FOX Racing Shox

36 FLOAT 27.5 150 RC2 FIT Fork - 2015

The rapidly-expanding breed that is all-mountain bikes — and the corresponding growth of their capabilities — seeks out the best products by means of natural selection. The weakest and most fickle performers break, frustrate, and ultimately lose the faith of riders, and the herd moves on. Flourishing, thanks to its formidable genetic material, the new 2015 FOX 36 FLOAT 27.5 150 RC2 FIT Fork is the 150mm-travel brother in Fox's new 36mm stanchion family, and it's intent on dominating the planet.

The 36's chassis was the first area of scrutiny. The crown has been redesigned to be both lighter and lower, resulting in a shorter axle-to-crown measurement across the board, so that installing the fork means minimal — if any — alteration of the bike's front-end geometry, unlike when installing some other forks, including FOX's previous 36 series. The fork's lowers have been re-engineered to be lighter and stiffer, as well, resulting a chassis with greater rigidity, but weight figures that are very close to that of its smaller 34 series of forks. A newly formulated, higher-viscosity proprietary fork oil is now used, too.

The 36 essentially comes in two families: the adjustable TALAS versions and the non-adjustable FLOAT versions, like this one. On both, however, for 2015, the air spring systems have been revised. A reduced number of seals means that both operate more smoothly, but that's not all. TALAS springs have been re-tuned to ramp-up more toward full compression, making them more stable under big hits and extreme terrain, and thus friendly to more aggressive riders. The FLOAT forks now include volume-reducing spacers so that riders can fine-tune the system's ramp-up rate. The letters FIT designate that the fork is equipped with FOX Isolated Technology damper, which means that the fork's damper sits in an air-tight bladder, as opposed to a more common open bath system, making the damper more resistant to debris contamination and thus remaining smoother and more consistent between maintenance intervals.

The FLOAT acronym on the 27.5-inch 36 fork you see here stands for FOX Load Optimum Air Technology. It's not travel-adjustable on-the-fly like the TALAS version, but as mentioned, the volume of the FLOAT cartridge can be adjusted via internal spacers to more precisely dial in your preferred performance characteristics, in conjunction with the RC2 adjustment system. If you're wondering, the RC2 designation in the fork's title stands for Rebound, and the two different Compression settings (high-speed and low-speed) can be adjusted to dial the fork to your tastes.

The 2015 FOX FLOAT 36 27.5-inch 150 RC2 FIT Fork is for use with 27.5-inch wheels only, comes only in the color Black, and has a 1.125-1.5-inch tapered steerer tube.