Just Dont Bother to Tell Me Again Lyric
After Mike Levy single-handedly invented the short-travel trail bike (also known as the long-travel XC bike), every brand has been racing to release products for this exciting new "downcountry" discipline. Recently Öhlins released their first downcountry fork, the RXF34 m.2. While it shares the first part of its name with the original RXF34, which has been around since 2016, it's a completely different fork inside and out.
WIth 120 or 130 mm of travel only, it's designed to be as light as possible, and at 1,725 grams it's nearly 600 grams lighter than the original RXF34, slotting in between the 2022 Fox 34 and RockShox SID in the weight wars. Admittedly, it's much closer to the Fox 34 (1,791 g) than the SID (1,537 g).
Öhlins RXF 34 M.2 Details
• Intended use: downcountry / trail
• Travel: 120 or 130mm
• 29" and 44 mm offset only
• Air spring with volume spacers
• Single-tube damper with Low-speed compression, High-speed compression/climb mode and rebound adjust
• 160mm brake mount, max 203mm
• Weight: 1,725 g as tested, 1,698 g claimed
• MSRP: $1,180 USD / €1,294 / £1,185 (Inc. VAT, apart from USD)
• Öhlins.com
To achieve this weight saving, Öhlins gave up a lot of their trademark design features. They ditched their twin-tube damper for a lighter single-tube design and traded their usual three-chamber air spring for a more conventional layout with volume spacers. They also re-worked the chassis to minimise weight, helping them just undercut the Fox 34 on the scales. For more depth on the design of the RXF34 m.2, check out the First Look article. This article is all about how the fork rides. Now that I've put some proper time on the fork and compared it back-to-back against its closest rival from Fox, I'm ready to go into how it compares and whether the performance justifies the steep price tag.
Setup
Öhlins provide a handy setup chart on the air leg with recommended air pressures by rider weight. Öhlins also has an online setup tool that recommends more precise spring settings based on rider weight and bike model. For the Izzo and my kitted-up weight (about 88 kg), it recommends 87 psi. It doesn't say anything about volume spacers or damping settings. Personally, though, I found this setup far too soft - it was possible to bottom it out in the parking-lot test - so I increased the pressure to 100 psi to get enough support. This made the fork stiff and insensitive near the start of the travel, so I added a volume spacer, bringing the total up to four, and dropped the pressure back down to 94 psi. This allowed me to use 124mm of travel when bouncing on the fork as hard as I could in the "parking lot bounce test" (which is a surprisingly useful and repeatable way to gauge bottom-out resistance), leaving a few mm in reserve for bigger impacts.
Damping wise, the fork offers 15 clicks of low-speed rebound and low-speed compression damping, plus a dial that offers two high-speed compression settings and a third setting that closes off the compression circuits for a firm climb mode. The range of settings is well-judged too: fully closed and fully open aren't ridiculous, yet there should be enough of a range to suit most people. If you're a particularly light rider it's possible to get a lighter tune through Ohins' settings bank and one of their partnered service centres.
Unlike some of Öhlins older forks which needed to be left fully open to get the best from them, my ideal settings were pretty close to the middle: about eight clicks from closed on the 15-click rebound range, with the low-speed compression setting depending on the terrain but not just fully open all the time. I used the firmer high-speed setting for steeper, gnarlier tracks and the lighter one most of the time.
Performance
The first couple of rides on the RXF34 m.2 I struggled to get the setup right. It initially felt a bit too harsh off the top in some situations, but also used its travel and bottomed out too readily. But after adding a volume spacer and using some low-speed compression for steeper tracks, I felt happy with how the fork was performing and was impressed by how much comfort and control Öhlins has squeezed out of a 130mm fork. I have no complaints about stiffness either, even though I'm most often riding bikes with 38mm stanchions these days, I didn't notice any jarring binding or flex on the kind of terrain it was designed for, which included some chunky root sections and big compressions.
But it was only once I did some back-to-back testing against a Fox 34 on the same tracks and on the same day that I got a good handle on how it measures up.
How does it compare?
The Fox 34 is the obvious rival for the RXF34 m.2, not just because they share a stanchion diameter, but the weight and intended use put them both in the same little niche, in-between the SID and Pike from RockShox. Mike Kazimer described it as a standout option in his recent review, so it's the obvious benchmark. Fox sent me a 34 in 130mm travel with the FIt4 damper so I could compare it to the new kid on the block. While the GRIP2 damper is arguably a better comparison as it offers high-speed compression adjustment to match the RXF34 (as well as high-speed rebound), the Fit4 has a lockout, like the RXF34, which the GRIP2 lacks.
