• Magura Durin forks
• £499
• www.magura.com

Magura’s current range of forks clearly fits some sort of application bell-shaped curve – it has a lot to offer in the middle, trail-riding ground, plus the stonking Wotan hanging out in one of the long tails. The pure XC niche, though, has only recently been occupied by the new-for-2008, 1.5kg (3.3lb) Durin.

Available in 80 or 100mm options, the air-sprung Durin shares the distinctive dual-arch lowers with the rest of the range. They slide on 32mm stanchions plugged in to a 6082-T6 crown. The dropouts are angled forward at 45° as is the current wheel-ejection-avoiding vogue, and post mounts accommodate your brake caliper – a standard PM caliper will mount straight on if you’re using a 6in rotor, but the forks are rated for up to 8in if you feel the need.

Other than the air valve and a rebound damping adjuster, the only other control on the fork is the lockout lever. Magura’s DLO “dynamic lockout” doesn’t completely lock the fork – flick the lever (aftermarket forks come with a bar-mounted remote) and you’re left with a few mm of give. That means that the fork isn’t sat right at the top of its travel making the steering go weird, and you get a tiny amount of movement to aid traction.

Magura forks have been coming on in leaps and bounds in recent years, and the Durin is fantastic. After a bit of breaking in it’s smooth, controlled performance all the way, and those twin arches and generally sturdy construction certainly do the job when it comes to stiffness. You really don’t have to make allowances for having a light fork – any line that you’d tackle with a heavier 100mm fork is fair game with this.

You’re getting much more than “just” an XC race fork here. The Durin 100 doesn’t lack for stoutness, it’s rated for up to 210mm brake rotors and there’s absolutely no reason just to go out and ride hard for the hell of it. It’s a sturdy-feeling fork by any standards, let alone 3.3lb fork standards. There’s no doubt that lightweight XC forks aren’t as light as they once were, but anyone who’s ridden an original 2.4lb RockShox SID probably won’t see that as a bad thing.

While Magura’s offering may not be quite as laden with adjustments as some of the competition, we didn’t miss anything. The compression damping out of the box is finely judged, doing a great job of countering bob and brake dive. Indeed, it’s stable enough that we didn’t feel the need to use the sag-retaining lockout lever, although if faced with a long Tarmac climb we’d probably be tempted.

While five hundred quid is definitely at the spendy end of the fork spectrum, the Durin is actually quite competitively priced in its market. Obvious rivals like Marzocchi’s Marathon Corsa SL and DT Swiss XRC100 are both significantly more expensive (althought the DT is 100g lighter). And (for a bit of an upcharge) you can get a Durin in a choice of white, yellow, orange, pink, red, olive, turquoise, dark blue or silver…

Positives: Light yet stout, class-leading performance, competitive price

Negatives: Mud clearance with big tyres could be better

Verdict: We’re trying really hard not to say that 2008 could be a breakthrough year for Magura, because we’ve been saying that “this’ll be Magura’s year” for at least the last three. But with forks as good as the Durin, the German brand really does deserve to succeed. One thing’s for sure, RockShox’s forthcoming new SID is going to have its work cut out…

Performance: 5/5
Value: 5/5
Overall: 5/5