Getting home from work is a good thing. Today was a good day. I decided that I was going to put last week behind me and work hard to look ahead. It worked. The only thing on my mind when driving home from work was what route I was going to ride. I hurry up and get dressed and grab a granola bar on my way out. I check my tires (I’d been having problems getting my front to seal, it had been losing air pressure way to fast), hop on the bike, clip in. and start rolling down the street. I knew it would be a good ride when I cleared the first two lights. I roll by, watching as people sit in their cars waiting for their turn to go. I see guys with racks on their car, watching my back as I roll by. I’ve been that guy before. Envious… jealous… frustrated it isn’t me riding. Yeah, I’ve been there. Today is my turn. I keep turning the pedals over, roll through the last light of my journey, weave my way through a Sam’s club parking lot, which at times is harder than the actual trail and definitely more dangerous. Hopping the curb into the singletrack brings me great relief. Just like that, as if someone shut out the lights, I’m in another world. A world where nothing else matters but how my legs and lungs feel. I take that first descent a little slow; trying to get used to the new tread up front. It catches like new rubber should. Confidence builds.

There is a moment at the beginning of every ride where a little tension creeps into me. It’s the moment before my first climb. I worry. I worry about whether or not my knees are going to feel good or if they’re going to give me pains. I worry about how much it is going to hurt, or not hurt. A real cyclist knows within the first ten minutes how the rest of his ride will go.

I see it coming - the incline of loose rocks and short step-ups. No cheater lines here. It’s either commit or fall several feet over onto sharp limestone rocks. I always commit. After cleaning the first climb with ease, I come to realize that tonight will be an excellent night. I roll through the singletrack with hardly a thing on my mind - just the next obstacle. Eventually though, my mind starts to wander. Wander ahead to things to come and things that have passed. I’m a sucker for the Christmas season and my ride takes me through a neighborhood that seems to be as festive as I am. I laugh as I turn the pedals. Looking at the houses lit up, watching my breath as I exhale into the night. These are the rides I love.

As I continue on into my ride, I realize it is fully dark, and I should turn my headlight on. I always take about one minute to just stand there when I ride solo. Just to let the darkness and void fill in. Knowing I’m alone in the dark, in the woods, enlivens me. My first time out, I was a little scared. Now I enjoy it. It brings me a sense of peace. There are no boogie monsters in the woods. There may be a hobo or two, but nothing to be worried about.

I realize that I haven’t taken a sip of water in twenty minutes. That’s easy to do when the temps drop into the 50’s. I take a drink of my evening chilled water, feeling it go down my throat and burning my stomach. It gets me moving even quicker. On this ride, I have two real climbs. I’ve done them both countless times and know the right lines like the back of my hand. But at night things are different. Lines change and memory fades. Balance is key when climbing in Austin. There are times when you can’t keep pedaling. Sometimes you have to change lines, but have to halt first. If one can’t come to a stop and have the power to get going again, you’ll never survive here. I try to stay seated as long as possible on this climb, mainly to save my legs their energy. I know I’ll need it as I get to the top. Eventually, I’m forced to stand. Singlespeeders are unlike any other cyclists. We can stand for a long time on climbs. Standing isn’t the hard part; the back going weak is the hard part. As I throw my front wheel over the first big step, my rear wheel spins out on a rock. This is the moment I hate. I must make a quick decision. Do I unclip and push? or do I stall, change lines and power up? Doing the first brings frustration yet saves power; performing the second requires timing, power, and luck. Nine times out of ten I’ll try to stay on the bike. I love the bike. I stall, lean my body over while turning the handle bars slightly to the right and kick and pull at the same moment to produce as much power through my cranks as possible, while at the same time kicking my back wheel up to clear the small step that is approaching. Cleared. Wow, that always brings a smile to my face.

As I approach the top I start to really let loose. I get my heart rate up enough to make my chest burn, my arms tingle and my tongue is a little numb. The only way to get faster on climbs is to climb, so that’s what I do.

I eventually start my journey home. I still have plenty of trail to ride and nothing but owls, raccoons, and spiders to keep me company. Every now and then I might see some lights in the distance or pass a group of riders. They always ask how many are behind me. My reply is, “Nobody.” That gets them talking. Some people find night riding dangerous. “What if you wreck and get hurt?” they ask. “Who’s gonna help you out?” Good question. That’s one I don’t have an answer to. But it’s either riding by myself, enjoying the peacefulness of the solitude, or sitting on the couch watching T.V. I say, “I’ll take solitude for 500, Alex.”

As I approach the trailhead, I have one last climb in front of me. I hammer up it, giving it everything I have. I like to end on a good note and to me that is when I’m barely able to breath or think due to the lack of oxygen in my muscles and brain. I roll out of the woods and back into the parking lot, surprising two Sam’s Club employees on their break having a smoke. I zip up my vest, pull up my arm warmers, and roll home. My toes close to being numb, my breath hitting me as I roll through it, my exposed calves burning in the night., I feel more alive than I have in a while.

