It was easy even for the eagle-eyed to miss the new fork that Mathias Flückiger rode to the elite win at the first XC World Cup of the season, finishing completely covered in the mud of Albstadt. But a week later, he lined up in Nove Mesto on a clean bike. And we got a good look at his prototype DT Swiss XC mountain bike fork, which looks set to supersede the reverse arch OPM family.Advertisements
Prototype DT Swiss 100mm XC mountain bike fork
Dt Swiss Xrc100 Race Win Shot 1
Swiss mountain biker Mathias Flückiger races cross-country for the Thömus RN Swiss team, who rode last season on Fox suspension, but this year switched over to DT Swiss wheels, X313 shocks & forks. While other members of his team rode the current DT OPM 100 Race forks with a carbon crown and gold reverse arch lowers, Flückiger alone was on this unlabeled prototype – conveniently lined up at the start next to a current DT fork for comparison.
So how do we know this is a prototype DT Swiss F 232 ONE fork?
Besides the fact that the team is sponsored by DT and all other teammates were on DT forks, this one doesn’t really look like a DT Swiss fork. But a close up view does reveal some angular similarities with the F 535 One trail bike forks that DT Swiss introduced last summer.
Like the trail fork, this new XC race fork drops the reverse arch design for similarly shaped angular arch with a straight center section. It also uses straight (no bulges) lower legs with a blocky offset at the axle.
Holistic Suspension tech for XC?
Oh, and both the Thömus team & DT Swiss race support were completely tight-lipped on any details when I asked them, and kept the forks just out of clear view as much as possible over the race weekend.
I did spot a number of DT-connected mechanics wearing Holistic Suspension tee shirts at an XC race. That’s a name for the new Plushport position-sensitive damping tech debuted on the F 535 One that promises suppleness over small bumps, mid travel support & progression for the big hits. To make that work for longer travel DT combines coil & air springs in the F 535. It’s unclear if they will try to do that here in a lightweight XC race fork too?
Looking through the team’s tent while the mechanic was prepping Flueckiger’s bike, you can see a large open window in the back of each leg, providing access to adjuster controls. I don’t think those are the holes they mean by ‘Holistic Suspension’, though.
A closer look at its backside reveals the webbing of the thin fork brace of the one-piece magnesium? Tokyo ghoul saison 3. lowers, the bolt-thru attachment of the front brake line guide (on the left), and the smooth underside of the alloy crown and pressed in 1.5″ steerer tube.
Looking more closely at the forged crown, it appears that that this could be pulled straight from the current mid-range OPM forks. It has the same smooth ribbed shape and scalloped sockets for the stanchions (also suggesting that this prototype maintains 32mm diameter sliders.)
Where the arch meets the lowers, the fork gets some machined out relief channels mimicking the graphics on the new F 535, but presumably here to shave weight.
Up top, the prototype fork looks the have the same Remote Control compression lockout hardware from DT’s current O.D.L. internals (Open, Drive, Lock).
You can also see here again the oddly thinned, section at the center of the fork arch. Perhaps that fits together with a detachable front fender like on the F 535 One fork, but it seems like a strange place to shave away a small amount of material that has to have some impact of stiffness.
Lord of war bande annonce vf youtube. The offset at the dropout seems excessively boxy. All other DT Swiss forks have used an externally relieved design, but from seeing the back of the fork, perhaps they are relieved internally.
(Sidebar: can you guess the weight of Flückiger’s 29×2.25″ Racing Ray tires? 3g over Schwalbe’s claim.)
The bottom of the prototype fork’s lowers are completely hollow, and include large cutout windows that reveal some of what is going on inside. In the right leg you get a glimpse of a long red anodized control knob that likely controls rebound settings. But that knob is long enough to be accessed from the bottom of the fork leg, suggesting another reason for the cutouts.
My assumption is that the window actually is there to allow access to machine out excess material in those boxy axle offsets.
