(Mine has a gloss black finish)
Product name: Suntour Zeron 36X Boost EQ 29" (Budget fork option)
Price paid: €2700 - but came with a free bike.
Score (out of 10): 3
I was quite hopeful for this fork after seeing several positive reviews of the Durolux with the RC2 damper.
Suntour in theory make some nice products and have had a few good innovations. Rockshox's buttercups are licenced from Suntour for instance.
I imagined the fork would still be reasonably capable but just lack a tiny bit of finesse and most of the adjustability of the Durolux.
The previous version of the Zeron was a coil fork which had some favourable reviews.
The fork comes in three damper versions 3CR, 2CR and RC - these are the different dampers with RC being the most adjustable in theory. It's available in 120mm, 130mm, 140mm, 150mm and 160mm. I have the 160mm.
It's rated upto a 220mm disk.
Weighs in about 2520 with axle and without it's mudguard.
I've no idea what the fork's actually supposed to cost as I can't find any for sale. The coil version was about €500.
I can't find any reviews either, so I have nothing to compare it to so far.
The positives :
The fork comes with it's own bolt on mudguard which fits well and does the basics.
Externally it looks well made and well finished. The air spring seems to work and the fork itself feels stiff, stiffer than a Fox 36 for example.
Offers solid support on Tarmac and holds the wheel in place well.
There's no sag markings, but it's not overly hard to measure and set your sag.
The negatives :
This is where a lack of other information makes this part uncertain.
It supposedly comes with "nice aluminium adjusters". My low speed compression is nice and aluminium. It has about 720 degrees of rotation but is mushy at either end and has 5 random clicks at varying intervals. The rebound is a little plastic knob, which in my case has infinite adjustability in both directions.
Changing either seems to make absolutely no difference to the forks performance, though it does offer low speed suspension movement and you can work your way through the travel in the right conditions.
The high speed damping feels like it's 100% closed. Riding faster over anything slightly rough is just uncomfortable and coming off any drop, jump or even a bump is like slamming flat to concrete. You don't even want to ping off a kerb or a speedbump with this as it just hurts - so it's not even looking good for the urban MTB'er
Is this how the fork's supposed to feel or is it faulty ?? I have to imagine it's faulty as I can't believe anyone would make a fork this bad in this day and age.
I did reach out to Suntour via their contact form to ask if this would be the expected performance for this fork. It lets you choose if you're a professional or an individual and you fill out lots of pertinent information about your product and issue.
Every credit to Suntour, they did respond. But only to politely say go away, we don't talk to the public.
Would be really interested to see if anyone has any positive experiences with this fork.
I'll be sending this one back to Bikester, who will send it to Suntour and so on .. However, I doubt I'll ever bother to use it again.
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