Review: Fox 40WC and DHX RC4

[S.]

In 2008, Gee Atherton took out the senior men’s Downhill World Championships in Val di Sole – the first ever senior men’s DH world champs win on a fully Fox-equipped bike, only a few years after Fabien Barel snared the first ever world champs victory on a Fox rear shock. For 2009, 200 replicas of Atherton’s fork and shock were made available to the public. Thanks to Netti Atom and Ken @ TeKin Suspension, we’ve been able to test these for the past few weeks.

Check it HERE.​

 

[kalem]

nice review as always Steve...Interesting stuff.. though with the RC4 being over $1g are the Stoy or CCDB more worthy if you're in that price range?

About rebuilding/bleeding the 40 cartridge being a bitch... I've never had a problem, i just fill it up, cycle it a bit then let it rest and i never have any play... But maybe i'm not doing it right...

 

[No Skid Marks]

Another great no nonsense review S, Thanks, for your unbiased honesty

 

[S.]

nice review as always Steve...Interesting stuff.. though with the RC4 being over $1g are the Stoy or CCDB more worthy if you're in that price range?

About rebuilding/bleeding the 40 cartridge being a bitch... I've never had a problem, i just fill it up, cycle it a bit then let it rest and i never have any play... But maybe i'm not doing it right...

That's good to hear - Ken is extremely particular with that though (I sat and watched), which might be why he spends so long getting every last molecule of air out. I don't know if having play in it is a characteristic of having air in it though - it wouldn't really make any difference whether the air is inside the bladder or outside the bladder since it's not pressurised anyway, it just means that if air is going through the damper or being compressed instead of forcing oil through at the right speed. Are you checking for play with both compression adjusters set to maximum? Otherwise I couldn't really see it showing up.

As for "what's better" with the shocks... the only thing I could really find to criticise about the RC4 was the weird air spring thing. It has the advantage of adjustable progression, which the BOS and the CCDB don't have, but doesn't have quite the omgholyhellsosmooth sensitivity. I think even with its relatively high price tag, it's worth considering.

 

[kalem]

That's good to hear - Ken is extremely particular with that though (I sat and watched), which might be why he spends so long getting every last molecule of air out. I don't know if having play in it is a characteristic of having air in it though - it wouldn't really make any difference whether the air is inside the bladder or outside the bladder since it's not pressurised anyway, it just means that if air is going through the damper or being compressed instead of forcing oil through at the right speed. Are you checking for play with both compression adjusters set to maximum? Otherwise I couldn't really see it showing up.

As for "what's better" with the shocks... the only thing I could really find to criticise about the RC4 was the weird air spring thing. It has the advantage of adjustable progression, which the BOS and the CCDB don't have, but doesn't have quite the omgholyhellsosmooth sensitivity. I think even with its relatively high price tag, it's worth considering.

Well when the bladder unseated itself and half the oil came out at Silverstar i felt what the cartridge play felt like... basically a void without rebound damping. Because you know, rebound damping (and bottom out) is the only thing my 40 cartridge is doing...


With the vivid being a LOT cheaper, i'm curious to know what you think of them as well, i know you mentioned them in the review but is it capable?
I've been very aware of 'chassis stability and balance' on my bike in the few short outings i manage, and a new shock would help me sharpen the bike up a bit. But RC4 vs Vivid... well one is half the price but is it half the performance?

 

[kalem]

Did you really do 19 runs at Dromana? even with a shuttle i don't think i could hike the hill up to the track that many times!

 

[eyes]

Holy shit that was a good review S. Thanks.

 

[SPU]

Very good technical review! It's always a fine balance between plushness and geometry integrity without making the fork act harsh.

S: Since you are well acquainted with the technical side of forks perhaps you can provide an unbiased comparison between the Fox 40s, 2010 Boxxers and BOS forks?

I am also around the 90kg mark and for my weight Fox recommend the green spring however I was never happy with the traction I was getting from them as they just didn't feel supple enough. I now have blue spring and overall it is much better however on courses with bigger hits the fork will blow through its travel and on courses with hard braking the bike will dive on the front. Have tried to fix the problem with LSC and it has worked to a certain extent however it starts to affect high speed suppleness after 12 clicks.

 

[S.]

Very good technical review! It's always a fine balance between plushness and geometry integrity without making the fork act harsh.

S: Since you are well acquainted with the technical side of forks perhaps you can provide an unbiased comparison between the Fox 40s, 2010 Boxxers and BOS forks?

I am also around the 90kg mark and for my weight Fox recommend the green spring however I was never happy with the traction I was getting from them as they just didn't feel supple enough. I now have blue spring and overall it is much better however on courses with bigger hits the fork will blow through its travel and on courses with hard braking the bike will dive on the front. Have tried to fix the problem with LSC and it has worked to a certain extent however it starts to affect high speed suppleness after 12 clicks.

