The Torque Tube hub uses a massive axle with huge, knurled end caps.
There’s a huge amount of contact between the hub end caps and the fork dropouts too the hub really isn’t just part of the wheel so much as a vital component of the fork (and therefore the bike’s steering) itself. The hub rotates around a massive axle supported by oversized bearings, all secured by a 15mm Maxle.
With that behind us, onto the testing! Any initial questions we had about how RockShox would tame the matter of flex disappeared as soon as we got a proper look at the Torque Tube hub/axle system. Getting this thing right would have been a mammoth undertaking, and that’s reflected in the cost. We’re no engineers, but we can imagine the R&D involved in creating this carbon beauty wasn’t exactly carried out over a sandwich or two on a Thursday arvo. The RS-1 is very expensive, but take a look at it – this is not just another fork. Let’s deal with the elephant on the trail first the price tag. We’re no engineers, but we can imagine the R&D and testing involved in creating this carbon beauty wasn’t exactly carried out over a sandwich or two on a Thursday arvo. ‘Predictive Steering’ – the hub is a structural element of the fork as much as a part of the wheel. Regardless, offering this fork in a 120mm version clearly sends the message that RockShox feel the RS-1 is up to the job of technical trail riding too. The fork is available in 100mm and 80mm travel versions as well, and given its billing primarily as a cross country item, we’re sure the 100mm-travel version will be the most popular.
Over the course of testing, our RS-1 has been fitted to the front of a Trek Fuel EX 9.9 29er (the RS-1 is only available in a 29er format for now) so we opted for an RS-1 with 120mm travel to match the bike’s rear end. With such a novel design, we naturally came into this test with a lot of questions would the fork be stiff enough, would the unprotected stanchions prove to susceptible to damage, could the performance ever hope to justify the price? You can read all about our initial impressions of the fork here: Carbon fibre is used for the bulk of the construction, and an entirely new axle/fork interface has been implemented to deal with the torsional flex that traditionally plagues inverted designs. This clean slate approach sees a fork like no other. So the RS-1, with its inverted, largely carbon fibre construction certainly comes to the game with some serious stigmas to overcome! You get the feeling that RockShox have taken this one on as a real showpiece, to show what can actually be done when all the stops are pulled. There are no leg guards on the RS-1, but it hasn’t been an issue… yet. Similarly, the use of carbon fibre has been largely limited to fork crowns and steerers, and attempts to use carbon in the lowers of a fork have commonly resulted in excessive stiction. There have been relatively few attempts at developing inverted forks, and those forks that have been at least marginally successful have overwhelmingly been designed for downhill, where they have the benefit of dual crown construction and fewer weight constraints. Over the course of the last two decades, the development of mountain bike suspension has followed the conventional train of thought that upside-down fork construction just wasn’t really the way to go for mountain biking. The RS-1 is an exceptionally ambitious undertaking. Looks cool, right? The uninterrupted curve of the carbon crown doesn’t collect any mud either. Still have questions about lower leg vulnerability.Īnd, yes, few will be able to afford it.
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