Do I ever get tired of riding? Yes, I do. And when I do I don’t ride, or ride something different. There are really only two passions in my life: my loving wife, and my bike. Passions are a positive thing - people take care of their passions. People focus on their passions. Passions give that person something back. I’m a lucky person to live in a city where I can embrace my passions. I’m a lucky person to have a wife who understands my basic needs. I lied when I said nothing really crosses my mind while I’m riding. One of the things I think most about while riding is Katie. I look forward to coming home and seeing her. She is the warmth at the end of a cold ride.

Sherpaxc

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While I wasn’t planning on dropping off the Maxxis quiet yet as I had a replacement for the rear tire so that I could wear the front tire out completely, Murphy the Imp of the Perverse conspired to prevent that. Specifically, I had a great crash at the bottom of a high speed section on a ride and the only replacement tires I could find that would make me happy on that fateful Saturday afternoon were the Eskar.

The added complication that I have to put out here is that in the aformentioned endo I also destroyed my front rim, so it was time for a new wheel build. The new rims are not more than a few millimeters different in width at the bead than the old ones, but the design will impact the setup of the tire. The old rims were DT 5.1d, the new rims are Stan’s Flow. 26er’s all.

So off we go, into “small tire” land for the first time in a long time.

This round will put up the Eskar Control 2.3 2bliss and see how it stacks against my usual habits and riding area.

Initial Assessment

Specialized lists these tires with the following bullet-list of features:

• 420/D1 Control Casing (light but with improved puncture resistance and sidewalls)
• Folding bead
• Dual compound ( 65a center, 55a shoulder )
• Butyl wrapped bead ( for better tubeless sealing )
• 700g weight

For other info, please go see their web page.

The tread looked and felt (in hand) to be a reasonable compromise between rolling resistance and traction. The casing did feel a bit thin to me, but then I am so accustomed to phat tires (2.5-2.6 class) that I know my perception is skewed.

The cost was not unreasonable, but not cheap. At the local shop the tires were basically fifty bucks each before tax.

Mounting to Rims

I must say that the tires mounted up without a quibble to the 26″ Stan’s Flow rims, simply by hand - no levers required.

The rims are setup with a single wrap of the yellow Stan’s tape, and after mounting the tires, pouring in a little goop, sudsing down the bead lightly, and *pwoosh* the tires were on and settled.

No appreciable air pressure was lost overnight. Sweet.

It should be noted that these were the first tires mounted to these rims. I don’t think this made any difference but it is possible.

Once mounted up the tire seemed to have decent volume at the casing, and did not overly much expose the sidewalls from “behind” tread - but it certainly was not putting the tread into an agressive sidewall protection role - almost an afterthought.

The tread pattern looked good, looked like it would not have much of the dead-zone on the transition like the ADvantage had, and the shoulder lugs looked like they may have enough meat to hold up for a reasonable amount of mileage.

Ride Impressions

First thing to note is that the tires roll pretty well. They’re no semi-slick, not even as efficient really as either a Kenda Small Block 8 2.35″ or probably the Maxxis Larsen TT. I’d stack it much better than the “reference” Kenda Blue Groove 2.35 though, and with a comparable amount of grippiness.

The tire needed more air for the same amount of support and rock-protection that I require, so for me that means 35-ish PSI, even tubeless. It was okay running as low as 25, but under 30 psi it definitely started to lose solidity at higher speeds during cornering on flats or whatnot.

At the lower psi of 25-30 I didn’t feel that it got more grippy tangibly when compared to 30-35 psi. My bike is certainly a factor in this though, and on a shorter-travel or stiffer-travel bike or even on a rigid frame you may want or need the lower pressure to help with traction.

At the higher range I also did not feel that I was sacrificing a lot of suppleness or traction, some sure but not enough to care. Again, my bike is certainly a factor here and I would expect others to want different pressures to get the same performance level out of the tire.

Rolling on pavement, hardpack, dust-over-hardpack, the tire rolled efficiently and steady. Cornering traction on harpack and dry-over-hardpack was pretty good - certainly as good as I would expect from “tacky” shoulder rubber equipped tires. Carooming around the twisty turns of Walnut Creek was fun and it was easy to keep the momentum and corner-on-rails feeling going.

Escalting trail difficulty up did not seem to change the impression of the tires, they continued to roll and corner well up and down. Once things started getting significantly chunky they started to lose out (as I expected them to) compared to the big-meat tires in their big-rock/root handling, rock-garden traversals, and babyhead-field traversals. The Eskar also started showing the advantage of a lighter tire as things started to get much more vertical - for climbing. The smaller rotational weight certainly was welcome as it made the fidgety stop-trackstand-restart and slow paced rocky trail climbing activities notably lower impact on my energy spent.

The general straight-up climbing and descending/braking traction proved to be pretty simply great. I always felt confident in the tire and connected to the planet properly. I did not often lose traction on the rear tire when I didn’t expect to, nor did I lose traction while braking when I did not want to. Solid marks here.

On the soft loamy areas, the tire held up resonably well, even on the serverly off-camber stuff. It did lose out where a deeper-tread design would have not, and that required some significant rider-based traction management, but not overly so and not as much/early as I would have expected.

