How often do you service your forks?

[PomBstard]

I've been using Fox Floats on the Yeti for about 6 or 7 years and find that a full service every 18-24 months, usually incorporating a headset change, keeps everything sweet. I did have a brief dalliance with some Revelations, and whilst I liked the fork, didn't keep the long enough to be serviced.

The Marzocchi Flylight Airs on Mrs PB's bike, from 1999/2000, have been serviced precisely once. Probably about due now, though they have had a relatively easy last 5 years, compared to the previous 10.

[s4avant]

The shock absorbers for say a BMW 5 series cost approx £150 a corner and will generally last up to 50000 miles, carrying a load of approx 450kg at speeds of up to 70mph.
Hit a pothole at this speed, with the load carried and you are talking about serious forces being generated!
Compare this to your standard mountain bike.
The cost of each of the fork legs is probably in the region of £300-£500,they carry a load of approx 75kg at at speeds of up to 25mph and yet they need serviced every 150miles or so.
What's going on here?
These bike forks are either really poorly designed, overly fragile, grossly overpriced or a combination of all three and we are being asked to service them every 6 months!
The manufacturers are having a laugh!

[Kermit power]

s4avant said:

The shock absorbers for say a BMW 5 series cost approx £150 a corner and will generally last up to 50000 miles, carrying a load of approx 450kg at speeds of up to 70mph.
Hit a pothole at this speed, with the load carried and you are talking about serious forces being generated!
Compare this to your standard mountain bike.
The cost of each of the fork legs is probably in the region of £300-£500,they carry a load of approx 75kg at at speeds of up to 25mph and yet they need serviced every 150miles or so.
What's going on here?
These bike forks are either really poorly designed, overly fragile, grossly overpriced or a combination of all three and we are being asked to service them every 6 months!
The manufacturers are having a laugh!

I suspect amongst other things, they would say...

1. Weight savings are relatively far more important on a bike powered by a 1/2 horsepower human than a 150 horsepower petrol engine.

2. The fact that there is so much more weight in the car can actually be a benefit when it comes to things like overcoming friction, so you can have a much rougher ride from the car shock absorber than you can from the MTB fork without noticing.

[P-Jay]

s4avant said:

The shock absorbers for say a BMW 5 series cost approx £150 a corner and will generally last up to 50000 miles, carrying a load of approx 450kg at speeds of up to 70mph.
Hit a pothole at this speed, with the load carried and you are talking about serious forces being generated!
Compare this to your standard mountain bike.
The cost of each of the fork legs is probably in the region of £300-£500,they carry a load of approx 75kg at at speeds of up to 25mph and yet they need serviced every 150miles or so.
What's going on here?
These bike forks are either really poorly designed, overly fragile, grossly overpriced or a combination of all three and we are being asked to service them every 6 months!
The manufacturers are having a laugh!

Okay

Firstly Cost:

A suspension fork is far more complex than a Car damper - it contains the spring element as well as the damping, it's adjustable, it has to put up with far greater forces acting on it because it's not anchored at both ends like a car shock absorber so it has to be stronger, it's much, much lighter, it's made in much smaller numbers.


Servicing:

Riders expect a extremely plush action from their forks which means very smooth seals, which are great for a lovely plush ride but pretty terrible as actually keeping out mud and rain - plus of course they have to deal with more mud and crap than any 5 series ever would. Plus riders demand the lowest weight possible which means the bare minimum amount of oil possible.


You can buy Car suspension that's akin to high-end MTB stuff, adjustable, rebuild-able, serviceable and all that - we used to use LEDA stuff on a little racer we had - beautiful stuff, cost an absolute fortune of course and there are plenty of MTB shocks and forks that are more akin to OE car stuff, heavy, non-adjustable etc etc - they're cheap too RST forks cost less than £100 usually and they're crap.