Manitou Black Super Air £525
From: Raw 0131 440 2010

Manitou’s Black fork line is one of several all new fork line ups for 2002, replacing and extending the old Manitou SX line of mid to long travel single crown forks. The Black Super Air is the top fork in the line at £525.

Test Logbook: We stuck the fork onto our bike hours before we boarded the plane for Malaga and the Sierra Nevada mountains, care of Biking Bonkers. Our guide, Simon, then spoiled us rotten with two weeks of phenomenal Spanish off-road riding, varying from 2 hour “thanks for the lockout” road climbs, to countless switchback singletracks and dusty big ring drifting corner doubletrack on the way back down. Back home they’ve been dragged through the miserable autumn sludge and several downpours for another three weeks.

The architecture of the Black fork is new from the base up. The whole lower leg section is a one piece magnesium casting. Increased diameter (36mm) lower legs use large dropout tabs that wrap around and up the front of the leg, with a Hayes/Avid friendly post mount on the left hand side. The legs then swell to 48mm to give room for the bushing section and provide increased support for the V-bosses (disc specific versions of all Black forks without V bosses are also available).

Microlube grease ports are press fitted into the back of the legs for bushing lubrication, and in a similarly Pace-style move the new Black’s all use a rear brace moulded into the casting. This low flat brace ‘grows’ from the rear/inside quarter of the fork legs with a broad ‘keyhole’ profile to provide tyre clearance.

Short fork boots sit on the top lip of the lower legs, with a foam sponge ‘reservoir’ wiping the uppers down with motor oil (yes, that’s really what it says in the instructions) to reduce stiction, but it made us worry that our forks were already leaking oil until we read the booklet. 30mm stanchions are press fitted into a hollowed out, sloping shouldered crown with the butted steerer tube pressed into the top of them.

As you’d expect from a fork called the ‘Super Air’ the main spring medium is air. Don’t worry though the air itself is just normal slightly smoggy Californian air rather than anything ‘Super’ you need to buy specially. The air cartridge takes up the whole left leg with a small metal model dustbin-lid protecting the valve.

Travel adjustment 120 – 100mm is achieved by switching the supplementary spring over and inserting a washer behind the bottom out bumper on the compression rod. Certainly not as handy as an external flick switch – as used on other Black forks, and Rock Shoxs’ Psylo U-Turn. This supplementary coil spring can also be switched out to provide a firmer bottom out to the stroke. Sitting in the right leg (away from that disc brake heat) is the TPC cartridge with its separate compression and rebound piston assemblies. The compression damping can be partially or fully locked out with the metal lever at the top of the fork leg and once you get used to switching it on and off it’s a useful feature for honking up steep road hills. Actual adjustment of the compression damping rate is another pull apart and adjust internally job though.

We were less impressed with the damping adjustment at the far end of the fork however. At first the wide half turn dial with it’s ‘thumb’ lever curling round the side of the fork looks a good idea as it can be adjusted just by leaning over the front wheel without getting off the bike (but not while you’re moving before you think of trying). Trouble is the dial is also loose enough that any passing shrub can also adjust it. First time we thought it was a fluke, but lying in a bloody heap after a doomed pogo stick adventure through a series of rocky stepped switch backs after it had happened for the third time we gaffer taped it into position. Not to be outdone, it then blew its rebound entirely and as there are no manuals or experienced Black tinkerers in the UK yet, we’re waiting for a reply from the nice folks at Manitou. Chances are this is an early/pre-production issue as the forks were shipped direct from the ‘States. We’ve ridden other Blacks on bikes with no problem at all but obviously we’ll keep you updated.

Apart from it’s current over-eager rebound problems, the fork performed well. It took a couple of days severe beating on the donkey tracks of the Sierra Nevada before it plushed out fully but since then it’s been super smooth even over small road ripples, giving bags of cornering traction. Stiffness and tracking are definitely up on last years SX and massively so on the 2001 Mars we replaced them with. The large air chamber also gives a very linear stroke for an air sprung fork. However a couple of times we’ve really slammed into a compression spike near the bottom of the travel on landings. We’re not sure if this is the coil spring ramping up suddenly (or not at all), or – more likely – contact between the ends of the two compression rods that the spring separates. Either way we’d advise big hitters to increase pressure (already a relatively high 150psi – 11 stone rider) and lose small bump sensitivity for a more progressive main spring.

The really good news for British riders is that after two weeks of fine Spanish dust and another two weeks of Yorkshire autumn mud that the internals are totally clean and smooth running thanks to the oil sponge boots and quality seal set up.

Verdict so far: We’ll carry on abusing them and trying to sort that rebound issue but first impressions go something like this: Impressively stiff steering and tracking definitely on a par (if not exceeding) with what we felt on the quick rides we’ve had on 2002 Rock Shox forks and a significant improvement on older Manitous. Fans of ‘proper metal’ rather than plastic will like the top caps, but we’re not impressed by the rebound dial and it’s ‘bush adjust’ feature. Aesthetic quibbles include paint flaking off on the bottom of the legs and
Manitou’s slightly curious decision to use two different sized versions of the – admittedly splendid – plastic stick on Black logo’s on each side of the which tends to make things look slightly lopsided. Suspension action itself is very smooth and easy once broken in, but slip some extra pressure in there as the occasional heavy hit compression spike can be unsettling otherwise.

Adjustable travel seems to be a must have for 2002, but the Super Air definitely loses out to the fork top U-Turn adjusters of Rock Shox and even the bottom fork lever of other Blacks. The fork has excellent seals and wiper boots that have survived some vile weather totally unsullied, and a Greaseguard port for keeping things sweet without stripping. Stripping is also straightforward with no novelty circlips to lose or fragile seals to ease past. Keep watching the site for news of how we fix that pesky rebound and then we’ll get back to you with a slightly more definitive test and those scores on the doors some of you love.