On the high speed descents, or truthfully at high speeds anywhere, when cornering the Eskar tracked and held a line well. Surprisingly, I found that on the softer stuff it was very comparable to the 2.4 ADvantage I was riding before, and that on the hardpack cornering was better with notably less slip when in the transition knobs to the shoulder.

Wear and Durability

Ok, here’s where the Eskar really takes it in the teeth if you ask me.

Shoulder-lug tread wear on the rear tire started in about 60 miles into the tire, this was a bit but not overly early but did prove to be an accelerating-curve kind of wear. Once the wear started, the eventual wear-down of the shoulders happened quickly.

Main tread wear on the rear tire started to show significantly at about 150 miles, which is WAY early for what I am comfortable with for a not-cheap tire. For comparison, I’ve gotten almost 2000 miles out of a dual-compound Kenda Cortez 2.2 in the past, and I have a pair of Kenda Short Tracker 2.35’s that have been on my bike intermittently for over two years at this point and show no appreciable wear. Still, rear tires go faster, and softer tread more so, so no BIG surprise.

Still, it was disappointing.

I was happy to run the tire for another month or so until things really gave out though, to push it down.

But it failed to make it. Apparently, the general “ablation” of the sidewalls was enough that after about three weeks of use the rear tire lost out in a minor sidewall brush to a chunk of limestone and let go with about a 1″ long tear in the sidewall.

Dangit!

At this point the front tire was just starting to show shoulder-lug wear, so I deemed it time to move on tire-wise and found a new home from the front tire.

This was to me a pretty serious shortcoming of the tires. The rear tire seemed to be a “monthly” or maybe if I’m lucky a “bi-monthly” item, ejecting the sidewall cut from the scenario.

The front tire was on track for maybe a 2-3 month lifetime, but this left me strongly unimpressed with the longevity of the tire.

I would not, for example, consider it worth having on the bike - new - before heading out of town for a week of hard riding in even more severe conditions such as the rocky Arizona desert trails or the sandstone of the US southwest.

Closing

If you’re a less agressive or less frequent rider, or ride primarily softer tread areas (thinking buff dirt trails in various areas around the country as opposed to the rock-fested Texas and Arizona style of trail) then maybe the Eskar would work out for you. It’d give you nice float and traction, with a decently low rolling resistance, and casing/tread width to fit most modern “trail” bikes.

If you’re a heavier rider, agressive similar to myself, or enjoy regular helpings of “chunky” trail the maybe you would want to consider moving down the virtual tire-shopping aisle in favor of something else.

Okay, seriously, what this is about is a solid long travel fork designed for true Downhill and Extreme Freeride duties which has been incorrectly applied as an All Mountain and Light Freeride fork. A style of riding and enjoyment of riding that formerly was called by the controversial moniker “mountain biking.”

This review is about the 2007 model year version, it is slightly different from the 2008 and 2009 model years.

Back story, Purchase Decision, Options

In the spring of ‘07 I was afforded the opportunity to express some UGI (up-grade-itis) and apply it to my main mountain bike - my Titus Quasi-Moto.

In other words, I received an unexpected bonus from work.

When this bike was originally built up it featured a 125mm travel fork (Fox Vanilla 125 RLC) with a standard quick-release front wheel (Chris King Universal hub). This served very well for just at four years, but over time my riding interests had become more and more “interesting” and there were actually some rides where I thought “would it not be fun to have a bit more travel here?”

So, when the surprise budget afforded it I decided that it would be fun to “max out” the Quasi-Moto and put a long travel fork on it with a 20mm thru-axle wheel. The Quasi was designed for use with up to a 7″ travel dual-crown fork, so this meant that I would be targeting a 7″ travel fork.

Since I also did silly things like XC style riding, and some racing, and lived and rode primarily in a region that did not feature silly things like “shuttle rides” I wanted to find an adjustable travel fork so that I could fine tune the bike setup so that it would be just as at home climbing up as bombing down hills.

I also wanted a single-crown fork as I wanted to have more manouverability than what I perceived a dual-crown would afford, and while not exactly a weight-weenie I certainly did not feel the need to pay the weight penalty of an even heavier work.

This led to the observation that there were few forks that would target into this zone.

Specifically, the Rock Shox Totem and what this review is about.

I also considered forks that only went up to 6″ of travel (e.g. the Magura Wotan and the Fox 36 series) but decided to pass on them as I really wanted to see what all the “long travel” kerfluffle was about.

Feature Set

• Air-spring
• Aluminum alloy steerer and crown
• 35 mm black anodized, tapered stantions
• 20mm through-axle ( bolt on, 2 4mm hex each side )
• 140-180mm travel ( 8 turns of the knob total, 4 notches per turn )
• RC2 damper (rebound, compression, air-preload adjustment)

Feature changes from the 2007 to 2008 model

Marzocchi changed the fork incrementally between the two model years, these seem mostly to be a welcome change from the riding public.

