Suspension school · Brand-Specific Technology

Formula: CTS Valves, Neopos and 2Air

An Italian approach: change the valve, not just the clicks

Formula, the Italian firm best known for brakes, builds forks with a different tuning philosophy. Where other brands give you more clicks, Formula lets you swap the compression valve itself, changing the damper's fundamental character in minutes.

CTS: Compression Tuning System

CTS is a small swappable valve seated under the compression top cap. Remove the compression adjuster assembly, swap the valve, and in around five minutes with basic tools the fork has a different damping curve. Clicks scale a curve up and down; CTS reshapes the curve, which is something no amount of clicking can do.

• The current line-up has eight valves in two series
• Traction series: Bronze, Blue, Red and Purple, biased towards comfort and grip
• Support series: Gold, Orange and Green, biased towards platform and support, plus Titanium, developed for e-bike racing
• Gold is the benchmark all-rounder, the valve Formula describes as closest to an industry-standard feel

Neopos

Neopos is Formula's take on the volume spacer: compressible foam instead of solid plastic. Because the spacer itself compresses under pressure, the ramp-up arrives more gradually and the spring curve feels more linear and coil-like than with hard tokens, while still resisting bottom-out.

2Air

On the Selva R, the positive and negative air chambers are filled independently, with the negative valve at the bottom of the left leg. More negative pressure gives a suppler initial stroke for the same support, the same separation of jobs that DVO achieves with OTT, done here entirely with air.

The Range

• Selva S: single air chamber enduro fork
• Selva R: the 2Air version
• Selva C: coil sprung
• Belva: dual-crown enduro fork
• Nero C and Nero R: downhill forks, the R being the race model

Practical Advice

• Find out which CTS valve is fitted before judging the fork, because character complaints are often just the wrong valve
• Start from Gold and move towards the Traction series for grip in wet, rooty conditions, or the Support series for racing and bike-park work
• Add Neopos one at a time and re-test bottom-out
• On a Selva R, set the positive chamber for sag first, then tune the negative for small-bump feel