In February, Rockshox upgraded their entry- and mid-level lineup with improvements to the Sektor, Reba, Recon, Judy, 30, Bluto, & Pike DJ suspension forks. Now, the big travel forks see updates with both the Lyrik and Yari getting a new, smoother DebonAir air spring, and the Lyrik taking in the top-level RC2 Charger 2 damper cartridge.
What is Rockshox DebonAir? What’s New?
At the heart of these new forks and shocks is an updated, improved 2019 DebonAir spring. First introduced as an upsized air can option on their Monarch rear shocks, the DebonAir air spring has since morphed to fit across their lineup. Depending on the application, it’s either an oversized air chamber, or a reconfigured air chamber to offer a larger volume negative spring. For the forks, it’s the latter, and the result is softer initial travel for better small bump compliance.
For MY2019, the Pike, Revelation, Lyrik and Yari will all get the new DebonAir system, and here’s what’s different: The air spring shaft is now hollowed out, which adds more volume than before. For one example, the Lyrik/Yari chassis gets a massive 42% increase in negative air volume. Pike and Revelation gain 36% more negative volume, which helps with initial breakaway and mid-stroke support.
The new seal head (red) replaces a Delrin plastic part with this precision alloy part and a rubber seal. They say this also adds torsional stability, which means less friction when the fork is flexing under hard braking or cornering. The end result is a big improvement in static (starting), running (moving) and stick-slip (where the piston changes direction between compression and rebound cycles) friction for an overall much smoother fork overall.
The best part? You can go back as far as 2009 for some of these models, and virtually everything in the past 5 years, and upgrade to the new Debonair system for these four 35mm-stanchion forks. More on that in a minute…
2019 Rockshox Lyrik RC2
Slotting in as their hardcore enduro fork that picks up where the latest Pike leaves off, the 2019 Rockshox Lyrik comes in 150/160/170/180mm travel options for 27.5″ and 29er (boost only on both) wheel sizes. The RC2 cartridge provides external high and low speed compression adjustments and a low speed (aka “beginning of stroke”) rebound adjustment.
The new Lyrik also comes with shorter offset options to fit modern bikes with stretched top tubes. Options now include 37mm and 46mm (27.5″), and 42mm and 51mm (29″). Stanchion diameter remains 35mm, and claimed weights range from 2,013g to 2,058g. It’ll ship with the Maxle Ultimate and Torque Caps, plus Bottomless Tokens to help you adjust your air spring volume (here’s how to do it). Retail price is $999 / €1109* / £989* (*includes VAT). Oh, and it’ll now come in that Boxxer Red…or black.
2019 Rockshox Yari RC
The Rockshox Yari is the Lyrik’s little brother, offering the same travel options, same stanchion size, same new offsets, and most of the rest of the Lyrik’s features. The only performance downgrade is the lack of a Charger 2 RC2 damper. Here, you get the standard Charger damper with Motion Control, offering external low speed adjustments for both rebound and compression. It, too, only comes in Boost spacing for 27.5″ and 29er wheels, claimed weights from 2,095g to 2,141g. MSRP is $699 / €779* / £689* (*includes VAT).
Charger 2 upgrades for Pike, Revelation, Lyrik & Yari
You can now upgrade your existing 2018 model year Pike, Revelation, Lyrik and Yari forks with the new internals. Rockshox is now offering the Charger 2 RC2 damper cartridge for them with prices ranging from $244-321 / €259-349* / £235-309* (*includes VAT). Basically, if you have a Charger, you can upgrade to the new Charger 2 in most cases – there are a couple of cases that aren’t direct fits, so check with Rockshox to be sure. The new DebonAir air spring can be swapped in for $42 / €47* / £42* (*includes VAT), too, making this one a much more affordable upgrade that should make an immediately noticeable improvement in small bump sensitivity.
Everything in this post is a model-year 2019 product, and all will be available in April except the new Revelation, which follows in May.
