Cycling Bargains - Merlin Cycles Fox Podium Factory Grip X2 MTB Forks - 29" - Black / 160mm / 20x110mm / Tapered / 29" / 44mm Rake / 68HT | FREE delivery over £60 & Easy Returns (ph-336308)

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Merlin Cycles Fox Podium Factory Grip X2 MTB Forks - 29" - Black / 160mm / 20x110mm / Tapered / 29" / 44mm Rake / 68HT | FREE delivery over £60 & Easy Returns

Product Description

Fox never stops innovating. We continue to push the potential of mountain bike suspension to give gravity riders and racers the edge whether on the World Cup course, the steepest and most technical local descent, and everything in between.   Podium is designed to be ridden like a downhill fork. No barriers. No hesitation. Complete confidence that your front wheel will hold the line, no matter how fast or how big you push it. All this while keeping your bike in a familiar range of travel and geometry in a single crown package. We designed this inverted fork to get the absolute maximum performance out of our GRIP X2 damper, with every possible gain for smoothness in its travel and confidence-inducing fore-aft rigidity in the chassis.   Oversized Uppers. Overbuilt Crown The biggest edge Podium has over every other single crown fork its incredible fore-aft rigidity. The combination of oversized 47mm upper tubes and a massive generatively-designed crown create the foundation for the stiffest possible chassis approaching that of a FOX 40 letting you power through the roughest and steepest trails with absolute confidence, even at Downhill race speed   Large Diameter Axle Where inverted forks have fallen short in the past is with torsional (steering) stiffness because there’s no arch joining the fork legs. This meant we had to build torsional stiffness into other parts of the fork. The oversized crown has the upper end covered, so the next logical place to add stiffness was where the fork legs join on the lower end.   By using a custom steel 20 x 110mm Boost DH axle (rather than a standard 15 x 110mm alloy axle typically found on single crown forks) we achieved the optimum torsional stiffness for Podium. This was verified with extensive (and blind) testing by our engineers and athletes.    While stiffness can be measured in fore-aft and torsional planes independently, the real-world forces exerted on a mountain bike fork are not isolated to those planes. Having a much higher fore-aft rigidity means the fork will feel much more stable and responsive overall, exactly what riders in this category are looking for   All The Bushing Overlap Bushings are Teflon-lined sleeves that interface between the upper and lower legs of the fork. There are two bushings in each leg, for a total of four in a fork. “Bushing overlap” refers to the distance between upper and lower bushings in each leg. As the fork is loaded fore-aft (such as when running over an obstacle on the trail), that bending force is transmitted through the bushings.   The inverted chassis configuration allowed us to design Podium with a massive 175mm of bushing overlap. That’s 32% more overlap than the 38 and even 7% more than the 200mm-travel FOX 40 DH race fork. This overlap not only contributes to greater fore-aft rigidity, but also gives Podium an unfair advantage with the lowest possible chassis friction, especially when powering through the roughest terrain at high speed when bending loads on the fork are the greatest.   Glidecore Air Spring When a fork is dynamically loaded, that bending force is transmitted to the air spring assembly inside the stanchion. A large enough force such as hitting a large rock or root at high speed—can cause the air spring to bind to the inside of the stanchion while the fork is compressing through its travel.   The GlideCore air spring is built with lateral compliance allowing it to flex with these bending loads, rather than resisting them. By decoupling the stanchion from the air shaft, the piston can move with the fork and remains axially aligned with the stanchion when subjected to a bending load from any direction.   Unfair Smoothness Alingned Misaligned  Less strain in the air spring assembly means less reaction forces on the piston and shaft bushing. Less reaction forces means less friction at these interfaces. The result? Smoother suspension action overall, especially when the fork is experiencing high loads from speed or the weight of a rider.   The same Nitrile Butadiene material that gives GlideCore its lateral compliance also provides axial compliance by vertically compressing a small amount before the air spring itself begins to move.   Custom Tuned Grip X2 Damper Podium’s damping performance is powered by the award-winning GRIP X2 damper, tuned specifically for more compression support. Given the incredible rigidity and smoothness of Podium, we needed to add some additional compression damping to account for the reduced chassis friction. We also toned down the rebound damping slightly to account for the lower unsprung weight of the system    Riders on GRIP X2 reap the benefits of sitting higher in the travel while their tires stay glued to the ground. They can corner with increased traction, giving them the confidence to push the limits of enduro racing and full power eMTB riding, all while reducing hand and arm fatigue significantly.   Bushing to Axle distance Amongst early t... | Merlin Cycles are one of the longest running online bike stores in the UK. Since our early days we have had an enviable reputation among cyclists for stocking a massive range of cycling equipment and offering it at great prices. Merlin Cycles was initially a mail order business started in June 1993 by John Moss in the spare bedroom of his house in Whittle Le Woods near Chorley. A few months later the company opened a shop premises in Ormskirk, Lancashire. In 1998 Merlin Cycles moved to larger shop premises in Leyland.