First Look: RockShox debuts an all-new SID

The SID fork has been around for a long time now, and has always been RockShox’s premiere cross-country fork. It even dabbled in the early trail bike fork arena with a double-crown model that had a whopping (for the time) four inches of travel and more recently with 120 mm models for lightweight trail bikes.

Now that short-travel trail bikes are using Pikes or Revelations, this leaves SID room to focus on its original intent: Superlight Integrated Design. That means a full redesign and some trickle-down trail bike tech.

All four SIDs now max-out at 100 mm of travel, letting RockShox optimize for stiffness and weight, including shorter air shafts and upper tubes. The magnesium lowers have a full redesign, including Torque Cap compatibility, which promises increased torsional stiffness when used with a Torque Cap hub, but you can still run any 15 mm hub.

The Solo air spring is more linear, but can be tuned with Bottomless Token spacers for heavier and/or harder charging riders. A Jounce bottom-out bumper (from the RS-1) helps to prevent harsh bottoming, and updated seals lower friction and improve cold weather performance.

Probably the biggest news is the addition of the excellent Charger damper in the World Cup and RLC models. The Charger damper, which is used in the Pike, Lyric and Boxxer is well-loved for its performance and easy set-up.  In the SID, the Charger has only Open and Lock positions, with a compression adjuster for the Open position.

The SID XX and RL keep the older (but still quite serviceable) Motion Control damper, but rest of the upgrades remain the same. All forks come in either 27.5 or 29 inch options, 80 or 100 mm of travel, 42, 46 or 51 mm offset and 110×15 Boost or 100×15 spacing.

All forks will be available June 2016.

SID World Cup
Carbon steerer and crown, Charger damper
1366g
27.5 or 29
80 mm, 100 mm
$1,150-1,225

SID RLC
Aluminum steerer and crown, Charger damper
1530g
27.5 or 29
80 mm, 100 mm
$845-915

SID XX
Aluminum steerer and crown, Motion Control, XLoc remote
1572g
27.5 or 29
80 mm, 100 mm
$825-905

SID RL
Aluminum steerer and crown, Motion Control, XLoc remote
1523g
27.5 or 29
80 mm, 100 mm
$825-905