This is the carbon Tomcat hardtail that Flückiger won the Albstadt XC World Cup on, albeit cleaned up again after that muddy race. It and the 100mm carbon Lightrider full-suspension he raced to 3rd place at Nové Město appeared to have the only two of these prototype DT Swiss forks floating around.
As of now DT Swiss hasn’t given us any other information on the development of this fork. I will go out on a limb and suggest that it might be named the DT Swiss F 232 ONE 100 based on DT’s naming convention for their recent trail-enduro fork. Seeing it only on one pro’s bike suggests it is still a relatively early prototype, so I doubt we will get any more concrete information on it before late in the summer at earliest.
But for fans of DT suspension (the existing ODL controls are some of the best around & the Plushport tech in the trail fork seems promising), it’s nice to hear that a new cross-country fork is in the works. And it has already won an XC World Cup in the first big race of the season, with six elite podiums under Flückiger already in 2019.
Our rating 3.5 out of 5 star rating 3.5
GBP £775.00 RRP | USD $1,299.94 Skip to view deals
DT Swiss XRC 100 Twin Shot suspension fork review
Our review
Expensive but exceptionally light yet usefully tight and controlled race fork
The XRC 100 weighs just 1,286g. A lot of the weight loss, and cost, comes from its single-piece carbon lower legs with hollow, rear-facing brace. Magnesium dropouts are plugged onto the bottom with neatly sculpted direct-fit brake mounts.
Despite its skinny 28.6mm stanchions and hollow magnesium crown, the XRC tracks and brakes okay; certainly better than the carbon-topped World Championship version we’ve tested previously. The Twin Shot damping gives a tight top-end feel, with an optional remote compression lockout lever for sprinters and bob haters.
It’s smooth over big stuff, but dives fast and kicks back if you’re not accurate with the independently adjustable rebound and compression settings. The high price doesn’t include a shock pump, which seems tight. Reliability of most DT Swiss forks we’ve tested has been excellent, with no sign of wear in a year of hard use on our XMMs.
Product Specifications
Product
Name | XRC 100 Twin Shot suspension fork (11) |
Brand | DT Swiss |
Description | Axle: QR, Travel: 100mm, 80mm, Adjustments: rebound, low speed compression, optional remote lockout |
Weight (g) | 1286 |
Steerer Size | 1 1/8 |
Spring Type | Air |
Spring Adjustment | Air pressure |
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It was easy even for the eagle-eyed to miss the new fork that Mathias Flückiger rode to the elite win at the first XC World Cup of the season, finishing completely covered in the mud of Albstadt. But a week later, he lined up in Nove Mesto on a clean bike. And we got a good look at his prototype DT Swiss XC mountain bike fork, which looks set to supersede the reverse arch OPM family.Advertisements
Prototype DT Swiss 100mm XC mountain bike fork
Swiss mountain biker Mathias Flückiger races cross-country for the Thömus RN Swiss team, who rode last season on Fox suspension, but this year switched over to DT Swiss wheels, X313 shocks & forks. While other members of his team rode the current DT OPM 100 Race forks with a carbon crown and gold reverse arch lowers, Flückiger alone was on this unlabeled prototype – conveniently lined up at the start next to a current DT fork for comparison.
So how do we know this is a prototype DT Swiss F 232 ONE fork?
Besides the fact that the team is sponsored by DT and all other teammates were on DT forks, this one doesn’t really look like a DT Swiss fork. But a close up view does reveal some angular similarities with the F 535 One trail bike forks that DT Swiss introduced last summer.
Like the trail fork, this new XC race fork drops the reverse arch design for similarly shaped angular arch with a straight center section. It also uses straight (no bulges) lower legs with a blocky offset at the axle.
Holistic Suspension tech for XC?
Oh, and both the Thömus team & DT Swiss race support were completely tight-lipped on any details when I asked them, and kept the forks just out of clear view as much as possible over the race weekend.
