Conclusion first: the Fox 36 Float Factory GRIP2 is the best air-sprung trail fork out there. By quite a margin too.
- Price: £1,299.00
- From: Silverfish UK
- Tested by: Benji for 18 months
- SQUIRREL_TEXT_13106501
This review was published in Singletrack World Magazine Issue 153
The one and only negative aspect of this fork is that price tag. Which, while it’s all well and good saying ‘Well, all top forks are four figures these days aren’t they?’, it is still bonkers money.
The next bestest fork (in my opinion) is the £849.00 Marzocchi Bomber Z1 Coil. Cheaper. But still not cheap (unless you find one in the sales).
Back to the pure performance assessment of this here Fox 36 Float… it is the only air fork that feels good throughout the whole of its travel stroke.
All other air forks I’ve encountered force you to pick two from the Holy Trinity (sag point, mid-stroke and end-stroke). The 36 air spring – allied to the excellent and fathomable GRIP2 damper – actually has a really good amount of mid-stroke support.
And it deals with the aforementioned Holy Trinity very smoothly and predictably. The whole stroke feels consistent and well delivered. It’s not a supple sag that vanishes into a mid-stroke vagueness only to reappear again and the end-stroke being all rampy and harsh.
You don’t actually notice what the Fox 36 Float GRIP2 is doing. It disappears into the ride underneath you
In terms of set-up, I ran the pressure that Fox recommends on the handy sticker on the fork leg. And it was bang on. As a 73kg rider, I removed all the volume spacers to access full travel properly and appropriately. I also ran pretty much all of the damping adjusters in their most open position (I occasionally dialled in more low-speed compression for super steep slow tech tracks). Fully open damping dials is not zero damping, it is just the least amount of damping on offer. It is still very much controlled by damping circuits. Significantly lighter riders may find the fork rebound too slow even when fully open.
In conclusion again: this incredibly expensive fork is incredibly good.