• Increased stantion size from 35 to 38 mm
• Quick-Release 20mm through-axle (easier wheel mounting)
• RC3 damper (virtual air-volume adjustment without changing oil level)
• Nickle coated stantions (increased durability, decreased stiction)

Installation, Setup, and Tuning

Once I had a new front wheel ready (made by a professional wheel builder, not myself, I’m not that kind of stupid) installation of the fork and conversion of the bike to “big” was simple and easy. There were two snags to be dealt with though…

• My front brake caliper was using an International Standard mount and the fork was Post Mount, requiring a mount adapter and larger disc rotor be purchased
• My front brake hose was not long enough for full extension of the fork, safely, so a new hose had to be installed and the brake bled

Neither of these were particularly difficult, but certainly needed to be accommodated.

So, with all the requisite parts on hand, and taking the afternoon to spend the time at Hammerhead Bikes using their tools and workstand (and expertise where mine was short), the fork was quickly installed.

Frankly, the most time and effort was taken up by bleeding the brake (required because of needing a longer brake line) and that only because I do it so infrequently.

After cutting the steerer for my bike (which as 4.75″ head tube, and I use a Chris King headset on) the fork with axle weighed 5.9 pounds. This was just at one pound more than the Fox Vanilla 125R that was being replaced.

The Good

This fork pretty much brings the characteristic “stiff” to a very high level - even under severe braking with a clydesdale on board there is no backward drift. Needless to say no amount of cornering or turning that I have been able to do has caused deflection.

Break in was very short for me, possibly because of terrain and riding style, possibly because of body weight, possibly for all.

Once broken in it likewise brought high marks to the characteristics “plush” or “supple” - sometimes at a stop waiting for people I’d be idly bouncing up n down a bit on the fork just enjoying how smooth the action was.

The travel adjustment (top left fork leg) works easily and can be operated on-bike without stopping. Not a manouver I would advise in all situations, but not difficult.

The rebound adjustment (top right fork leg) has a wide range and is very effective, and likewise to the travel adjust is easy to tune without stopping. Click detents are clear and hold.

The compression damping adjustment also is very effective, and useful. With a minimal amount tuned in the fork remains very supple and handles big hits with aplomb.

The primary air spring (left leg) is very capable for tuning spring rate for rider preferences and to accomodate expected need ( e.g. XC/AM vs DH/FR activities ). The spring rate is not affected by travel adjument on the fly, directly. The reduced volume of the outer chambers in each fork leg compress their resident air enough to affect “sag” appropriately for the travel reduction (e.g. set sag at 7″ travel, reduce to 5″ travel and sag is still about the same percentage).

The durability of the components has been very good, as has been the behavior of the seals and such. I would not advise it, but I have gotten away with fewer oil-n-dust-wiper changes than explicity good for the fork - changing the oil only three times in the nearly 4000 miles that I have had it.

The Bad

This model year fork, and much of the Marzocchi lineup using the ATA system, has been plagued by issues that I feel are related to production quality control (fit, finish), in some cases insufficient specification of components (e.g. overly soft springs, metals), which have displayed weaknesses in the design.

• ATA “auto-wind-down” - where the travel adjustment knob will wind-down and reduce travel when the fork is used on bumpy surfaces and drops. How the HECK did they get to production with this issue extant? There were various home-brew fixes ranging from a bent spoke preventing the travel knob from moving to replacing tension springs internally on the detent balls, and all were successful fixes of various intensity. None of them should have been required.
• Inability to get full travel - many riders of lighter body weight reported issues getting the full travel out of the fork. I’ve not seen many reports by larger/heavier/more-aggro riders, but what I have seen does not qualify as “exhaustive” statistics. I frankly don’t know if this is an issue in damper design, having too much air captured in the fork as the ATA catridge, left leg outer chamber, and right leg outer champber all are air-sealed and compress and affect spring rate and compression.
• Inconsistent oil levels as shipped - in either leg, and sometimes in the ATA cartridge, which causes no end of setup issues for end users.
• Nearly useless setup guide, I saw three or four different setup guides come from Marzocchi since I got the fork, and none of the match remotely to what is good for me, not even when I spent the day doing just DH! Maybe if I was dropping 30′ stuff it’d make sense, but I’m not.
• Very complex to setup and tune, but frankly this is to be expected in a fork of this nature. I don’t really consider it bad as I am open to learning and playing with the setup, but beware!
• Inconsistency of technical support from Marzocchi - although this seems to be dramatically changing, and I’ve gotten TERRIFIC support from Tom at their California office, I’ve also seen a number of people write-up their unresolved pain from various locations nationally and internationally.

The Silly

• Why, oh why, is the internal floating piston used to define the PAR chamber attached with a bloody piece of what amounts to twine? How can that possibly be considered a long-term use item? I’ve gone through four of the stupid lines, and ended up improvising one from 50-pound test fishing monofilament line which lasted the longest time. There has to be a more robust way of travel limiting the piston.
• The air valve on the left leg bottom seems a bit vulnerable, but I do prefer the design (using a standard Schraeder valve) to the Marzocchi-custom teeny-weeny valves used on some of their forks (and in the top of the RC2 damper, for that matter, on this fork). They also addressed this in later generations, providing a significantly larger and more protective cap. I’m not clear where this really helps, but it certainly covers the PAR valve comprehensively and does snug up to the foot-nut.
• The RC2 side air chamber is small enough as to be basically useless, in my opinion, and the nature of using the small Marzocchi air adapter makes it even more so. My normal way of managing the air in the RC2 side is to dial the fork out with the ATA lever to full travel, and simply depress the RC2 air valve pin to allow air pressure to equalize with ambient, and leave it at that.

