Manitou's New Long-Travel Nixon Fork and Swinger 4-Way Air Shock

Nixon Platinum air fork Photo: Sterling Lorence

Tall, straight-from-a-spaghetti-western cacti jut from a sun-baked landscape, sweat drips off my nose and John Tomac rules all. In front and behind, huffing in a long line of ascent, with Tomac at the head, a slew of journalists from around the world hammer through slickrock and singletrack in Phoenix, Arizona. This is Answer Camp, Manitou's annual press junket, and along with Tomac and sweet cacti-fenced riding, the latest in suspension technology has been laid upon us.

This year, Manitou's crew, led by product development head Joel Smith, have imported writers from as far away as Slovenia and France. We're all riding Elan's new Able 1 six-and-six dual-suspension bikes, featuring Manitou's new Nixon Platinum air fork and Swinger 4-Way Air rear shock. They are light, they are air, they are the latest in SPV technology and they are, simply put, a sign of the future.

The recent all-mountain trend affecting many a bike and component manufacturer is one predicated on joining the distant worlds of cross-country and freeride: light, long-travel bikes that both climb and descend with high levels of performance. All mountain, epic cross country, call it what you will, Manitou has chosen to term the category "Long-Travel Enduro," an emerging genre it believes should provide, "maximum stiffness and lightest weight, pedaling efficiency and bump absorption, and unlimited tunability." Judging from the new paradigm's potential--ie, a bike that can do it all and do it all well--it could be the next big thing. Forging the way, Manitou's new Nixon Platinum fork and Swinger 4-Way Air rear shock are designed specifically for those who want plush, big-travel suspension, but in a light, highly adjustable package. Bikes that punish ascents as well as they do descents--in other words, bikes that don't really exist, until recently.

Available at three different price points ($549, $749, $849), the new Nixon fork uses Manitou's new SPV Evolve, a 1 and 1/8-inch aluminum steer-tube with hollow aluminum crowns and is available with standard dropouts or Manitou's Hex Lock through-axle. The air fork, which boasts 145mm of maximum travel and weighs in at 4.1 pounds with standard dropout, uses Manitou's latest SPV Evolve Damping technology, featuring a lower initial bump threshold, improved small bump performance due to new piston rings and a wider range of platform setups.

Because the Nixon's 145mm of travel might have riders climbing slightly chopper style, one press of Manitou's new IT (Infinite Travel Adjust System) handlebar-mounted thumb adjuster automatically lowers the fork without diminishing suspension capabilities. The fork can be lowered to any point down to one-inch simply by releasing the thumb adjuster at the desired height. Bringing the fork back up to full travel is as easy as pressing the lever and unweighting the front tire. While the system is fairly easy to use, some might peg the unweighting prerequisite as a caveat, albeit a minor one. Sometimes, when on the fly, it took me a couple of tries to fully reload the fork, not to mention, you have to know how to pull a rudimentary wheelie. However, stopping to readjust the fork nullifies this problem.

The true performance virtue to note, however, is that the Nixon is not a fragile stab at the six-inch genre. While it climbs and rides singletrack well--thanks to SPV technology, which regulates travel depending on the frequency and significance of bumps--it also takes big hits like a champ. Nosing it in awkwardly off a six-foot huck, Tomac dialed it like it was a street curb, and to my surprise, I failed to bottom out the fork.

Swinger 4-Way Air shock Photo: Sterling Lorence

The new Swinger 4-Way Air rear shock is equally impressive, featuring new tweaks and refinements to the SPV platform, as well as being offered in a new 2.75-inch stroke shock (three-quarters of an inch longer than 2003's model). Designed to be lightweight and versatile like the Nixon (it weighs 30 grams less than last year's model), the 2004 Swinger's new additions include an oversized air canister and a Volume Plus air cap, as well as improvements that increase the amount of uncompressed air volume in the shock, which gives the Swinger more of a coil shock feel, enabling it to run on lower pressures and yet still provide less of a ramp.

Technical jargon aside, the new 4-Way Air requires minimal adjustment and is able to adapt to a myriad of situations without you--the rider--needing to do anything except ride. It bobs less at slow speeds while climbing, but when things start to get serious, it's able to pony up into a fairly plush, natural rising rate of travel.

Together, the Nixon and the Swinger 4-Way Air prototypes I rode (production pieces should be on the market this August) combined for a light, multi-faceted suspension system.