I did spot a number of DT-connected mechanics wearing Holistic Suspension tee shirts at an XC race. That’s a name for the new Plushport position-sensitive damping tech debuted on the F 535 One that promises suppleness over small bumps, mid travel support & progression for the big hits. To make that work for longer travel DT combines coil & air springs in the F 535. It’s unclear if they will try to do that here in a lightweight XC race fork too?
Looking through the team’s tent while the mechanic was prepping Flueckiger’s bike, you can see a large open window in the back of each leg, providing access to adjuster controls. I don’t think those are the holes they mean by ‘Holistic Suspension’, though.
A closer look at its backside reveals the webbing of the thin fork brace of the one-piece magnesium? lowers, the bolt-thru attachment of the front brake line guide (on the left), and the smooth underside of the alloy crown and pressed in 1.5″ steerer tube.
Looking more closely at the forged crown, it appears that that this could be pulled straight from the current mid-range OPM forks. It has the same smooth ribbed shape and scalloped sockets for the stanchions (also suggesting that this prototype maintains 32mm diameter sliders.)
Where the arch meets the lowers, the fork gets some machined out relief channels mimicking the graphics on the new F 535, but presumably here to shave weight.
Up top, the prototype fork looks the have the same Remote Control compression lockout hardware from DT’s current O.D.L. internals (Open, Drive, Lock).
You can also see here again the oddly thinned, section at the center of the fork arch. Perhaps that fits together with a detachable front fender like on the F 535 One fork, but it seems like a strange place to shave away a small amount of material that has to have some impact of stiffness.
The offset at the dropout seems excessively boxy. All other DT Swiss forks have used an externally relieved design, but from seeing the back of the fork, perhaps they are relieved internally.
(Sidebar: can you guess the weight of Flückiger’s 29×2.25″ Racing Ray tires? 3g over Schwalbe’s claim.)
The bottom of the prototype fork’s lowers are completely hollow, and include large cutout windows that reveal some of what is going on inside. In the right leg you get a glimpse of a long red anodized control knob that likely controls rebound settings. But that knob is long enough to be accessed from the bottom of the fork leg, suggesting another reason for the cutouts.
My assumption is that the window actually is there to allow access to machine out excess material in those boxy axle offsets.
This is the carbon Tomcat hardtail that Flückiger won the Albstadt XC World Cup on, albeit cleaned up again after that muddy race. It and the 100mm carbon Lightrider full-suspension he raced to 3rd place at Nové Město appeared to have the only two of these prototype DT Swiss forks floating around.
As of now DT Swiss hasn’t given us any other information on the development of this fork. I will go out on a limb and suggest that it might be named the DT Swiss F 232 ONE 100 based on DT’s naming convention for their recent trail-enduro fork. Seeing it only on one pro’s bike suggests it is still a relatively early prototype, so I doubt we will get any more concrete information on it before late in the summer at earliest.
But for fans of DT suspension (the existing ODL controls are some of the best around & the Plushport tech in the trail fork seems promising), it’s nice to hear that a new cross-country fork is in the works. And it has already won an XC World Cup in the first big race of the season, with six elite podiums under Flückiger already in 2019.
With the Leadville Trail 100 just around the corner, Specialized is here once again to answer the important questions. Namely, does grabbing your fork crown actually create any sort of aero advantage that could be used over the course of a long race like Leadville? Do aerodynamics matter off road? Is there a ‘fastest’ position?
Starting with a Specialized Epic full suspension mountain bike, Specialized used the average speed of last year’s Leadville winner Howard Grotts at about 26Kph to set the wind speed. Measuring the amount of drag in four different positions, the results were somewhat surprising. Keep in mind that this is over the entire 104 mile course, but if you could maintain an aero position for the entire race, you could save up to 23 minutes. But – no one is going to be able to use that position over the whole course, but in the areas where it is possible, it could actually save you valuable seconds or even minutes on the clock.
Dt Swiss Xrc100 Race Win Shot Video
They’re not the first to consider aerodynamics for this race. Check out our interview with Jeremiah Bishop from a couple years ago about how they were going to attack the course with a few frame mods.
Specialized seems to make these videos just remind everyone they have a win tunnel