Owner Support

My personal experience has been very good, but then I’ve spent zero time on the phone with Marzocchi and I’ve not had any issues to deal with that I could wrench on myself to resolve.

I have received all of the support I have needed from Tom via the MTBR Forums ( he is known as “Marzocchi Tech Department” there ) and he has been very helpful both informationally and materially. I have received two PAR piston cables at no expense to me, and a replacement ATA cartridge at the expense of sending the old one back.

In the latter situation, they shipped me the replacement cartridge to me without needing the old one first, so I experienced no “down time” of the fork other than the time it took me to work on it in my garage ( about 15 minutes ). The replacement cartridge has worked 98% flawlessly so far, it’s had about 300 miles of trail riding put on it ( including a three day trip to New Mexico where it got some serious downhill/moderate-freeride time ). The two percentage points I took of for are: 1) It often bleeds air overnight, more than I would think appropriate, but this has not yet been experienced during a ride (and I have checked); 2) the ATA catridge came with a few CCs of oil in the negative air spring chamber, which was preventing full extension of the fork. Fixing the latter was trivial ( you just unscrew the top of the cartridge and drain the excess ) but in my opinion should not have been necessary.

I have seen anecdotal evidence of bad service experiences, mostly telephone and e-mail based, of variously people internationally but it is difficult to guage how the MTBR Forum-based “noisy public” relates to actual numbers.

The Ride

Cross-Country expression - talk about overkill!

It’s my opinion that what people look for in a general XC fork is something that is relatively stiff, light, supple, but does not move overmuch - sacrificing in essence some suppleness to provide a stiffer and more pedalling-efficient ride.

Tuning the rebound and compression damping to taste, the 66 SL1 can be setup to have precisely all of these characteristics. Combine this with the travel adjustment to drop the head of the bike and steepen the geometry and you can have a much more XC-oriented configuration. What I do not think you can do “out of the box” is to tune the fork to be truly as “XC firm” as a fork truly designed for it.

You also can not tune out the mass of the fork. No matter what you do, it is not going to feel like a SID Race. That that you would mount it on the same bike as a SID Race would be targeted towards.

I have “successfully” applied this for to XC / Marathon racing situations and done well, for me. I’m not a “top 10″ finisher however I have started finishing in the upper half of my category ( 40-45 Sport/Cat2 ). There are those who would argue that my bike holds me back some on the racing front ( Cody, I think, amongst them ) but for the amount I race that is okay.

All Mountain trail riding - absolutely wonderful.

While slightly portly from the mass perspective, I can’t find any other reason to find fault with the fork performance in this area. What All Mountain riding means to me is truly most everything you can do with the bike, excluding drops/jumps over 4′ and downhill speeds over 20-30 mph (depending upon the roughness of the terrain).

It is rare that I found myself messing with fork setup during this kind of riding, usually having the travel somewhere between 160 and 165 mm made it balance well with the estimated 168 mm of travel the rear wheel of my bike gets.

The damping setup that I ended up preferring was a “more active” setup as the “non-XC” trails in my normal stomping ground are fairly rocky and having the active setup was really nice. I never found myself over-diving the fork, being too deep in the travel unexpectedly, unless I had forgotten to check the air pressure at the start of the ride of course.

Again, compared to some of the “AM” / “Light FR” forks on the market the 66 SL1 comes up a bit heavy, but not really *that* much heavier. I mean really, once you compare things in the whole view of riding a 30-ish pound bike a 1/2 to 1 pound difference is not much to care about.

Some people may think it too heavy to be comfortable for “lifting” operations - wheely drops, climbing ledges, etc., but I never found that to be the case. I think that in those cases it is more of a factor of how the whole bike is setup that makes the feel - how short the chainstay is for example.

DH/FR expression - Pajarito Ski - wow, really in the lane!

I have a difficult time imaging a better fork - but I don’t ride this way enough honestly to give any kind of comparison, I can only speak to what I have experienced myself.

For the two “long” downhills I did on my recent New Mexico trip ( coming down from the top of Aspen Vista, across Raven’s Ridge, and down Rio en Medio - all above/around Ski Santa Fe; and the last mile or two of the South Boundary Trail before it dumps you out at El Norgal off Hwy 64 near Taos ) and for the entire day I spent “lift riding” at Pajario Ski outside Los Alamos I backed off the compression damping and actually increased the rebound damping a couple clicks. I also incrased the air pressure 10 psi in the SFA and PAR chambers, and I ran the fork at full extension ( 178-180mm travel depending upon how you measure it ).

I could rant and rave for a long time about how the fork (and bike) behaved, but I’ll just summarize it quickly..

