Suntour new fork. Negative Air Spring main feature

[Eddy Current]

Battle of the forks continue. I read negative air can be both the glory and a PITA. They come cheap and for real world testers words on the current models they say they don’t perform bad at all. Now simple and normal question ... high end Durolux or basic Zeb?

SR Suntour announce details of new 2020 Durolux EQ Enduro, Freeride and e-MTB Fork

SR Suntour have released deails of the 2020 Durolux enduro and freeride fork. Available in May, the Durolux is uodated with an air negative spring.

bikerumor.com

 

[Dirtnvert]

Battle of the forks continue. I read negative air can be both the glory and a PITA. They come cheap and for real world testers words on the current models they say they don’t perform bad at all. Now simple and normal question ... high end Durolux or basic Zeb?

SR Suntour announce details of new 2020 Durolux EQ Enduro, Freeride and e-MTB Fork

SR Suntour have released deails of the 2020 Durolux enduro and freeride fork. Available in May, the Durolux is uodated with an air negative spring.

bikerumor.com

Suntour manufacturers DVO. It sounds like they've added their equuvalent to dvo's "ott"(an adjustable air negative spring). Probably a legit fork. My dvo diamond has been a great fork. Ive been wanting to get an onyx sc 29er for that reason. Good price too.
Zeb puts rs at another level though. 1/2lb lighter than a 38, 150-190 travel options and the added air volume sounds pretty sweet feeling. Also a good price.
Zeb may have sidelined my onyx dream. Zeb has a dual position 150-180 fork too. I thought that'd be nice on my new 160 travel 9er enduro bike. I could short stroke the rear shock to have a 148rear/150front trail bike(with steeper angles in 150 mode) with the option of switching to 180 for the long downs. With a coil rear at 160 and a 180 zeb (maybe mulletized) it'd be a freeride/park weapon. That could work for a long travel 9er eeb just as well but i think i want 170 or 180 rear with a 190 zeb now. Sooo many tough decisions living the dream

 

[Eddy Current]

So anybody has experience with that negative air spring in other forks? @Gary?

 

[Dirtnvert]

All forks/shocks have a negative spring. Forks originally used coils as negative springs. Air just makes it adjustable. Most of the time the adjustment is more or less psi. Dvo also has ott and that is another adjustment of the negative spring volume. With an allen key there is a screw on the bottom of one fork leg and you can make tge volume of the negative spring chamber bigger or smaller. Bigger volume acts like a meg neg can on a rock shock air shock. It will make it more supple in the initial stroke so you can add a touch more air in the positive chamber. In effect giving you more support with the added psi in the pos chamber and also being more active/supple on the initial travel with the bigger volume neg spring/chamber. Adding psi to the negative spring puts tension on the air seal on both sides of the seal. Pressure from the neg chamber and pressure from the pos chamber and that pressure from both sides gets rid of a lot of the stiction in the air seal to keep your fork active. With dvo's ott you could go the other way and make the chamber smaller and make it feel like an xc fork if you wanted

 

[Dirtnvert]

Sorry Eddy. I was incorrect on the dvo neg spring. The dvo ott has a steel spring that is their neg spring to counteract the air positive spring. Fair size spring that does add some weight.