Come winter, there’ll be a new beast ready to help you roam the back country. The upcoming Manitou Mastadon will be a master of cold, using seals, fluids and materials optimized for performance at the lowest temperatures any of us are likely to ride in. At least that’s what their reps were saying at the Taipei Cycle Show, but full details won’t be unveiled until Sea Otter in late April.
Until then, we did notice a couple of details that give some clues to this mysterious mammoth, along with an upgraded Mattoc enduro/trail fork and more new models from Manitou…
The lowers add the word “PRO” to the name, suggesting this is a top level offering. The top cap shows it gets their volume adjust feature, which is handled internally by moving spacers from the under the main air piston to above it, effectively pushing it down a don reducing the main air chanmber’s volume. Manitou’ spacers are hollow and open, so when they’re inside the main air chamber, they don’t really take up volume. This allows them to keep all of the parts on the fork so you don’t lose them.
A bolt-on thru axle, external rebound adjust and pressure release valve on the bottom are all the rest of the obvious details. More to come soon.
The Manitou Mattoc was unveiled a few years back as their showcase fork. It introduced a number of new technologies for the brand, and gave riders a massive amount of adjustability. This includes external high- and low-speed compression adjustment, rebound adjustment, bottom out adjustment, and an upgrade option to add their Infinite Rate Tune (IRT).
Infinite Rate Tune replaced the IVA (volume adjust) with a dual positive air chamber system that let you set up one chamber for the top of the stroke and the other for the rest of the stroke. The technical details are explained here, but basically it lets you have a very supple initial stroke without fear of an overly soft fork.
They weren’t giving up all the details, but word is the PRO versions of these (and possible other) forks will get that IRT hop up kit as standard equipment going forward.
The last bit of news on Mattoc (and from the looks of it, all their other forks, too) is that it’ll have a Boost axle option.
The Markhor looks to be an entirely new model. It was shown in a 100mm travel, boost spaced, 27.5 option. The control dials are plastic and offer basic compression and rebound adjustments, so maybe it’s an entry level model, or maybe this is just the base option for a new XC fork.
A lot of the forks on display had a bolt-thru axle rather than their HexLoc QR thru axle.
More info coming soon on all of these forks. Other models. The Dorado and Circus were also on display, but absent was the Magnum and Minute. Hmmm…