• high speed bermed turns; held a solid line; settled nicely in travel under G’s; this extended to wall-type-ride situations
• steep straight transions; ate them alive, very solid and straight tracking at the bottom no matter how smooth or rough the transition
• rolling jumps; smooth as butter - really
• doubles - screwed up landings; e.g. I landed short quite a bit as I was getting accustomed to some doubles (don’t do them much); and between the fork and rear suspension the handling of my bad landings was easy-peasy and forgiving
• doubles - managed; once I figured out and got comfortable with the speed required this really removed doubles as a “thing” and made them into very smooth rollers
• nose-heavy jump landings; absorbed the landing with a smooth progression to (near) bottom out, helping bringing the back of the bike down without endo
• tail-heavy jump landings; absorbed the final nose-drop with no kickback
• good jump landings; no kickback, smooth absorption; basically ready for immediate action upon landing - maybe one bike-length of roll or less

The whole six (+) hours I spent lift-riding was really stupid-fun, could be very addicting.

A Surprise change

After riding the fork a bit, one thing that became very obvious was how old and mile-ridden my rear shock was. The bike felt unbalanced, that the rear shock just could not keep up with the fork. Fast enough compression, rebound, just really unbalanced. Ridable, but unbalanced.

Since at the time I still had a bit of cash to play with, I splurged and got a “matching” Marzocchi Roco TST R coil shock to drop on the bike, and it was just the ticket. The full deal on that shock, how it’s behaved before and after PUSH servicing, is a separate story though.

The other surprise that I got was that between the Roco shock and the 66 SL1 fork, the bike felt like it had been “opened up” - without sacrificing acceleration, climbing, and managability in the twisties. I really felt that my bike was superb before this combined upgrade, but after this suspension change it took the bike to a whole new level. Not unwelcome, but surprising, and just stonking wonderful.

Service History

My fork got put onto my bike spring of ‘07 ( June as I recall ).

The ATA wind-down exhibited almost immediately, and was resolved first with a velcro strap (icky but works) and later by replacing the detent-ball springs with stronger ones (suggested by Renegade on the MTBR Forums) and that completely resolved the issue for me.

After about four months the fork suddenly changed air pressure “desire” - and seemed to be exchanging air between the top (SFA) and bottom (PAR) chambers of the leg. Upon disassembly of the ATA cartridge I found that the cable that limits the travel on the PAR piston had broken. I struggled a bit for a proper replacement and in the end used 50-pound test monofilament fishing line, three loops, tied off on the piston.

This worked for the next six months. This time, I just took the PAR piston out and ran the fork single-chamber just for the heck of it. I’m sure this changes the compression behavior somehow, but for my XC/AM/Light FR in Austin area this was not detectable. A couple months later, Tom at Marzocchi sent me a couple of the PAR cables and I put it in, no trouble from there on. Until…

After noticing that the fork started to leak air if I used the travel adjust during a ride, about the 15 month mark of ownership, I sent a question to Tom privately about buying a spare ATA catridge so I could resolve this in the future, when it went further bad. I had also asked whether there was an O ring or something that could just be replaced to fix it up. Tom confirmed that it was probably a worn-seal-O-ring issue and related how to get to it, but that it was very difficult without the custom-built tools to do so. Instead, he had a replacement ATA catrdige sent to me at no charge, asking only that I send the old one back after I had swapped it in.

I was really bad, and only changed the oil in the fork, and the dust-seals, for the first time with over 3500 miles logged on the fork. This was August of ‘08. When I did this the oil in the ATA catrdige side was somewhat contaminated; however since this is not cycled into the cartrdige internally this did not really worry me. The oil in the RC2 damper side was still perfectly clean and clear.

There have been no creaks or other noises made by the fork.

The only special tool required to work on the fork has been making a “wrench” to hold the ATA cartridge while unscrewing its top-nut - this “wrench” I made by wrapping a 2″ inner-tube around the cartridge and holding onto that while turning a real wrench on the top-nut flats.

Closing

Would I buy this fork again? 70% probably, if I wanted a 6.5″ (+) travel fork. The ‘08 and later models changed away from open-bath dampers and I’m unsure how well that pans out in the long run. I’ve seen people very happy with the ‘08 models and very unhappy with them, so the jury is out. Note that I bought the ‘07 fork knowing the problems I would run into, and only had one surprise ( the PAR piston cable ). For a “merely” 6″ travel fork there are a number of alternatives now - Marzocchi 55; Fox 36; Magura Wotan; et. al. I have to admit to being curious how well the lighter 6.x” forks work now though since I’ve spent a bunch of time on the 66.

What is the biggest downer of the fork? Weight first - it’s not a light fork at all. Less than 1/2 pound lighter than the Marzocchi 888. The coil-spring forks probably add a bunch of mass though. Second up would be complexity of setup. A fork with this much adjustability, and adjustments that are in fact meaningful, require time to tune into your preference.

Am I happy with the fork? Absolutely. Without reservation. It’s never let me down on a ride, and even with an internal part failure has had enough “reserve” structure and function to let me finish a ride w/o compromising how I wanted to ride, er, the ride.

Who should buy this fork? Well, frankly, not many. As far as central Texas goes, I can’t think of any good honest reason for having this fork. It’s just silly overkill for the area. Ridiculous. Even a clydesdale rider ( I was about/over 240 pounds without gear when I got this fork ) can be satisfied with other forks on the market.