Prices and options
The price will obviously vary depending on where you live, but here in the UK, the Öhlins fork goes for £1,185 while the Fit4 34 costs £1,059. That's not leagues apart, but it's worth noting that Fox offer cheaper options too, including Performance Elite (which lacks Kashima stanchions) and Performance, which uses the cheaper, but in my opinion highly-underrated, GRIP damper.
The RXF 34 is available in 120 and 130mm travel only, while the Fox 34 comes in 130 or 140mm with shorter air springs available aftermarket. I asked Öhlins if they might offer a longer travel spring in the future, but the chassis can only accommodate 130mm. That makes the Fox 34 a bit more versatile if you want to bump up the travel.
Weight
My Fox 34 weighs 1,791g with a QR axle, while the Öhlins, with the same steerer length, weighs 1,725g. That's a 66g win to Öhlins. But the Fox was fitted with a QR axle, so fitting a hex key version would save a few grams. Similarly, the Fox has a 180mm post mount while the Öhlins uses a 160mm brake mount, so a 20mm larger adapter will narrow the gap even more - by about 25 g or so.
Setup
Based on the setup chart, Fox recommends about 98 psi for my weight. As with the Öhlins, I found this too soft but more because the fork sat too deep in its travel rather than bottoming out too much. I settled on 105 psi but found I could remove one volume spacer (leaving me with one) while having similar bottom-out resistance to the Öhlins fitted with four. WIth both forks, I was getting about 122mm of travel in the ultra-scientific parking-lot-bounce-test and I used all the travel once or twice on the trail, but only in big compressions and neither bottomed out harshly.
I preferred eight clicks of rebound on the 34, which is a click or two faster than recommended, but I must give credit to Fox for printing rebound recommendations on the fork leg. I ran the compression fully open unless tackling particularly steep tracks.
Performance
Switching from Öhlins to Fox, even with over 10 psi more pressure in the Fox, its softer initial travel is immediately noticeable. When first getting on the bike it feels too soft, and eases into its stroke more like an enduro fork, while the Öhlins offers a slightly firmer first touch, more like a traditional XC air spring. But on the trail, the Fox 34 wasn't too soft; in fact, I was consistently surprised by how little travel it used. The O-ring told me I was using similar amounts of travel with both forks and I never got too close to bottom-out unless something unplanned happened.
I rode the same two trails three times in the morning on the Öhlins, then swapped to the Fox and did the same thing in the afternoon. The Fox tracked the ground noticeably better, with less skipping off the ground and less harshness over spiderwebs of roots. It took the sting out of bigger bumps more effectively too. And at the same time, it felt if anything slightly more composed, predictable and supportive when faced with big compressions and corners.
While the Öhlins had initially impressed me with how much a modern 130mm fork was capable of, the latest version of the Fox 34 took that to another level. It's noticeably suppler, with less harshness and more grip, without sacrificing support. I also noticed the rear suspension felt harsher by comparison when riding the Fox compared to the Öhlins. I know it's a cliche, but I'd echo a line from Kazimer's review when he said the 34 rides like a longer-travel fork. The suppleness at the start of the stroke is closer to what you'd get from an enduro fork and the extra grip, predictability and control this offers can't be ignored.
Could it be that the Öhlins fork just wasn't set up optimally? That's a question that should always be front of mind when testing suspension. But I spent several rides trying different pressure, volume spacer and damping settings to optimise it for me, whereas with the Fox 34 I only did a basic parking lot set-up before starting the back-to-back tests. The differences in the spring curves can't be entirely overcome with setup.
While the RXF34 is an impressive fork, the latest update to the Fox 34 has put it one step ahead.
Pros
+ Impressive performance for the travel and weight
+ Well-judged range of adjustments
+ (Slightly) lighter than a Fox 34
Cons
- Can't match the suppleness and predictability of the latest Fox 34
- Expensive
Pinkbike's Take
 | The RXF34 m.2 is an impressive downcountry debut. It's light, has a good range of damping adjustments and performs well on the trails it's designed for. But at this price it needs to be the best, and in that sense it falls short. The 2022 Fox 34 may be fractionally heavier, but it simply performs better on the trail. It offers more suppleness, grip and predictability, putting it one step ahead of the Swedes for now. |
Source: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-hlins-rxf34-m2-fork-versus-fox-34-2022.html
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