Sure, if you want to talk SRAM into sending me a new Boxxer (unlikely in light of recent events) and Nicho into sending me a BOS fork, I'd be more than happy to give you a comparison Until then though, I'm not made of money and stuff that I have paid for won't get reviewed for the site.

 

[Toxicity]

Did you really do 19 runs at Dromana? even with a shuttle i don't think i could hike the hill up to the track that many times!

yeh, thats a good effort in any case, the dhx rc4 sounds(and obviously preforms awesome). but its rrp is just a killer...

for the record - i do 2 unshuttled runs and get tired go home

 

[Fat_Ride]

Massive thanks to Steve for his time spent riding, testing and writing such an in-depth and comprehensive review. As mentioned to him yesterday, I have already received positive comments from impressed R&D heads at Fox.

Thanks also to Ken at Tekin who spent considerable time (and genius level suspension knowledge) adjusting and tuning the fork and shock so that Steve could get the best from his test. (From this, before just sending your suspension off to a third party to have their 'custom' parts installed speak to someone like Ken or the guys at Netti to make sure you're getting the most out of the tools and features your suspension already has!!!)

In regards to the products themselves, 2010 Fox stock inlcuding the 40RC2's and the new RC4 will hit Australia in early July. If interested please speak to your local dealer about pre-ordering.

 

[S.]

Well when the bladder unseated itself and half the oil came out at Silverstar i felt what the cartridge play felt like... basically a void without rebound damping. Because you know, rebound damping (and bottom out) is the only thing my 40 cartridge is doing...


With the vivid being a LOT cheaper, i'm curious to know what you think of them as well, i know you mentioned them in the review but is it capable?
I've been very aware of 'chassis stability and balance' on my bike in the few short outings i manage, and a new shock would help me sharpen the bike up a bit. But RC4 vs Vivid... well one is half the price but is it half the performance?

Ah yeah gotcha.

As for the Vivid, it's decent, and for the price it's pretty good. It has a reasonably good level of compression damping, though I didn't honestly find the compression adjuster all that noticeable. I did have to run a 400lbs/in spring on it though, and was still bottoming that out just as easily as the 350/300 on the CCDB and RC4 respectively. It was quite good with regards to stability though.

Did you really do 19 runs at Dromana? even with a shuttle i don't think i could hike the hill up to the track that many times!

We were only doing about a 25-30 second section of track over and over - from that stepdown on the main track, down through the rock garden and through those drops/g-outs before it gets into that scrub near the bottom. No way 19 runs of the whole thing, but you could easily do 30 runs of Maldon in a day if you were keen, the shuttle is literally less than two minutes (I timed 1:54 from stop to stop, without flogging the car).

 

[kalem]

(I timed 1:54 from stop to stop, without flogging the car).

yeah but what time did ya get when you did flog the car??

 

[S.]

yeah but what time did ya get when you did flog the car??

haha, pretty sure you could get below 1:30 pretty easily. The shuttles there are insanely fast, you could literally do 30 runs in a day if you could deal with the hand/arm soreness.

 

[koe/extreme dh]

Hi,

I like the look of the new 40's.

My friend did a real nice job on his old '08 40's to make them look close to exactly like the new 2010 one's.

Judging from the guys review, they seem to be really good when set up right (which was lucky for him because he had a mechanic working on them to tune them for him... grrr, haha!)

Its cool that they could make a replica of The Athertons forks and rear shock for the general public to enjoy and at least think, if i have the same forks and rear shock as them, maybe I could ride like them

Cheers Koe

 

[mayo]

no you just fail.

 

[S.]

Hi,

I like the look of the new 40's.

My friend did a real nice job on his old '08 40's to make them look close to exactly like the new 2010 one's.

Judging from the guys review, they seem to be really good when set up right (which was lucky for him because he had a mechanic working on them to tune them for him... grrr, haha!)

Its cool that they could make a replica of The Athertons forks and rear shock for the general public to enjoy and at least think, if i have the same forks and rear shock as them, maybe I could ride like them

Cheers Koe

Who cares what they look like? And any fork or suspension product is only as good as its setup, if you have a bad selection of spring rate or damping in either direction, it's going to suck.

 

[JGreen]

I really enjoyed the review. Great mix of technical savvy and riding impressions. Thanks for the good read. The 2010 Fox stuff looks great!

 

[Rendog]

..........

 

[S.]

Haha, we did 9 runs in about 3 hours of being there and we could of easily done 19 runs... we do ride there every sunday and thursday and having built a track there and ridden it so much it's not that hard and you don't get any serious arm pump though but good bit of the main track to choose to do the review on but you should of atleast done a drop of something to test out the suspension aswell.

Did you actually read the review at all?