Now, if you’re building up a machine to do real freeride stuff, and in that I mean big drops (5′ plus with harsher landings) and related stunts; or serious downhill racing I frankly think you will be hard pressed to find a better platform. I’m sure there’s a confidence-level thing going on, but I can’t even see where a triple-crown fork would be better performing.

Operationally, I think it will mate well and work well with any bike that has the appropriate rear wheel travel and geometry, but I would not put it on a frame not designed for at least a 6″ fork. It’s probably not a great idea to void your warranty though - not that i’d be very concerned about the legalities, but more for your personal safety. If you run the fork in full travel with a frame not designed for that kind of leverege, the head may snap off!

… we now return control of your system back to you …

Friday afternoon ramp time. Read more…

The plan was very simple. Get to Arkansas as fast as possible on Friday and ride until Sunday night. I was lucky enough to have great friends on the trip who had procured the equipment that needs to be had for something like this.

Sunny, clear days were followed by clear and cold nights. Hammocks were strung, the peppermint schnapps was tasted, and the conversation between friends after a long day’s ride ensued. What do you get from a full days ride with guys? Mainly farting, but at times a true moment of silent reflection that this is exactly why I am who I am. Huddling up against a tree on a foam mat with a cup of hot tea in my hand and a bag full of food steaming in my jacket “cooking,” while listening to friends discuss why they haven’t done this before and how soon we can come back made me realize that all my past experiments with equipment was so worth it.

My body is tired but my soul is so satisfied. I don’t need a car full of stuff to bring to the outdoors to be comfortable. Give me a hammock, a bag, some food, and a bike and I’ll make the most of it. The time is right to get outside. Sleep under the stars. It’s ok to be a little cold, a little uncomfortable, not get your 8 hours. You can go solo and not be lonely.

Leave the things of this world at home and be entertained by nature. Let the sounds of the forest and the shimmer of the stars be your entertainment. Well, that and trapping the bodacious gas that seems to seep out no matter what you do! Why is a fart always so funny when camping with guys? What are we, 10?

Anyway, the season is right. Get out that old map, find some dirt, lonely back roads, or a state park and go ride.

You know, at Hammerhead, we believe there’s nothing better than getting dirty in the dark.

The Titus Demo Truck will be rolling thru town this week.  This Wed we will be setting up the demo at the 360 Entrance to the Greenbelt.  More details below!

TITUS DEMO INFO:

This Wednesday 8/27/08
BCGB 360 Entrance parking lot
2pm to 7pm

Come join us for some fun on same great riding bikes!

Feel free to email me or contact me at the shop.  You can also find more info in our forum.
Thanks,
CJB
cody AT hammerheadbikes.com
512-331-2002

Sherpaxc

Somewhere about 2003 I started riding Kenda tires, found various ones to work great for different things, and haven’t had much of a reason to switch brands.

This year it occurred to me that technology marches ever forward, so in March I decided that when I needed new tires I was going to branch out and try some other likely candidates for a while.

Since I ride 300-600 miles a month, 85-95% off road, between mileage and trail damage I go through tires quickly enough that even if I don’t like one (set) much, it won’t last long enough to worry.

… and then there was Wilderness Trail Bikes …

Back in March I started this with the WTB Prowler SS and Prowler MX tires, which I posted about on the MTBR Forums. The short of it on them was nice sticky surprisingly fast rolling but fast wearing and heavy tires. Worked well tubeless with a Stan’s conversion on DT 5.1d rims. Please hit the thread link for more info, pics, etc.

In late April I switched out to the WTB WierWolf LT 2.55 as the Prowler’s were thrashed. These had more air volume, and marginally faster tread, but didn’t have that “Je ne sai quoi” that made me want to keep them on my main ride. They got about three weeks of use and have been moved down to my hard-tail bike. They seem to be a good use there, with the large air volume they almost make up for the obscenely stiff frame that is the Fetish Fixation.

… and next up was Maxxis …

Which brings us almost back to the present, the next tires to go onto the Quasi were the Maxxis ADvantage 2.4 MaxxPro.

This is a single-compound rubber tire using the 60a MaxxPro compound. This is supposed to be a tackier more-grippy rubber with better wear characteristics than the most grippy “super tacky” compound.

According to the Maxxis page the tire weighs in at 1.83 pounds (or 830g), and while I have not weighed them I have no reason to disbelieve the rating. The tires that I’ve run the most over the last five or so years have been the Kenda Nevegal 2.5, which weigh in about 2 pounds (899g according to Kenda), and the ADvantage 2.4 feels the same to me both on and off the bike.

The ADvantage was also basically the same width as the Nevegal 2.5 - coming in around 55mm wide at the tread, mounted on a DT 5.1d rim.

Surprisingly, the ADvantage was noticably taller - leaving much less room to the arch of my fork lowers and to my frame’s rear triangle. There was no “rub” though, except when my rear suspension was at full compression - when the tire would rub against my front derailleur. Took me a while to trace down that sound, this was the first tire I’ve run that has done that!

If you use a bike computer, be sure to do a roll-out check on these tires to keep it calibrated properly, they are not your usual 2.4″ tires!

