Cheap Suntour coil fork upgrade to ROCKSHOX 35 GOLD RL, worth it?

[Vaau839]

I've got a cheap SR Suntour XCM on a Cube Acid which is mainly used for city riding and easy trails, that fork is probably at the end of its life after more than 10k km. I was wondering if RockShox 35 GOLD RL would be a worthy upgrade for my use case or should I just ride my Suntour until it breaks. The upgrade would be around £150-160 (new fork, used wheel) which is not bad, considering I have to change out the wheel too.

 

[Jurassic]

I put a Gold 30 on my old bikepacking bike and it was surprisingly decent for the money and quite light as well. My one major criticism of it was that it was quite flexy with 30mm stanchions but that shouldn't be an issue on a 35mm chassis. Having had some experience of the cheapo Suntour forks on my wife's bike I'd say that it would be a significant upgrade on what you're riding just now.

 

[Tony4wd]

You don't need anything fancy for city and easy trails. Anything from Recon silver upwards will do the job. If you can pay a little more to jump to the next level of fork go for that.

 

[Vaau839]

You don't need anything fancy for city and easy trails. Anything from Recon silver upwards will do the job. If you can pay a little more to jump to the next level of fork go for that.

So I only got the idea of upgrading because there's a deal on 35 GOLD RL for £126 Inc delivery which seems to be cheaper than any other new air fork and it seems like it would be a noticeable upgrade from basic coil forks. RockShox 35 Gold RL DebonAir 29" BOOST Fork

 

[Tony4wd]

If you want to keep the bike grab that deal since it's a cheap upgrade (definitely an upgrade over worn XCM forks) . The alternative would be to put the money towards a dual suspension bike instead - depends on your priorities.

I just bought a new Orbea Rise for my wife since she only has a Cube Reaction - of course I'm riding it a lot for her to get it all straightened out and working how we like it

 

[Jurassic]

So I only got the idea of upgrading because there's a deal on 35 GOLD RL for £126 Inc delivery which seems to be cheaper than any other new air fork and it seems like it would be a noticeable upgrade from basic coil forks. RockShox 35 Gold RL DebonAir 29" BOOST Fork

Honestly, at that price you can't go far wrong. As I mentioned above it'll be a big improvement over the existing forks.

 

[Julie_X1]

So I only got the idea of upgrading because there's a deal on 35 GOLD RL for £126 Inc delivery which seems to be cheaper than any other new air fork and it seems like it would be a noticeable upgrade from basic coil forks. RockShox 35 Gold RL DebonAir 29" BOOST Fork

Husband has a 35 Gold RL. At that price, it’ll be a notable improvement over what you have now. Get it.

 

[Bndit]

I just upgraded from Suntour XCR=peace of shit fork to Gold 35 on my Aventura commuter and it was worth of every 330€ it costed

 

[Vaau839]

I just upgraded from Suntour XCR=peace of shit fork to Gold 35 on my Aventura commuter and it was worth of every 330€ it costed

Sounds good, should be day and night between air and old coils then. Got my order in.

 

[Hamina]

When buying RockShox 35 GOLD RL check (remove the pressure for example) that fork moves without any stickness. There was a batch around 2020-2021 where the bushings were I guess too tight. There's no way you can fix if not sent back to Rockshox to make factory recall.

 

[Vaau839]

Update: the difference between forks is absolutely mental, feels like riding on a perfectly paved road all the time compared to Suntour. Upper body fatigue is also much lower with a properly set up fork.
The swap was not as straightforward as I thought it would be since Cube cheaped out on a headset. It was only compatible with a straight steerer fork and had caged ball bearings so that had to be changed to a new one.