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With the introduction of its new 32 Step-Cast AX fork, Fox is jumping with both legs into the burgeoning market of suspension products aimed at the drop-bar adventure and gravel crowd.
The new fork has 40mm of travel and features a short-travel Float Evol spring (with increased negative chamber size for easier initial breakaway) tunable with the same volume spacers as Fox’s other 32mm offerings. Damping is provided by a Fit4 sealed cartridge that has three position settings: firm (full lock), medium, and fully open, with fine-tuning of the low-speed circuit in the fully open position. (Keep your ride in top condition with help from the custom-engraved Silca Wrench Kit, available in our online store!)
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The Fork will easily accept a 700x40mm or 275x47mm tires. A 15mm Kabolt thru-axle secures the wheel. (It can use a regular Fox/Shimano thru-axle, too). Rotor size is 160mm minimum.
Starting to sound familiar? You’d be right: The new 32 Step-Cast AX isn’t ‘all-new.’ It’s the result of tinkering with the existing 32 Step-Cast, a 27.5-inch XC fork with 100mm of travel, made new by chopping the ride height with a shortened air spring rod and bringing fork travel down to 40mm. And that’s a very good thing: Fox touts the design’s proven durability and sound engineering as a simple way to test the waters of suspension for gravel and adventure bikes.
If the new fork’s is received well, Fox will consider changing the architecture of the fork to improve its profile and aesthetics and shave some grams in the form of a dedicated chassis.
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But for now the story from the product launch we attended is, “We [a few employees at Fox] wanted it. So we built it. If you like it go for it, if not take a pass. No big deal. It was easy to make so we did it.”
The modification isn’t with out its drawbacks. Because the fork is an off-the-shelf offering designed around mountain bikes, it may not fit every adventure/’cross/gravel frame out there. With that in mind, Fox was very careful to lay out some guide lines: Make sure the fork clears the downtube of the bike you want to put it on. On some frames, the crown or controls can strike the down tube. Niner, Pivot, and a few others already make thicker headset baseplates that increase clearance by essentially lengthening the axle-to-crown distance. And Fox hinted at possibly producing a gauge in the crown’s silhouette as a way of testing fit.
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And because it is the same fork as the mountain version, it’s possible to swap the air spring back to the original and have a lightweight XC unit again, and vice versa.
Claimed weight is in the range of 2.9lbs. Crown to axle length is 427mm (normal ridged forks on this type of bike are in the 400mm range), so it won’t alter geometry too much, though bikes with steeper head angles are your best bet for conversion. Fork rake is 45mm, which is also in keeping with most gravel/'cross/adventure type bikes numbers.
We spent a glorious day ripping dirt roads on the new fork and are set up with a long-term test unit. Our initial impressions are good: The fork did what a good suspension fork should; it added control to steering, aided in traction and never seemed burdensome on the 4,000 feet of climbing we encountered over the course of our first ride. Check back soon for an in-depth review—meanwhile, the fork will begin shipping to dealers in May 2017.