The Ride

The tire mostly lived up the the marketing blurb on the web, it was definitely a faster roller than the Nevegal, the straight-up traction for both acceleration and braking were fabulous. The hard-over cornering also worked well, the thick shoulder knobs holding up well to speed and an almost-clydesdale rider.

The tire traction did fall short in one area though. If you look at the tread design you can clearly see there is a transitional area where the amount of rubber hitting the trail decreases as you lean partially over. When the tire was running in this area it would easily slide laterally, or drift, through turns. Coming from the high traction tires that preceeded it this gave me a few startling moments as I adapted. The good part of this drift is that both front and rear tires seemed to drift equally, and as I ended up leaning more on the tire as it drifted it would come over onto the shoulder knobs and bite again.

In the end I figured out how to make this a fun part of the sport, controlling the drift, even though I’m sure it did nothing to decrease tire wear. Swish-swoosh through the twisty-turny-flats as it were.

I further found that if I applied a skill from Alpine Skiing that I could further control the tires and maintain more momentum through turns - specifically by “setting the edge” so that I could “carve the turn.” Basically, I would use a little body english to flick the bike a bit more as I entered the turn, dropping my center of mass down and leaning the bike over a bit more, forcing the transition knobs to give way quickly and put the contact mostly onto the shoulders. Then roll on the edges through the turn.

With the large casing, large air volume, deep tread, and tacky rubber, the tire held a good line in a huge variety of trail conditions.

Everything from dry-over-hardpack (such as the ever dusty Walnut Creek park trails), to loose-soft-off-camber (such as Thumper), to hard-edge rockiness (City Park trail with its endless limestone ledges), to the smörgåsbord that is the Barton Creek Greenbelt trail network, the tires did not disappoint.

I was not able to evaluate them for wet conditions handling though, we have not had enough rain this summer to keep any trails wet enough to ride in that condition - the few that can be ridden wet.

How does it Wear?

I put a pair of these on my Quasi around the middle of June.

Unsurprisingly for a softer compound tire, it wears pretty quickly as a rear tire.

As in noticably quickly.

More quickly than the Nevegal 2.5 Stick-E folding tires I’d been running for years.

As in four weeks quickly, find a new tire, today!

By the middle of July the rear tire was starting to look pretty thrashed, so I got a new one for the shelf so that I could switch it out “RSN.”

The center line tread blocks were about half gone, which is okay, but what was starting to get into my “trade it out” zone was that the shoulder knobs that I was relying so much upon for cornering and off-camber trail holding were starting to scallop-out on the inside, folding away when needed, and letting go. That’s just a drag in my book, so while it wasn’t QUITE gone it was obviously really close to time to swap it out.

The front tire was wearing reasonably well, so I figured the normal ratio of 2:1 rear tires would be about right, and I’d be riding the ADvantage through or at least into August.

The sidewalls of the tires held up well. Lots of limestone rocks of various types have been hammered, lots of general trail crud. Lots of embedded limestone to hit the sidewalls. Fair amounts of crashing (I like to keep in practice). The wide tread design of the tires does a good job of protecting the sidewall, even with the slightly-narrow-for-the-tire rims the sidewalls did not balloon out beyond the tread.

The tires took to being used tubeless (DT 5.1d rim, Stan’s rubber strip, 1 thin Velox strip over the spokes) very easily. They mounted up easily, I set the bead with some compressed air, and topped them off with the floor pump. No worries. I doubt that I could have done it all with a floor pump though as the bead was just too loose over the rim strip for that to work. I could have probably built up another layer of Velox under the rim strip, and that probably would have made it floor-pump worthy. It also would probably have made it a PITA to mount/dismount the tires.

Final (?) Word

In the end what do I have to say about them?

Well, I liked them, but I didn’t love them.

If I needed big tires and they were the only ones available I’d be just fine riding them, but they’re NOT on the top of my list to purchase again.

They’re heavier tires so only people that are accustomed to rolling with bigger meats should bother playing with them. If you are accustomed to running 2.2-2.35-ish tires from most manufacturers do *NOT* consider these in the same classification. These compare more to the 2.5 crowd like the bigger Kenda and WTB tires.

Did I mention they are really tall? Consider test-fitting before purchase unless you have a big bike. Like a bike designed to handle 3″ tires.

Of the “big meat” classification I think they’re faster rolling than most, and the only tradeoff they make you take is the transitional drifting.

If you were riding places that were mostly bermed this would be a non-factor.

If Maxxis made the transitional area more knob-filled slightly, or
maybe took the angle-siped knobs and made them more robust, it may
handle that transition more evenly. Of course, they also may behave
exactly like the designers want them to.

I’ve never done it, but I’m betting that these would be great tires for riding places like Whistler Mountain Resort (think A Line) where the trail is highly sculpted. Likewise I’d expect them to do well at slow speed technical trails, nice and grabby for both acceleration and braking seem to work well here.

I would NOT bother riding them some place like Moab, or much of the sandstone terrain in Arizona similar to what I’ve sampled. They’d work well enough there, and their sizable tread would do a good job of protecting the sidewalls from rock cuts and cactus spines, but the wear rate would be high.