|
Bigger, stiffer, and longer forks for 2004 |
Words by Florian Haymann
At the Freeraid-Classics in Chatel, France, Manitou presented some new freeride products for the upcoming season. German BIKE magazine editor Florian Haymann had a chance to check out the new 6" single-crown Sherman Plus, with Manitou's revolutionary Stable Platform Valve (SPV) damping system. Here are some early impressions of the '04 fork.
The big Sherman offers 170mm of spring travel that can be reduced to 130mm when you're going uphill. Although we adjusted the low speed compression of the fork to be very stiff, the Sherman reacted promptly to each bump that was bigger than a branch. We also found that it was almost impossible to use the full travel because the progressive rebound damping works very effectively. Hard impacts result in a substantial oil flow and in my eyes, that is the biggest advantage of the SPV technology. The fork body remains the same than the Sherman 150s. |
 The Breakout Plus in action Photo: bike-magazin.de |
 The Breakout Plus for '04 - pink camo is still an option Photo: bike-magazin.de |
As a result, stanchion and immersion tubes of the Breakout Plus have 20mm less coverage. We found that meant less control when cornering hard, compared to the normal Breakout. But a week ago, I had the chance to test the rigidity of another Sherman Plus and that fork felt much stiffer so perhaps Manitou already found means to improve the stiffness. The other news from Manitou for 2004 is the Dorado MRD X-Works. It offers 25mm more travel than the Dorado DH. The biggest improvement is the larger-diameter stanchion tubes - 32mm on the X-Works compared to 30mm on the DH. The fork is the same in all other aspects, but the weight jumps from 7.5 lbs for the DH to 8.5 lbs for the X-Works. Stay tuned to nsmb.com for more news on Manitou's new forks for 2004. Expect to see lots of details on the entire Sherman line-up after the Interbike industry trade show in the middle of October. |
