I was keen to get my hands on the 2002 Rock Shox Sid Sls for a couple of reasons. Firstly I wanted to give them the supposed “breaking in” that air forks require, before a mid-October trip away from autumnal England to sunnier climes with my bike. Secondly my electric blue 98 Sid XCs (although “the” classic Sid colour) did not match my bike, and being a typical bike tart, black was needed for the perfect match to the other components on my M4 S-works!

At an advertised 2.8lbs, this weighed out to be true once the steerer was cut to length; so this is no weight saving on either last years SLs or my aged 98XCs. I’d have to upgrade to the Sid Race to manage that (and only 0.02lb at that) with more of a dent to my wallet.

Once fitted onto the bike, the nicely engineered shock pump was, in conjunction with the Schrader valves at the top and bottom of the left hand leg, used to get the forks to near compression and rebound settings. I then went for a bounce around to fine-tune them and immediately I was surprised at how plush the compression was. Checking the air pressure was correct (it was!) the forks just felt lush straight out of the box, no stiction at all even over a lightly gravelled path. I can only assume the new XXX seals aren’t as tight and clingy as they used to be and the bushings are doing their job well. They felt like a good pair of air and oil forks, totally unlike air forks from any of the manufacturers, which was a real surprise to me. Getting the air pressure took a bit of doing though, and a certain amount of initial fettling is required to get this right both before hitting the trails and during.

Next day the sun beckoned and it was time to put them through their proper purpose on the slightly sticky North Downs. The other feature that I was looking forward to trying out was the “Climb-it” control which would allow me to lock the forks out whilst climbing or doing a road stretch. This is initiated by the red boiled sweet looking switch on the top of the right leg which has indents to allow the fork to be semi-locked out in a kind of compression control way. The lock-out works perfectly, but the travel from full compression to full lock is not gradual in that the first 2/3rds of turn has very little affect with only the last six clicks having any discernible difference. This isn’t as accurate as the old push/pull knob on my old XCs (which were dual air as well) which allowed me to fine tune the forks to a high degree, but at least the knob is a little more to hand. However there is a rebound knob at the bottom of the right leg, which does its job admirably, and I quickly found the correct setting for my riding style and body weight.

Again, the small bump soaking effect was noticeable with the 80mm travel coping well with bigger, though I never blew through all the travel whilst fully locked out (an apparent blow out valve is equipped to deal with this). The other noticeable difference is the tracking that is instant and flex free, especially when thrashing through rooty singletrack. Pretty good for such a light fork. Also the fore and aft movement is negligible, that bendy sensation when applying braking is almost non-existent, again due to the new oversize bushings within the fork.

So overall I’m pleased with their performance and looking forward to riding them in the somewhat drier conditions of the Majorca’s mountains. I would like to try the Sid Race’s now as the new “Titanium Nitride” techno wizardry that has been applied to the stanchions are supposed to make the fork even plusher! However they only come in “electric blue”. Now if Rockshox did me a pair in black…