.
I’m sure high level riders and pro might feel a difference but for an average recreational rider like myself any additional flex was not noticeable.
Us- "Upside down?"
Push- "This is the way."
Apologies my intentions not devaluing Suntour at all! You are right, with his skill set he would smoke most on a tricycle, brand of fork wouldn't matter.
Suntour does come stock on many entry level bikes, naturally alot of people turn there nose up because they don't no any better about Suntour's more capable offerings.
Long before they made suspension they made great road and track gruopsets, wish I had never sold my Superbe Pro track gruopo .
The bike was 140mm trail bike with Suntour xcr 34 lot ds air boost fork. The rear shock was a Suntour Edge.
Considering the equipment I have personally seen the riders in top 5 in a particular Strava Segment here leads me to believe he is a darn good rider.
The Suntour Fork and rear suspension shock handled the abuse from his riding darn well.
Honestly my intention was to make an observation.
I personally make my equipment decisions based on customer support and availability of parts to service equipment regardless of brand.
Cheers
If you bolt a fender on there you'll have a pretty short travel fork...
List of inverted fork manufacturers:
Cannondale
Intend
Manitou
X-Fusion
KS
Push
Bright
Wren
Various Chinese brands
Used to:
DVO
Marzocchi
Rockshox
Didn't Azonic have a very short travel dirtjump fork that was USD?
Just like the Cannondale Lefty, the USE fork was USD too. Same could be said of these more recent linkage forks from Trust.
Mind you that this one from Push is preproduction. If you consider that fine, then Fox could be added to the list as well. And then of course there'd be more than a few that'd must have been experimenting with the concept too.
Mr Dirt (the best by far)
Hanebrink (didn't work in Ireland)
White Brothers (don't think they were great either)
I have a set of Shivers SC going on a build right now, looking forward to seeing how they turn out. Hopefully a good laugh on the groomed bike park trials.
weight
But there is a heavy wheel attached to it so it doesn't really matters.
Some say it’s the lack of the fork bridge-brace. My best guess is the axle size.
Stick a 35mm axle through those dropouts, clamp it wide, and twist that in a parking lot!
Primary reason is weight and stiffness, the same reason they switched to them on street bikes that don't have issues with underhang.
Yeah I remember that on my 1987 Honda CR250.
It was pretty bad in ruts!
And USD dual crown forks have more bushing overlap, meaning they can be more sensitive/reactive.
Sounds right to me!
So if we ever see upside down forks in mountain biking, odds are will see them on a downhill rig first?
USD and linkage forks. Seem to disappear as quickly as a show up.
I rode in the Rocky Mtns, and I can’t believe I never lost a chunk of a fork to those “Rocky’s”!
I wonder how many Mtn bikers realize how long Marzocchi been making suspension for?
m.pinkbike.com/news/the-scott-spark-rc-hypersonic-project.html
Well, when you look at early Mtn bike caliper and shock internals, for an example, there’s wasn’t a lot there to lead one to believe we’d have the designs we ride today.
Twin chamber dampers, kashima coatings, 4-way adjustable dampers.. And calipers machines from billet, to name a few.
I took another look at the PUSH fork and noticed the extended crown overlap down the upper tubes. Maybe they found the answer to torsional flex? I’d be surprised if this fork is nothing less than amazing, if it makes it to the retail market.
going to be at least $2500, hard to service if you can even service it yourself. Also that cable guide is pretty stupid if you get a stick kicked up there its going to wedge between the fork and probably bend that long ass plate into the tire, its also mounted to a flexible plastic guard thats bolted in way down on the fork lugs.
flexible than traditional ones. EVERY serious motorcycle uses an inverted fork design precisely because they are stiffer than a traditional fork design. I think this myth of the flexible inverted MTB fork has more to do with poor engineering than an inherent issue in then concept.
And I’m wonder how many people with an opinion on torsional flexibility have ever ridden a USD fork..?
Sounds like you actually rode one..
Gonna be interesting, this PUSH fork. Could be yet another solution looking for a problem.
I run a Trust Message fork, and for all the crazy harshness, it’s got the torsional rigidity of my last MX bike! At least for the rider/bike weight combo.
