11-17-06 // Gear Review: FOX 40 RC2

$1,599 800-369-7469; foxracingshox.com

I don’t know if there have actually been 40 times when the Fox 40 has saved my life, but there’ve been a helluva lot of near-death encounters salvaged by that big, gray miraculous triple-tree fork. Heck, there have probably been some close calls that I didn’t even recognize, just laughed them off with a, “Oh, that wasn’t that close.” Whatever the number, the Fox 40 actually has saved my life (or my life as a non-broken, scabless, mouth-full-of-teeth person anyway).

The vast majority of these saves came in Whistler’s bike park—an A-Line drop slightly nose heavy, a Clown Shoes huck sent too far to flat, hitting the tranny on Rock City a little to the wrong side. Time and again, the Fox 40 was there for me. No harsh bottom outs, yet running full travel, saving my squirrelly ass again and again.

With its 40-millimeter stanchions, the 40 does a great job of being a highly adjustable and, from my experience, incredibly durable fork. The 40’s honest 8 inches of travel can be brought down to six with internal preload spacers. There are separate externally adjustable high- and low-speed compression damping circuits in Fox’s patent-pending closed-cartridge dampener that separates oil from air to ensure consistency and fade-free performance. Other adjustments include an external spring-preload adjustment, a dual-speed, position-sensitive damper and externally adjustable rebound.

Other features? The 40 comes stock with a titanium coil spring, contributing to its sub-7-pound weight. Wider stanchions result in noticeably tighter steering (compared to other dual-crown forks), while the oversized design allows engineers to reduce material in the lower castings (more weight savings).

It all sounds fairly beauty. But here’s what my dumbass discovered. I found the titanium spring too soft for my 185 pounds. The fork comes with two extra springs, which is cool, and I wish all long-travel forks did the same, but they’re made of steel. Bit of a bummer. About 20 rides after switching the spring, a loud “clang” developed in the front end. The clang had me checking pivots and axles all over my bike until I discovered it was the spring hitting the inside of the stanchion. Fox now wraps replacement springs in plastic cellophane, which may help the problem. Since mine didn’t come that way, I went with a recommendation from the folks at Evolution bike shop in Whistler. Grease. Lots of it. No more clank.

After 60-plus rides and numerous dawn-till-dusk park sessions, the “clank” was the only issue I had with the fork and aside from being noisy, it didn’t affect performance. Word on the street, however, is that if you do have a major problem, Fox’s customer service is a little slow.

Another issue seems to be price. But that doesn’t seem to be slowing down the folks riding Whistler. The 40 was extremely popular there this summer. Also, consider this when it comes to “forkin” over big bucks—Fox Racing Shox manufacturers the 40 (and most of its high-end products for that matter) at its factory in Watsonville, California. Costly environmental regulations and American labor trickle down into the retail price.

But, if you value your life, like I do, and want a fork that can throw down in a big, big way, sometimes your little guardian angel demands the platinum card.

—Mitchell Scott