Answer Manitou Flexes its XC Muscle

After 20-plus hours of travel time, I arrived off the coast of Africa jet-lagged, hungry and prepared to despise whatever Manitou had to show. Once I finally came around, I noticed the sandy beaches, rugged mountains, cheap drinks, abundant tapas and swarms of well-tanned, bleach-blond Scandinavian girls vacationing on the paradise island of Gran Canaria. I couldn’t have cared less about some new suspension line, how could any new product compare to such a locale?

A peek at Manitou's upcoming, 2.9-pound 4-inch fork.

It was a tall order, but Manitou managed to outshine the landscape. The new R-Seven forks and S-Type rear shocks were by far the highlight of the extraordinary trip. The new suspension line might even be the highlight of the year. At 2.9-pounds with 100mm of progressive travel, the R-Seven is guaranteed to be the fork-of-choice for the weight watching cross-country crowd. And thanks to the completely redesigned ovalized 30mm casting and beefed-up reverse arch, gram-counters don’t have to sacrifice stiffness and steering accuracy for the feathery-weight.

Of course no matter how light or stiff the fork, the last thing any XC racer wants is 4-inches of bobbing suspension, so Manitou also included a new generation of SPV damping. The new system, dubbed Snap Valve SPV, offers a more dramatic threshold—when climbing or sprinting it bobs less than previous SPV setups, yet once the going gets rough and the valve opens, movement is plush and unhindered by sticky “anti-bob” damping.

The S-Type rear shocks are equally impressive. Manitou’s R&D department went through the popular line of Swinger rear shocks and pulled gram after gram out of nearly every component. The resulting shock weighs only 200 grams and also performs better than previous generations.

After two full day rides on the new products, it was clear that Manitou did their homework. Day two kicked off with a 50-kilometer, three-and-a-half hour, hors categorie asphalt climb. John Tomac, hell-bent on beating the shuttle-bus to the top, set a blistering pace and slowed only to yell at certain editors (including me) to go faster. When I finally slipped off the back I could have blamed a number of things—my slave driver boss for not allowing enough daily riding time, the beat to hell test bike I was piloting or dragging disc brakes—but one thing I couldn’t blame was bobbing suspension. Lockouts are available on certain R-Seven forks and S-Type shocks, but I can’t imagine who’d want them.

Before pointing the bike down from the chilly mountaintop, I inhaled a Red Bull, two packets of Gu and a Clif Bar and dropped about 50-psi out of my tires. But I didn’t touch the suspension. Didn’t have to. The next three hours were riddled with near constant steep, rocky, technical singletrack. Hour after hour, the trail required every stitch of my concentration just to keep rocks from grabbing hold of my front wheel and throwing me to the ground. Of the twenty-something riders in our group, everyone crashed at some point or another. Johnny T even went down and one of the guy’s from Manitou snapped-off a front tooth. It was epic.

My point in all this rambling? The Isla de Gran Canaria was an ideal testing ground for Manitou’s latest generation. Bobbing was almost nonexistent, there wasn’t a hint of flex and the progressive travel ramped-up at the end to prevent bottoming: all from a fork that weighs much less than its competition. After the first ride I hardly noticed the good-looking tourists, tapas or cheap drinks and I never even made it to the beach, I was too busy enjoying Manitou’s suspension.

Stay tuned as we get a hold of the R-Seven fork and S-Type rear shock and thrash them long term.