RockShox Hints at Something Big. An Inverted Fork Design? A Cyclocross Specific Fork? A Fat Bike Fork?

looks like a rigid fork for fat-bikes…..
The title threw me at a crazy thought of an inverted Boxxer… 😀

Purely speculating, but if we go back to 1989 we are talking about Paul Turner and the original RS1. Turners most recent work has been with inverted forks for Maverick and X-Fusion. So maybe this is an inverted carbon fat bike suspension fork??? On the flip side of wild speculation its just a carbon rigid fat tire fork and Rock Shox/SRAM is just trying to over-hype what is a very boring product.

Greeng, those are usually found on Tri bikes, they’re little bumpers to prevent the fork from striking the frame really hard causing cosmetic damage.

Inverted. 100mm. 150mm spacing. Fat bike/29+ fork.

They’ve just posted another photo, which shows it’s a USD fork. New SID?

Neat, kinda looks like carbon “uppers”

For shure an inverted fork. http://i.imgur.com/xl98NSg.jpg
But why fat ? I don’t think the market is interesting for RS.

Someone at SingletrackWorld.com played a bit more with Photoshop and came out with this:

http://thingswelike.org/rs-1.jpg

Looks like a XC-spaced fork to me…

Looks like all the offset is in the crown = large rotating mass when turning the fork.
It also likes like the inner legs may be oval, which would improve torsional rigidity.

Looks like an inverted carbon suspension fork. That plastic nub in the stanchion could be for internal cable routing for remote lockout. Clearance aside, this looks pretty cool!

Well…I certainly didn’t see this coming! And especially not from Rockshox from all people! Needless to say, I’m excited to see what this upsidey-downsidey fork brings!

And now speculation:

From the middle and bottom photos it appears to have ovalized “aerodynamic” uppers, but round stanchions, likely just carbon structure laid over the round inner section, but it could possibly mean the inside parts of the stanchions are keyed or shaped. I also spy a black coating on the slider surface.

Taking a look at this pic from their FB page, it looks like a 29er USD fork:

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2810/13270906133_266afb7f71.jpg

Inverted carbon suspension fork perhaps.

Oh wow, what’s up with that? Smokestack is right that Marzocchi has an inverted fork on the market. Is the hype more about attracting people to RS instead of announcing something new?
BTW, the square plug is where the whim wam goes so the fork keeps you going diddly for all day fun. Don’t know. I think the earlier post about a small bumper used on Tri bikes is right.

I believe it is a longer travel fork. The third picture looks like it is the start of “Roam” the enduro label for other sram components and the face book pic does not look like a fat bike or a 29er.

anything to move away from the word enduro would be good

IMO – It won’t be an XC fork, it be will be aimed at the same customer as the X-Fusion Revel. And will have very similar spec. Probably lower weight though.
*satisFACTORYrider – Don’t want to disapoint you but this as the e-word written all over. XC is to specific for such a high end product. The carbon uppers will give the weight and stiffness to meet anybody’s need that ride from trail to AM. It will probably have a 20mm axle which is not very popular in the xc world, but it’s needed for an inverted fork. The oval sections will have very limited effects on aerodynamic but will limit the fore/aft flex
The square trap is probably a door to access the cartridge either for adjustments or to separate the cartridge from the uppers… we will know shortly!! Happy trails!

a new roubaix fork? i hope spesh wrote off on the name

80mm Upside-Down Race Fork. Weight between 1200g and 1400g. That would be a great thing.

Advances made in key way design from seat posts have finally made the prone-to-torsional flex USD forks a reality??? I hope so cause they promise less “stiction” and lower un-sprung weight. Will need some type of rock guards but that’s ok cause they will look sweet.

Yuck! No Thanks. That just doesn’t mesh well with todays xc bikes.

I actually think this fork would be great on a Open 1.0, especially when their full susser comes out.

@Matthias – isn’t that called a Lefty?

Looks like the new RockShox / Campy collabo dropper seatpost…

@K11- except that the Lefty is far stiffer torsionally and fore-aft than other forks, contains needle bearings instead of bushings, and is about 3/4 of a pound lighter than standard forks.
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Hopefully this thing will get a 20mm or bigger TA, 15mm is pathetic even on a non-inverted fork.