The all-new Fox 32SC fork introduces a wild new reverse arch design that mixes with the brand new GRIP SL damper to turn into the lightest fashionable 29er fork available on the market.
Claimed weight is simply 1287g, down from 1388g for the prior mannequin! But it’s additionally stiffer and extra succesful than ever, giving cross nation and marathon racers an enormous leg up over gravity.
The claimed 100+ gram financial savings is much more spectacular contemplating it’s in comparison with their prior 27.5” measurement, which was the lightest they provided till now. However new one is 29er solely, so, apples to apples, this one truly saves a superb bit greater than 100g!
Right here’s the place the burden financial savings got here from
- -65g from the brand new damper
- -9g from double-butted higher tube on damper facet
- -9g stiffness optimized crown
- -11g ultralight steerer tube
- -12g Kabolt SL
- -1g ultralight cable information
The air spring’s higher tube wants straight partitions inside to take care of a constant seal with the piston, so the tapering is barely on the damper’s higher tube.
The lowers are literally a few grams heavier, however many of the improved stiffness comes from the lowers, so it was a tradeoff price making.
The brand new Kabolt SL retains the identical tooled design and exterior profile as the unique Kabolt through axle, however will get internally machined butting to save lots of a number of further grams of unsprung weight.
Who’s it for?
With many XC bikes now working 110-120mm fork journey, Fox is generally aiming this one on the multi-hour and multi-day marathon stage racing crowd. It solely is available in 100mm journey, with the air spring and damper optimized particularly for that.
That mentioned, we noticed it being examined within the XCO World Cup races final yr, so the brand new design is clearly stiff sufficient for aggressive racing on fashionable programs, too. Fox says it’s 40% stiffer, getting it actually near the torsional stiffness of the 34SC!
And the brand new GRIP SL damper (learn this story for a deep dive on the brand new 2025 GRIP damper tech) offers faster, smoother collection of lockout and pedal modes with an optimized compression circuit that reacts extra shortly to impacts for extra management.
Why a reverse arch?
The brand new generatively designed rear arch lets them carry the arch a bit decrease, which lets them use much less materials to attain the mandatory stiffness. That is attainable as a result of the 32 SC has no fork offset on the crown, so it could keep tucked in with out worrying about it hitting the downtube underneath full compression.
To get the fork’s 44mm offset, they angled the legs from the crown, so the lowers usually are not sliding in the identical aircraft because the steering angle throughout compression and rebound. This will get into problems with transverse sheer forces, which is one thing that works effective for this short-travel software, however isn’t actually one thing they’ll do on longer-travel forks.
So, Fox says you gained’t see them port this design over to different mountain bike forks sooner or later.
What else ought to I do know?
The Step Forged design requires a 2mm hex software to externally regulate low-speed rebound damping, and a software will include the forks. That differs from the Taper Forged forks utilizing the GRIP SL damper (like their gravel fork) could have a built-in knob. And, simply pondering out loud, since that gravel 32TC fork has much less journey than the 32SC, maybe it may use a reverse arch to save lots of weight…
