RST surprised us with a sneak peek at their prototype inverted suspension fork, which boasts a full magnesium one-piece upper. It’s aimed at the XC and trail crowd, but will get a 15×110 axle, the newer width being used for “boost” hubs. So it’ll likely work for the 27.5+ as well as 29er, though the latter is its primary target.
Internals are secret for now, but there’ll be measures to prevent the 32mm stanchions from turning independently. Expect a weight around 1,700g and travel options from 100mm to 140mm.
Head past the break for more details, pics and other new products…
The heavily shaped crown has a lot of work to do to keep the legs stiff.
It’s hard to tell from the pics, but the upper legs are slightly oblong, suggesting some sort of keyed shape or mechanism to prevent the lowers from twisting.
They said they stuck with 15mm thru axles instead of 20mm to keep the weight down and that in their computer modeling and preliminary testing, it’s showing as stiff enough to prevent uneven leg movement.
It’s unnamed so far, but it’s in their 2017 model year plans. They said development is moving along briskly, though, so it could be here well before the turn of the following year.
Their Stealth Elev8 dropper post coming around June, joining their standard remote and lever actuated models.
Retail is around $250 and it’ll have the same internals as the standard Elev8, just flipped, and you can convert the standard one to stealth on your own with an aftermarket kit.
The 34mm stanchion Rogue trail fork is getting a wider, 27.5+ version with 110mm hub spacing.
The RST Renegade fat bike fork was introduced last fall, but it just started rolling onto the market.
Basics are 32mm stanchions, external compression and rebound adjustments, air spring and travel from 80 to 120 millimeters.
Oh, and it’ll be available with straight and tapered steerers.
…You know, I realized Fox probably wouldn’t be the next to market with one of these, but I certainly didn’t expect THIS. I was betting on Marzocchi. Good luck, RST.
Holy crap someone’s been busy. If this stuff works as well as it looks then RST will be onto winners. Re: dropper post – wasn’t aware they did one at all let alone a std Elev8?!
Inverted fork? 15×110 spacing? This is all SRAM’s fault!
Nice work Mike and Co. The fork looks pretty darn cool.
Now they just need to put this much effort into their customer service. I also think higher end products will be a hard sale. Thr RST name just doesn’t say quality.
RST 2016 Product Map = Sram 2015 Product Catalog
@cxracer- I agree that the RST name doesn’t say quality. But I think that’s for a pretty specific reason: RST’s high end is pretty low, as they don’t make any fork at the level of a SID or Boxxer. When you don’t even try in the high end of the market, people associate you with low quality. But I have to wonder if that’s justified- just because there’s no high-end forks in their line doesn’t mean that their, say $350 forks don’t work fine. Can’t say personally, though- I have never ridden them, unfortunately.
Fox is actually working on an inverted 36 fork with a carbon fiber upper. They have been keeping the details on the down low but it has been spotted at several bike trails and from what I have seen it looks to be a good collaboration between Easton/Race Face carbon technology and Fox suspension
No offense but I remember them as RST = Rock Shox Taiwan!
@darenot – I’m sure no offence taken, considering Rockshox themselves have been made in Taiwan since 2002.
I forgot to add my usual spiel about inverted forks. You’ll notice that almost all of them add some features not present on standard forks to up the torsional stiffness lost by removing the incredibly rigid fork brace. Maverick used double crowns, upper legs that bulged to baseball bat size, and a 24mm thru axle. Someone else (don’t remember who, it was a gold fork) used legs oval legs or that were keyed into each other to prevent twisting; someone else I don’t remember (these guys made their fork emerald green and it may be vaporware, I have not seen it on the market yet but may be wrong) turned the inner leg guards into sort-of fork braces. Rock Shox-SRAM made a (fake) 27mm axle. Manitou made an inverted fork fifteen years ago with a hex-shaped thru-axle to increase rigidity. And of course Cannondale made twisting much more difficult by integrating the axle into the fork leg and making the tubes square inside; they also used needle bearings instead of bushings, and so far have been the only inverted fork to come out ahead in terms of weight, torsional rigidity, and performance. The reason inverted fork designers add all these innovations: they need to. And almost all these innovations could be applied to a standard fork- imagine a Fox 36, rightside up, with keyed or oval legs, or maybe running on needle bearings, with a 24mm axle. It would be stiffer than an inverted fork with those same features.
And then we have this RST inverted fork, which seems to have nothing special going for it to increase rigidity- it even has the why-bother 15mm size thru axle. My guess- if it has some additional tricks up its sleeve, maybe it will end up being in the same league as a standard fork.
@Tim, their DH fork is in Boxxer (RC) territory price wise at $950 retail.
Hmm Im liking what I see. What an improvement on their past products. Design and weight looks nice and RST is normally not that expensive.
Could be a comeback for the RST brand.
Good on ya RST!