In 2020, and for the foreseeable future, consumers of mountain bike media will ingest a thousand takes on the amazing new idea that forks should ride high in their travel. Bikes will corner vastly better, fewer pedals shall be smacked on rocks as static bottom bracket heights sit higher, and riders will roll more confidently into steep descents.
Anyone who’s pushed a World Cup-level racer’s fork – DH, Enduro, or XC, will shrug. No kidding. Suspension tuners will glance nervously at each other now that the less-sag secret is out. Riders who purchased a rebound check valve update for their Fox Float fork in 2014 already understand the difference support makes as do any Clydesdales, or above-their-weight-class smashers, who’ve thrown down cash for custom valving.
Somewhere at Hayes Bicycle Components, I imagine there’s a Manitou suspension engineer, crying into their coffee mug and a whole marketing department in hiding. Because, as great as all these latest-generation forks are, there is one, tunable, system that stands taller than all the rest; Manitou’s IRT, Infinite Rate Tune, which has been out for years.
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