Some big wig from Cannondale was walking through the pits, talking to some other guy, and he said they have a 160mm travel Lefty ready to go! It works, it’s not breaking and could go into production.
He said the only problem is the Mtn biking public wouldnt be on board, so they scrapped it.
@dirtyburger: Yeah that's an option. DVO sort of did that for the Emerald inverted fork although they seemed to stop short of making it a fender. Hopefully Push does the same but with a fender and considers folks who ride in mud.
Oh, it would look ridiculous..!
And, it’d have to be carbon fiber not to add real grams to overall weight.
Unless someone comes up with some weird Mtn bike solution.
What do you think, some big floppy fender under the triple clamp like an MX bike, or a big floppy fender ziptied to the frame?
Perfect first world Mtn bike problem!
I’m hoping for USD forks to take over, and a future where you can’t tell the difference between the front end of a Mtn bike and a MX bike!
So here I go again, rehashing the USD torsional rigidity debate, and the question of why the whole Moto world is using them, but they have no torsional rigidity for Mtn biking.
Someone made a case that you’re loosing your arch brace by going USD, that sounds feasible, but MX bikes never had a fork brace, and the first USD forks were not flexy.
My take is unless you use carbon tubes in the uppers, it’s gonna get too heavy to be stiff enough.
I haven’t heard of fishtailing front wheels from the PB downhill team, so someone is getting it right!
Do you think it’s the future of Mtn biking, or is the design too heavy for anything but DH?
If you want something similar but lighter there is the Intend Infinity which weighs 2.5kg.
So, not going to see an USD on a downcountry or XC bike?
I need a crystal ball!
The big brands aren't going to make that change so I doubt it will become the next trend
I agree with all of the above!
If pressed, I describe my Tallboy as a 120/130mm travel mountain bike. Period. I honestly don’t care about most of this stuff unless some humor can be incorporated.
Wanna hear a fun fact you won’t believe? I was walking through the pits at Downieville in 2015, and overheard a conversation between a Cannondale guy and some other guy-
“We have a 5.5” travel Lefty, it works great, we just don’t think the public will trust one leg with that much travel though.”
Wow..
…what they don’t know can’t hurt them!
They no longer make them? I thought it was a shame they don’t make them longer..
Maverick: I-- no, WE, were inverted.
Moto types many of us(moto) folks upgrade to.
The original Halson Inversion came out IIRC in 1992, when most elastomer forks' spring stacks were only double or so the length of their forks' travel. Halson's fork had 1.9" of travel and a 7" stack- it was a revelation, so much controllable compression, and also not too springy rebound. Maybe only one other company of the time, Anti-Gravity, made a fork with a longer spring stack. The Halson really just rode awesome for the time.
The spring stack was the fork's only really good feature and compensated for some other of the fork's aspects. Unsprung weight was high in spite of the inverted design because the legs used thick, straight gauge aluminum and because the brace and dropouts were both clunky cast aluminum. The brace was also very flexy compared to a RS or Manitou brace, in spite of its bulk. Similar story for the dropouts. Crown and upper legs were solid, and the finish on the sliding parts was insanely durable. Bushings could not be replaced.
You will be poor and divorced if you buy this
why is it still on the back of the axle like an afterthought.
stunning rig!
90% agree. Don't forget that Maverick's fork had dual crowns and baseball bat-sized upper legs and still some whispered about torsional flex. DVO tried colleting the upper legs into the crown but abandoned that feature at some point. Also the RS1 with its single piece crown and uppers, and (unfortunately faux) 27mm axle. All still flexy.
The one upside down telescoping fork for trail use that did stay a long time on the market was the dual crown Lefty.
Whenever I see a USD fork hitting the market I think, this is just an attempt to grab publicity, nothing more. And you know what? I've been right every time, boutique makers like Intend possibly excepted.
The simple fact is, USD forks are missing an important structural member. I'm skeptical that improved manufacturing can overcome that. Again, skeptical, not 100% convinced. But the Push fork still uses a 15mm axle, so I am not super optimistic.
Whether a single-crown can compete, I don't know but I'd love to try this and the Intend forks.