Click to enlarge: Cutaway photo of a brand spankin’ new 2010 Manitou Minute suspension fork.  What you’re looking at here is:
- Absolute+ Damper on left
- MARS Spring on the right
The MARS spring is an air/coil combo, using the coil to give the fork an easy breakaway at the beginning of the stroke, getting rid of the initial stiction that air springs typically have.  Three spring rates are available for various rider weights.  Fork weights should be just a few grams lighter than the 2009 models since the only change is the new Absolute+ damper, which is just slightly lighter than the old damper…but it has fewer moving parts, so likely less chance of problems.
On the crown, which is something Manitou’s done for a while, check out the hollow section cut-away (you may need to enlarge the pic to see it well).  The reason the crown is angled out where the top of the sliders are pressed in is because this is where Manitou machines out the crown, and the angle allows them to get far enough in there to get rid of all the extra weight.
Those brake bosses?  Just pretend they’re not there…they won’t be on production models.  This casting is just an older cut-away lower they had on hand for illustrative purposes.  Check our coverage of Manitou’s new forks from Sea Otter to learn more about their new Absolute+ damping system.
