New Stiffer, Lighter, Smoother RockShox SID


RockShox have returned fire in the battle for cross country suspension supremacy! Only a few weeks ago FOX created waves with the release of their lightest ever XC fork, today RockShox have revealed they’ve been hard at work too, announcing a new stiffer, lighter and smoother version of the venerable SID series.

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It must be coming up on twenty years since the first release of the SID, and while it’s definitely the most winning fork ever in cross country circles, we were beginning to think that the SID might have been on the way out. There just hadn’t been a lot of improvements made to SID in recent years as RockShox focused their attention on the development of the RS-1 (review here). But behind the scenes, RockShox had been beavering away, incorporating technologies pioneered in some of their other forks to make the SID a stiffer, leaner and smoother offering. There are four SID forks in the range, all available in 27.5 and 29″, with Boost or regular hub spacing: the World Cup, XX, RLC and RL. Let’s check out the details.

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100mm travel ONLY:

RockShox are taking the SID back to its XC roots – there will be no more 120mm version of the SID, it’s 100mm only. RockShox are letting the Revelation and Pike handle the 120mm market now. Smart move – people are riding 120mm bikes very hard now, and the SID isn’t built for that kind of flogging. Removing travel variants allows RockShox to optimise the air spring specifically for this this travel too, and they say it’s more linear than before, which is good for lighter riders. Heavier or more front heavy riders can still add Bottomless Tokens to increase progressiveness.

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The lower leg is one area that RockShox were able to shave some weight. The dropouts are also Torque Cap compatible.

Lighter:

Moving to a 100mm-only platform allows RockShox to create a lighter fork. In the past, the 120mm and 100m versions shared the same chassis, and so naturally it had to be on the beefier side to accommodate the harder riding demands of those riders on the 120mm fork. Now, as 100mm-only offering, the whole fork can be made a little leaner. The new SID is on average 100g lighter across each of the four models than in the past. The carbon crown/steerer equipped World Cup fork is 1366g, in a 27.5″ version, about 10g heavier than FOX’s new 32SC fork. We don’t have weights for the 29er versions on hand.

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All new SIDs have the option of running the Maxle Stealth. It requires a tool for removal but offers a small weight saving.

Stiffer, kind of:

RockShox are making the claim that the new SID is stiffer than its predecessors, but that’s on the proviso that you’re running one of their Torque Cap hubs, which gives you a much bigger contact area between the hub and fork dropouts. Of course normal 15mm hubs are compatible too, but you lose the increased hub/fork contact and its stiffen gains.

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The Charger damper makes its way into the SID range on the World Cup and RLC models.

New damper: 

The RLC and World Cup versions of the SID get a new damper too; the Charger damper has external compression adjustment plus a two-position lockout (it’s either open, or has a very firm lockout). Beginning stroke rebound is adjustable, but deep stroke rebound is factory set with the excellent Rapid Recovery system. The new damper (did you know that auto-correct thinks the SID has a new diaper?) is complemented by lower-friction seals as well.

We’ll do our best to get you pricing, but as this release came through on a Friday afternoon, we weren’t able to get it confirmed right away.

 

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