2012 marks a big year for Fox Racing Shox, with a major revamp of its entire range with new including rolling out Kashima technology on to more forks and shocks since they first introduced it

To make it easier to pick the Fox product for you, the company has a new hierarchy for the range, with Evolution, Performance and Factory. The Evo range is the stuff you’ll likely find fitted as original equipment on bikes, so Performance is the affordable stuff we expect most people to buy aftermarket as upgrades, and Factory is the real top-end stuff where you’ll find all the latest tech.

New shocks for 2012

Whatever your choice of fork, it’s highly likely your bike will feature a Fox shock nestled in amongst the main triangle, and here Fox has given its shocks, both air cans and coil overs, a big update.

The most notable difference is the Kashima coating. It first appeared last year but has become standard this year on the top-end Factory line of shocks, including, as pictured here, the RP23 and DHX Air and DHX coil units. The new coating dramatically decreases friction in the shocks giving a much smoother feel, with less force required to break through that small degree of stiction in the seals so small bump sensitivity will be enhanced.

As well as improved performance, one key change we’re glad to see is a simplified operation of the ProPedal damping on the RP23 shock, which they’re calling Adaptive Logic. Now, when you flick the lever you can switch between ProPedal being permanently on (in the ‘3’ setting) or ‘0’, ‘1’ o ‘2’ when pushed in the opposite direction.

So it’s either on, which is great for those pedally bits or climbing when you want the ProPedal damping activated, and when you get to the fun part of the ride you can simply flick to your favoured ProPedal setting, either completely open or a spot of light damping. A bit less to think about when you’re riding we reckon and a more suited to how most people actually ride their bikes.

The Kashima coating will be available on the FLOAT RP23, FLOAT RP2, DHX Air 5.0 and DHX RC4 shocks.

The new shocks will go nicely with the new Fox 34 29er 140mm fork released this year too.