Suntour SF9 Durolux 20 TS fork review

Long-travel, low(ish) price

Our rating

3.0

704.88
429.99

Published: October 29, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Our review
A good chassis let down by some very fundamental issues

The Durolux offers a whopping 180mm (7in) of travel, which can be remotely adjusted down to a more trail friendly 140mm (5.5in) at the push of a lever, via the air cartridge in the left leg.

The fork uses hydraulic damping and boasts both external preload (air pressure) and rebound adjustment. The lower legs are made from cast magnesium.

Ours used a 20mm bolt-through axle that required two Allen keys to dismantle, which proved very time consuming. A quick-release bolt-through version is in the pipeline.

At full travel, there is a consistent top-out clunk that will only disappear with lots of rebound damping wound on, which makes the fork slow and sluggish, but shorten the travel with the adjuster and the top-out does vanish.

The Durolux produces a very linear action which makes it easy to bottom out. Add more air pressure to increase the preload and you lose any small bump sensitivity, and it can take some time to find a happy medium.

The rebound adjuster isn’t indexed, which makes setup tricky. The adjustment itself is adequate but lacking compared to the competition. The seals gunked up quickly and the top cap of the pneumatic travel adjuster can unscrew itself when things get rough.

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