Magura Ronin MTB Fork, and other MTB toys

For someone who likes to tweak, fiddle, dial, fidget, adjust, twiddle and in general mess with anything that has buttons, switches or dials, this fork is a dream come true.

It has one lever, one knob, two dials, and everything conveniently located to mess with on the trail.

It's installed on a 1995 Diamondback Axis TR (cr-mo racing hardtail), and I'm running a 110mm travel version drooped somewhere between 90-100mm...it's enough travel to suck up some punishing slickrock bumps, curbs, and drops, without overdoing the length for a frame built to fit 85mm travel forks.. The seals are pretty tight, which bodes well for the long run...it's stiff, for a cross-country oriented fork it's definately overbuilt, so it's perfect for a guy like me who's already broken two sets of crankarms (one while riding up a flight of stairs, the other while bombing trails, both kookas :( ), blown numerous fork seals, has concrete embedded in the custom cnc bashring on the second set of kookas, and already has rock rash on the new bash ring and crank arms.

The action is very, very plush, once the seals are broken in--basically, as tight as they are, I have to give it a good push, and it's good for the rest of the ride...the seals are extremely tight! but i've only noticed the stiction when it's been sitting extended and unused overnight, and from the Magura guys it's only when the fork is brand new.

I had a great time with this fork on the Amasa Back/Cliffhanger trail in Moab, it's an uphill and return route, with a lot of ledges, slickrock, bumps, a little sand, and plenty of large, loose rocks. It was a great route to dial the fork, since the high/low compression damping and the rebound damping were all necessary and every few feet was another opportunity to "check the settings." I started by running the fork wide open--no damping at all--and quickly found the low speed compression damping needed to be increased to minimize bobbing, but there is a good setting to suck up big hits at the same time. The high speed compression damping is still wide open, I'm going to mess with it another time...theoretically this means it will be very active on small bumps, which is what I want, but the dials will be tweaked if only to see what they do :D. The rebound damping I didn't mess with until the ride down, when I quickly found that if the air spring went undamped, the fork would try to pogo me on to the rocks, which is a little freakish if you're going for a low speed front end lift off a drop, and get just a little sideways on the landing. I spent quite a while messing with the rebound damping, turning it up slowly until it didn't feel like doom on a trampoline.

Next I'll turn the compression damping off, and turn the rebound damping totally "dead" and try to find the happy medium...and that's all before I start messing with the air spring preload. The user manual even comes with a set of charts and numbers if you're handy with a calculator.

I'm very happy with the fork, even happier since I feel I got a better product than the competition (Manitou Skareb Platinum, etc), for a much better price (Magura is trying to move the last of last year's stuff), and much stronger (32mm stanchions, mag tubes w/ stainless dropout/brake tab protectors, vs 28-30mm stanchions and a thick coat of paint), made with much more attention to detail than the various competitor's products...while the Skareb Platinum would be a perfect fork if I only raced and were gentle to the bike, I tend to play hard and the Ronin is a perfect match.

While on Amasa Back, I also realized my "old school" bar and stem were more likely to kill me than anything else. That would be a 7* rise 110mm stem and a 48cm GT "brahma bar", both almost 12 years old and from the era when mountain biking was still just like road biking but on dirt. The old bar/stem combo was great for going fast through narrow trees, keeping the rider low and wind resistance down, and other roadie-like stuff that's more appropriate for cyclocross than mountain biking...maybe if I build up a cyclocross bike I'll use the old bar/stem again.

The old bar/stem was replaced with a 90mm 0* stem and a ~60cm riser bar, with lock-on grips (no more throttling in the rain! wheeee!). I even talked the guy at Poison Spider to swap the black lock rings for some silvers for that bling bling edge on the new toys. The difference between the old and new cockpit was immediately noticable...lifts, wheelies, manuals and bunny hops all had less of a "gonna die" factor, and the bike is easier to control now. Funny that the one thing I never suspected was improperly sized for my body and riding style turned out to be the one thing holding me back most.

Sooo...I don't suppose anyone would like to go mountain biking?

-Sean
 

xcmountain80

Expedition Leader
Maybe if you werent in CO but yeah I'd be up for it! Always looking for more people to ride with here in FL.
Aaron
 

xcmountain80

Expedition Leader
Thats awesome Im off the racing circuit this season to give my friend a hand selling his cool product. Im so not trying to push this on you but check this out soley becaus you are a CX and MTB. Its made by a company called Scottoiler and they make on board oiler system for motorcycles and now for bicycles. Its worth a look at 55gr. http://scottoilerusa.com. There are a few write ups floating around MTBR.com, Dirt Rag has one not certain if they reviewed it yet. Anyway like I said not trying to push this. I have a Ellsworth Sub22 Xtr and stuff, and a Santa Cruz SuperLight XTr and crap as well. Ill post some pics soon.
But heres one I found
P9030385.jpg

Aaron
 
that's a pretty cool add-on, especially for a long trip, century, adventure/backcountry stuff...i could really see using it on a trip like white rim (yanno, there is an outfit that will support groups on a one-day full route...whew!).

dave, if you can put up with me gasping for air and being slightly out of shape (at the moment), let's go for a ride. i'm about 15 minutes from white ranch, actually. funny you should mention old manitou forks, i have two or three manitous sitting around that are in good shape except for needing to be cleaned/rebuilt...a manitou 3, an SX, and an FS (i think...one is white with an oil damper, other is black and no damper). my g/f is riding a red manitou ti fork that's practically new but after a season of hard riding needs the skewers cleaned. they're great forks...i actually liked the colors on the M3 and the successor with the same scheme but in red/orange/gold better than the new color scheme, and even tho it was all billet i also liked the look of the crown on the M3 better than the others...oh well, end of an era and all that.

i don't ride f/s (yet?) but i can usually hold my own unless you're taking big drops.

-sean
 

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