The most cursory examination of the bike press will reveal ads crammed with discounted RockShox forks. Many of them aren’t entirely kosher, though. RockShox sells forks to bike manufacturers to fit to new bikes, but some less-than-scrupulous companies sell forks on and they find themselves in the aftermarket retail channel at a reduced price. So what? we hear you cry. Well, for the most part, not a lot. The product is generally the same (although there are sometimes significant differences, like steel instead of aluminium steerers) but the big issue is that “original equipment” (OE) forks haven’t come through the UK distributor and thus have essentially no warranty backup. If anything goes wrong you’re relying on the retailer to sort things out.

For the most part, nothing goes wrong, and lots of people are happy to save money and take the chance. But the price gap between OE and official aftermarket forks is about to narrow, making the grey import option somewhat less attractive. Retail prices for the 2004 RockShox range are down across the board, with the Boxxer World Cup dropping from £999 to £899, the SID World Cup having a massive £150 knocked off (from £650 down to £450) and all Psylos and Dukes reduced by fifty quid. Which sounds like a good deal to us.

They’re all at www.ultimatepursuits.co.uk if you want to have a shufti.