Cane Creek

Helm 29 Boost Fork

The Helm 29 Boost Fork represents Cane Creek's foray into the high-end fork market, and is designed for discerning riders wanting a stout, highly-adjustable alternative to the other big brands on the market. With a variety of smooth travel options ranging from 100mm to 160mm, and burly 35-millimeter stanchions, this fork is plush throughout its stroke and has a stiff chassis that delivers precise tracking in rough terrain, an ideal setup for aggressive riders challenging their limits on technical trails. One question we had in mind when we heard Cane Creek was entering the fork business is whether or not they'd implement a twin-tube damper like the one found on their acclaimed Double Barrel rear shocks, but after 5-years of development Cane Creek found that a mono-tube damper is more effective for ease of service, weight savings, and reliability reasons.

You might be wondering what separates this damper from others on the market if it uses a similar closed-cartridge design that's used throughout the industry for reasons of fade-free performance and low weight. Well, it mostly boils down to the damper tune that's been honed in-house on the dyno and by its crew of in-house rippers and sponsored riders. Cane Creek realizes that no two rides or riders are alike, so this damper gives you the wide-ranging ability to tune 10 and 17 clicks of high and low-speed compression, with an additional 10 positions of low-speed rebound adjustment so you can dial in the ride to your terrain, style, and weight. In addition, the air spring has independent positive and negative chambers that allow you to tune the fork for a super supple initial stroke, or for a more supportive overall ride quality.

While some brands used to offer dual-air chambers as a means of further adjustment and the ability to tweak how plush the fork felt off the top of its stroke, many have abandoned it in the name of simplicity and cost savings. We've been fans of it for years and are sad to see it go, so it's refreshing that Cane Creek decided to use independent positive and negative air chambers allowing the rider to adjust the pressure in each chamber by simply depressing a valve to equalize both chambers, then adding or removing pressure in the positive chamber with your shock pump to get the fork to its desired ride feel. While this is a little fiddlier set-up than forks with self-equalizing chambers, it's a welcome feature for the discerning rider wanting to fine-tune every last detail in their fork's operation.

The other advantage of using two dedicated air chambers is it affords the ability to use one air spring and through the use of travel-adjust spacers, the Helm 29 Boost Fork features adjustable travel, thanks to its two included spacers. This option gives riders leeway in adjusting the handling and geometry of their current build, or if you build up a shorter or longer travel rig down the road and want to take your fork with you.

Last but not least, the Helm 29 Boost Fork allows riders the ability to tinker with the progressiveness of the air spring by re-adjusting an indexed rod and its static piston assembly. Removing this assembly and adjusting the piston up or down effectively changes how the fork ramps up all without adding volume spacers like you've come to expect with other forks. This gives you the ability to gain the progressive ramp-up desired for taking bigger hits and rallying across rock gardens without messing with volume spacers.