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The biggest pain in the arse is checking the pressure every time you go out to ride and I have found that they always need to be re-checked and adjusted after the first ride of the day.
As for the feel it all comes down to personal preference. They are certainly not my favorite fork out of the box that I have had on any of my bikes over the years, but not the worst! Feel a lot better than my 09 Honda forks did!
In stock form found them fine on the bigger bumps, large rouned braking bumps or hitting sand whoops or the likes, but always felt horrible on the small square edge shitty stuff.
Have had my local suspension guy do a little work with me and have them feeling a lot better.
I did run my 14 RM-Z250 back to back with the 15 450, running the Single Fuction spring fork against the SFF Air fork both in stock form and the SFF Spring fork felt so good! Would have loved to take the forks out of the 14 250F and put them in the 15 450.
I just don't see them being the best way to go long term for the average punter who at the end of the day are the people who buy these bikes and also what are they going to be like long term? How hard is it going to be to sell a second hand bike with airforks, is joe average who will never buy a new bike be arsed to work out how to use airforks?
There has to be a reason why they (The manufactures) have not gone down the same path for the Enduro / Off-road market, maybe they already know that the average rider out there does not to have to put up with pissing around with fork pressures before they head out for a ride.
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I think this has been suspension tuning's biggest challenge with spring forks also.
As of rite now I have a pretty decent compromise. I tend to run them a little firmer cause I hate the way they dive when set up too plush.. But with those couple exceptions... I like em.
Back on topic though. Could be interesting to have a poll on the whole air vs spring debate. I guess logistically it would be too complicated to set one up that is fair. There are just too many factors affecting peoples opinions.
Here is what Keefer's said.
WP overview from Keefer
How so?
Dude has an opinion, just like you, and he doesn't like them. A LOT of other guys would agree with Pingree.
There is a reason factory guys are going from air to spring forks. Are they also in denial? Or do they just know what works and what doesn't?
The engineer at ProCircuit, Patrick Doran, said..."Hey, do me a favor? Try our re-valve and internals & caps on your Airs -before- you swap them out and let me know what you think. Ok?"
I did. They are better than my springers. No shit.
Now, there's a legitimate bitch by those that say, "WTF, Dude! How much money was that?" And that's a legitimate bitch. The caps, mid-valves and revalve-service can cost a lot.
But, they can work. They do work.
If Pinger had a set built, for him, by Bones? He'd change his tune.
However, the pont to be made is this: if the manufacturers want us to like air-forks, they need to sell a set that's got settings that DON'T SUCK!
Pit Row
From my experiences dealing with our riders, air forks can definitely be made to work for many riders. I do have a handful (not a big handful) in fact that LOVE the airfork. I have a lot who say the air and spring fork are comparable. And I also have a couple handfuls who won't even touch an airfork or test with one.
One interesting thing my boss mentioned to me, "How often do you hear someone say, 'gee I sure wish I had some airforks'? And how often do you hear someone say, 'I just wish I had spring forks!'"
Yes, the 2nd one is heard often which is the reason they spent the time and resources to develop our Spring Conversion System. You wouldn't believe the number of customers that would call the shop asking if we had a source for older spring forks to replace their air ones. There are two reasons this kit sells...1) They miss the spring fork feel or 2) They simply don't want to deal with the headache of checking pressures.
With all that said, if you haven't ridden a set of well setup airforks, it's hard to say whether you will or won't like them.
Funny thing: In virtually all 2016 shootouts, including Vital's, the KX air forked equipped bike finished ahead of KTM. Even MXA likes Honda and Kawi air forks.
Too funny.
I had a 15 crf250, those were ok, but not as good as kawi's this year.
I was just tired of checking air pressure before each moto. The air forks actually worked good. I'm currently happy, although that changes day too day
Post a reply to: David Pingree on air forks