Like the Manitou Mattoc, the Sweep comes with 34mm stanchions and weighs around 1,900g. It also has the same axle-to-crown height as the Mattoc, although the offset is a little bit more — 46mm, compared to 44mm on the Mattoc.

This effectively steepens the head angle, but since the Sweep is a bit more propped up compared to the other forks on test, it wasn’t really noticeable.

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The fork gets a tapered steerer, a hollow-forged crown to save weight, magnesium lowers with post-mount 180 disc mount and a LockX 15mm tool-less axle system that screws directly into the dropouts.

It’s not exactly quick release, though, because the lever catches on the lowers as it turns, which means you can only rotate it 90 degrees at a time. It’s annoying more than anything, which is why we’d like to see a bolt-thru as an option.

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The air spring is adjusted via a valve on top of the fork, and that’s it. There are no volume reducers, so you can’t play around with the progression, and the coil negative spring is a fixed rate too.

LockX 15mm is tool-less but not faultless

The Sweep uses X-Fusion’s new sealed cartridge RoughCut damper, which has rebound and independent low-speed and high-speed compression adjustment.

All three make a significant difference to the ride, but the high-speed compression dial at the crown is a little tight and we’ve had one jam on a previous fork, so it’s a good idea to keep it lubricated. We’d also be careful when tightening that tiny 2mm fixing bolt on the hose clip because it’s easy to damage.

Adjusters work well so long as they’re lubed and dirt-free

Even running quite a lot of sag, the Sweep is pretty firm off the top and then tends to dive into the travel. Adding low-speed compression does stabilise the fork, but then you lose a lot of small bump compliance.

The Sweep came up short on damp and muddy trails, like those at the Forest of Dean, which is unfortunate because the RoughCut damper easily dealt with the square-edge impacts at BikePark Wales.

Ultimately, the Sweep just doesn’t have the grip levels of the Manitou Mattoc or RockShox Yari.

With a dual-air system and maybe tokens (so you could run more sag) you could maybe increase the small bump sensitivity, but X-Fusion is already playing catch-up, because there are better options on the market right now.