The all-new MRP Baxter gravel bike fork is lighter, longer, and more capable than ever. Now with options for 40mm or 60mm of gravel-tuned travel and up to 50mm/2″ tire clearance, adventure riders of all sorts can tame more terrain and extend their bikepacking range with new cage mounts on each fork leg…
All-new MRP Baxter gravel suspension fork
Gravel bikes are all about getting further away from the roads & crowds, and the original Baxter repurposed a relatively light XC MTB fork to open up your gravel bike to more technical terrain, bleeding over onto mountain bike trails. We rode that first Baxter on a few bikes, like the Bombtrack Hook ADV, but it still retained a mostly MTB feel.
Now a ground-up redesign has turned out an all-new fork that is much more gravel-specific, with all the real gravel standards and a new tapered leg design that’s almost 10% lighter while adding a longer travel option.
Gravel suspension – Tech details
The new MRP Baxter keeps the 32mm stanchions and tapered 1.5″ alloy steerer, but pretty much everything else has changed. The gravel fork now comes in two distinct versions with 40mm or 60mm of travel – pick the shorter travel for faster gravel and 700x45c tire clearance or long travel for rougher adventures and up to 50mm/2″ tires.
The new Baxter offers three possible axle-to-crown lengths for different travel/tire size combos:
- 430 for 40mm/700×45
- 435 for 40mm/700×50
- 456mm for 60mm/700×50
A set of flip chips at the 12mm thru-axle that gives you three gravel-specific offsets, too:
- 40mm travel: 40.5/44/47.5mm offset
- 60mm travel: 41.4/45/48.4mm offset)
Now you can perfectly match the geometry of your gravel bike for the best handling. And that could be the biggest improvement as most of the original crop of gravel forks repurposed from XC featured 29er mountain bike-focused offsets.
On top of that, the new tapered lowers get a pair of cage bosses on each leg rated for up to 3lb/1.36kg. That’s not a huge amount of weight, but enough for an extra liter of water on each leg, or a good place to get something bulky like tent poles off your bike. There’s also braze-ons for a full-coverage fender, too.
Inside the new 1420g Baxter, the same FulFill Air spring as MRP’s light mountain bike forks with positive & negative air chambers, plus 3-position compression & 20-position rebound damping. The fork is available in standard 12×100 (160mm rotor) & 12×110 Road Boost spacing (180mm rotor) to fit most gravel & e-gravel bikes, and works with flat-mount disc brakes.
MRP Baxter gravel fork – Pricing & availability
The all-new lighter and more capable MRP Baxter gravel fork retails for $990, which is about 20% more than the original Baxter. The first deliveries of the new fork are expected to head out to gravel riders in July 2021, but MRP expects them to sell out fast.
You can head to MRP’s website now to put your name down for one of the initial batch, and the first 50 buyers will get MRP’s “Ready To Shred” setup customization for free, where they will cut your steerer to length for your bike, install a headset crown race & star nut, preset your spring & damper settings, and even include a brake adapter if needed.
Get ready for downcountry gravel, downgravel, gravelX, or whatever comes next…
