Sea Otter Report: Avid and Rock Shox

Avid Elixir Trail Brakes

Avid found success with the release of the four piston X0 Trail brakes last year, and now the same tech is headed down the component line-up with the introduction of the Elixir 9 and Elixir 7 Trail brakes.

Much like the X0 version, the 9 and 7 series use a smaller and larger set of pistons, which increases brake power and offers a bit of “toe-in” effect to decrease brake noise. The caliper itself is no heavier than the standard Elixir version, a testament to the designers and engineers removing as much weight as possible. These aren’t heavy brakes in any way, a front Elixir 9 weighs 350 grams, and the Elixir 7 is only 5 grams more.

The Elixir 9 gets a carbon lever and pad contact adjustment to customize brake feel, the 7 sports an alloy lever and no pad contact trickery. Both brakes us a 3mm hex bolt to adjust reach.

Elixir 9 is $170 a wheel, Elixir 7 is $125, both available in June.

The new Pike fork and the Roam and Rail wheels where on hand as well. We covered those here and here, but there were also few never before seen tidbits on being shown as well.

This is the new Dig damper for SID and Revelation forks. It doesn’t look like much, but it adds some serious tuning and performance upgrades. You can even install it into the previous generation forks, and easy upgrade, and totally worth it, according to SRAM PR man Greg Herbold.

The Dig damper adds high and low speed compression damping adjustments, so the fork can be even more finely tuned to combat brake dive and handle high-speed hits. Also inside is the Rapid Recovery rebound circuit, which keeps the fork returning to a higher point in the travel to handle repetitive hits with more comfort and control.

Both forks get the same black anodized stanchion treatment first seen on the new Pike.

Also shown was the new XLoc Full Sprint, a hydraulic dual remote that locks out both front and rear shocks with one button. This is for SID or Revelation XX forks and Monarch XX rear shocks only. The gold dial controls the blow off threshold for the fork, the other industrial-looking connector is the Connectamajig. The Connectamajig allows the remote and shock to be shipped disconnected, but fully bled. When assembly time comes, the connection process is easy, and no further bleeding is necessary.