There were a few factors that kept me from upgrading to the Zeb ultimate with butter cups. I had installed the Lyric upgrade kit into the Yari forks in my attempt to reduce vibrations. It kinda helped.
Trek had the Zeb ultimate available which conformed to the larger diameter headset (no frame step). That addressed my OCD with appearance in that area. But then there was the price …$1800 CDN. Not a cheap upgrade. The final deciding factor was the weight.
I’ve never bottomed-out my forks on 5’ drops or smallish jumps or rediculous climbs. But the micro-variations coming through my bar was driving me crazy. Hand cramps and wrist fatigue was my show-stopping factor. I had to fix that.
Tweaking the psi and some other adjustments on the Lyric forks helped. But experimenting with geometry, installing One-Up carbon bars, larger diameter grips, reduce tire psi, and new control angles for the brake levers, shifter and dropper…all helped.
I realized that the power of a Zeb fork wasn’t necessary for my type of riding …or my weight. Even though I got the approval from da-boss, I couldn’t justify the Zeb Ultimate upgrade. So I upgraded the dropper to an AXS Reverb instead. What a stupid luxury that was …but I love it

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