Fox Racing Shox, Rock Shox, BOS, and DVO suspension were present at the Sea Otter Expo with new some exciting new products to show. Fox debuted their new 40 Float downhill fork and Float X rear shock. Rock Shox had the new 35mm stanchioned Pike all-mountain fork on display. The French suspension manufacturer BOS was on hand with their entire line that has previously been unavailable in the U.S. DVO had their hotly anticipated Emerald downhill fork and Jade coil DH rear shock.
Fox’s new 40 Float is over a pound lighter than its predecessor and offers a tuned flex that helps the fork to track straighter in the rocks. To say the new fork has gone through extensive testing is a massive understatement. Pro Fox Shox sponsored racers, including World Cup overall champ Aaron Gwin, have been racing the new 40 on the World Cup circuit for two years now.
The Fox Float X is aimed at the burgeoning enduro race segment of the market and trailriders looking for a high performance shock without going to a heavy downhill shock that would be overkill for 20 mile long singletrack rides. The piggyback oil reservoir offers greater damping control throughout the stroke while offering improved consistency on longer runs when damping oil can heat up and affect performance.
Rock Shox’ new Pike fork was found on a number of pro’s bikes and is likely to chalk up some podiums finishes before the weekend is over. We spotted it on Anneke Beerten’s Specialized Stumpy Evo 29er and on Mitch Ropelato’s Specialized Enduro 29. Kyle Strait’s race bike had a top secret fork installed. We asked Rock Shox suspension honcho Jeremiah Boobar what he could tell us about it and all he would say was that it had “experimental dampers.”
If you haven’t heard of BOS suspension yet, let us give you a quick primer. The company was started by Oliver Bossard after the breakup of Sunn bikes. Bossard was responsible for the World Championship winning suspension designs found on Nico Vouilloz and Anne Caroline Chausson bikes throughout the 1990’s. Since that time Bossard has engineered WRC rally car suspension and put together a World Cup worthy line of mountain bike forks and rear shocks. In Europe, BOS is the brand of suspension that everyone wishes they had on their bike if they don’t have it already. Dirt Magazine consistently picks BOS as their favorite suspension manufacturer. Given the quality of products on offer from Rock Shox and Fox, this is really saying something. In our parking lot test of BOS’ forks and shocks the suspension felt incredibly plush and very sensitive. It’s not hard to imagine how this could really help to maintain grip and feel in the corners. Art’s is working on bringing in BOS Suspension products soon.
DVO’s revolutionary Emerald fork looks like it will make some major waves in the suspension fork market. The carbon fiber fork guard/chassis stiffener is ingenious. Far from some flimsy guard that is made from carbon for bling factor alone, this structural component of the fork is incredibly solid. Holding it in your hands it is extremely difficult to flex. Expect more upside down forks to come to the market using an arrangement like this. Parking lot tests revealed that the Emerald felt very smooth and controlled. The best description is that it felt moto-like.
The Jade rear shock is fully user serviceable like all of DVO’s suspension products. This means that the damper shims are easily accessible and can be infinitely tuned to match a rider’s weight and riding style. Even if you aren’t a suspension guru this is great news. Your trusted mechanic or suspension tuning company can get you dialed in without having to machine special parts or order custom built dampers.
- DVO Emerald fork looks stunning in bright green ano.
- DVO’s Emerald fork guard is amazingly stiff and helps to eliminate “milking” (legs operating independently) and increases torsional stiffness as well..
- The DVO Emerald fork is also available in murdered out black.
- The key to the DVO Jade rear shock’s performance is its consistency that is accomplished through a bladder system similar to those found on Fox’s Fit fork dampers. Plus they are fully user serviceable and tunable!
- The dual arch architecture on DVO’s Emerald fork guard/stiffener works to keep the fork tracking straight.
- Dropouts and compression adjusters on the DVO Emerald looked nice and tidy. Magnesium construction keeps unsprung weight low. Less unsprung weight is one of the biggest benefits of upside-down forks.
- A svelte upper crown on the Emerald keep it as light as possible.
- BOS’s collection of rear shock offerings can be seen here and include the Vip’R enduro shocks at top and the Void air DH shock and Stoy coil over DH shock on bottom.
- Available in 140, 160, and 170mm variants, the BOS Deville enduro fork is serious race equipment. The damper is very finely tunable with no wasted, unusable settings at the extremes of the damping range. 26″ and 650B versions are now available with a 120mm 29er version coming this summer.
- The BOS Idylle Rare Air dh fork is the top race offering from BOS. The 36mm stanchion chassis is amazingly smooth during compression. A single compression and rebound adjustment are offered to keep setup simple.
- Commencal bikes founder Max Commencal (in purple) at Sea Otter. Max is also well known as the founder of Sunn bikes. This man is responsible for building bikes that have won more World Championship and World Cup DH races than any other manufacturer in history. His partnership with Oliver Bossard has something to do with this.
- BOS boss Oliver Bossard. A real legend in mountain bike suspension.
- The prototype Rock Shox fork found on Kyle Strait’s bike looks to be the new Argyle dirt jump fork that is based on the Pike platform.
- Anneke Beerten was looking as cute as ever. Expect big things from this Dutch mountain bike ripper on the Enduro circuit this year.
- Rock Shox has a new “Charger” compression damper seen here. Three positions are available (open, pedal & locked) with the open setting offering full tunability for low-speed compression.
- Anneke Beerten’s Rock Shox Pike has seen plenty of use.
- Anneke Beerten and Mitch Ropelato’s Rock Shox Pikes looked well ridden. Anneke’s Stumpy Evo 29 is on the left and Mitch’s Enduro 29is on the right.
- This Fox Shock equipped prosthetic foot displays the advanced fabrication and engineering skills of its inventor.
- Fox’s DHX Air is at the heart of this amazing prosthetic knee.
- Amputee Mike Schultz developed this Fox Shox equipped prosthetic leg for racing motocross.
- Dramatically redesigned, the Fox 40 Float arch is where most of the weight was saved in the new lowers.
- Fox 40 Float
- The 2014 Fox 40’s dropouts have been slimmed down quite a bit and now have easily replaceable nuts for the pinch bolts. No more worrying about stripped lowers.
- The Fox 40 Float lower crown has been reshaped and lightened significantly.
- The new, lighter Fox 40 Float upper crown is shown here along with the fork’s compression damping adjusters and air cap.
- Fully equipped with CTD like their standard Float rear shocks, the Float X is made to go both down and up.
- Expect the 2014 Fox Float X to be on plenty of enduro race bikes this year.