The decals say '36' but those are some fat legs on that fork
The quest for stiffness continues with the apparent soft-release in the wild of a single crown Fox 38 fork with 38mm diameter stanchions.
>>> Best mountain bike suspension forks 2019
The fork was in action at the front of Richie Rude’s and Martin Maes’ race bikes during the weekend’s final round of the Enduro World Series in Zermatt, Switerland.
The demands placed on forks of being longer travel (170-180mm), combined with the larger 29in wheel size becoming the de-facto for enduro racers, has caused Fox to come out with the fattest stanchion single crown fork seen in the modern era (anyone remember Zzyzx forks and their Coke can-diameter legs?)
This isn’t the only thing we’ve seen lately that’s out there to stiffen up single crown forks. Earlier this month we ran a story on a new 1.8in headset standard.
Other than bigger stanchions, what else is new with the Fox 38? The truth is, we don’t know a whole bunch at the moment. Suffice to say there’s some features that have trickled down from the triple clamp Fox 40: a pair of air bleed ports on the lowers to release trapped air and improve off-the-top sensitivity, and a pinch bolt on one of the lower’s ‘feet’ to reinforce the thru axle.