- Hey everyone, my name is Sarah Moore,
and today I'm here with Mike Levy
and you're watching the Pinkbike Awards.
- And today, we're gonna talk about
the Suspension Product of the year.
The 2020 was a pretty strange year
for a lot of people,
but it was a great year for suspension.
There are more forks to pick from than ever before
and more interesting options.
- So before we choose that winning fork,
we gonna lay down some rules.
So the fork had to be new
or technically different for this year.
And it also had to be available
for purchase November 1st.
- Right, and one other note
before we get onto our nominees,
is that this category is all about performance.
When it comes to Suspension Product of the year,
we don't take perceived value
or cost into consideration.
To win this award, you just gotta be good.
Speaking of performance, our first nominee,
it's the EXT ERA Fork.
And you may have heard that EXT name
before via their Arma and Storia coil sprung real shock
that have received basically nothing
but high praise,
and that's why we were so excited
when the ERA was released.
And guess what?
It did not disappoint.
Now, the usually reserved Kazimer.
He said this in the review,
this is an exact quote, "holy (audio glitch),
this thing is good,
but I still can't keep up with Levy".
(chuckles)
Okay, he didn't say that
but he did gush about the impressive damper
and air spring performance of the air fork.
- Well known for their WRC equipment
and historic dampers,
EXT has put a similar amount of work into this fork,
and that's why it made
the Suspension Product of the year list.
- Right, which brings us to our next product.
Fox's brand new 38.
- It's just an extra two millimeters over the 36,
isn't it?
- Well, not so much.
So the 38, it can be had with as much as
180 millimeters of travel.
And to make that work, Fox had to come up
with a chassis that was obviously stronger
than a 36 chassis.
So that means new lowers
and also a new fork crown that adds rigidity
but the real trick, well that's in the steer tube.
If you look down into that steer tube,
it actually has an oval shape.
So it's a butted front to back
to help increase the rigidity.
- [Sarah] And it's also got that grip to damper, right?
- New grip damper, and it has the Evolv air spring as well.
And for all those reasons, it's on our short list
to win Suspension Product of the year.
- Next up, we've got Ohlin's DH38 fork.
So it's not all trail and enduro forks here.
We've also got a dual crown fork
and it's on our list for possibly
the Suspension Product of the year.
- Yeah, it's made our list because
Ohlin's has made the DH38 even better.
It has some improvements to an already impressive damper
and it's still using that three chamber air spring.
And Sarah, that sounds quite complicated to adjust.
- Lots of chambers.
- Right?
Three of them - whoah.
- Two more than usual.
(laughs)
Well, one more than usual.
My math isn't so good,
but what it does is,
it gives you an incredibly wide spring tuning range.
So you're not using any of those bottomless tokens
and you can adjust how that fork
feels in the middle of it's stroke.
which is pretty interesting.
Now that's not where the adjustments end though,
you can drop the travel down to 120 millimeters,
you know. - Down country.
- Right.
(laughs)
If you want your dual crown down country fork
and you can get it with four different crowns,
depending on the geometry you wanna use.
Now, as far as performance goes, well,
it wouldn't be on our list if it didn't impress us.
And if you read Dan Roberts' review
earlier this year.
You'll know that it blew him away.
And that's why it's on our list to win one of these.
And that brings us to the next fork.
RockShox ZEB
- If your thing is big travel
and in a single crown fork,
then this year has been good to you.
The ZEB has 38 millimeter upper tubes
and then it also has 190 millimeters of travel.
- Inside, you'll find ZEB specific versions
of their high-end charger 2.1 damper,
and as well as the debonair air spring system,
and both of those are proven performers.
But before we go to real drops,
we have to get to our next nominee
and that's Cain Creek Helm MK11 fork.
So I was a big fan of the Helm
when it was first released Sarah.
And mostly because of its stout chassis
and the heavily damped feel.
But also because it's really adjustable,
you can adjust the travel range
between I don't exactly remember
but the travel adjustment range is huge.
And now Cane Creek has gone
and made a bunch of updates
to bring the fork more in line.
So it can compete with
some of the other new forks.
- The newest version of the Helm fork
still uses the manually adjustable
positive and negative air chambers
which can take a little bit more time
but they add a whole other dimension
to the tunability
- Right, and you can also adjust the travel
as well internally and the ramp up
and all of those components are kept
inside the fork as well.
So you're not going to lose any spacers
or washers or anything like that.
So with an updated damper and the same burly chassis,
the second generation helm is a worthwhile option,
If you're looking for a fork
that's a little bit different
than the big players out there.
All right, and that brings us to our winner,
the 2020 Suspension...
- Wait, wait, before we say the winner,
we have to say that we're a couple
of honorable mentions.
- Always.
- So there was a Fox 36, Z1,
there was a DT Swiss' 232,
and there was also the Formula MOD shock
- But the winner for 2020 Suspension Product of the year,
Ohlin's with their DH38.
Now the DH38 has an insane level of adjustability.
And not just inside the fork.
You can also tune how your bike handles
using the crowns, and well it's damper,
read Dan Roberts' review
to see how impressed he was by that thing.
And for that reason,
the DH38 wins Suspension Product of the year.
Ohlin's, - Congratulations.
- check your mail.
We got one of these bad boys coming to you real soon.
I think it'll say something.
I think it'll say...
- Suspension Product of the year probably.
- It's not just going to be a black.
- No (chuckles).
- Let me say Ohlin's Suspension...
- Ohlin yeah.
- Okay, good. - Yeah.
- We should put some gold on it for them maybe.
- I think there will be gold.
- I'm gonna have to do it now and then let's go.
(laughs)