Epic?
The Epicon fork is Suntour's "premium trail" range. It's an air sprung fork with cartridge damper (vs open bath, e.g. Marzocchi).
In the Suntour lineup, the Epicon sits just above the Raidon and below the Axon/Durolux forks. The Epicon gets a different damper to the Raidon
and is much lighter (more aluminium, less steel). Above the Epicon the range splits, you get the Axon which
is an XC race fork, and the Durolux which is the beefy freeride/enduro fork.
The 2013 Epicon forks come in 100mm, 120mm or 140mm travel.
There's a wide array of models, all with the same basic design of crown/stanchion/lower, allowing you to choose some optional features:
- adjustable low-speed compression
- travel adjust
- standard QR, or 15mm axle
The cheaper models (X2, mostly quite basic without the optional extras) come with a solid crown, the more
expensive (X1) have a lighter hollow forged crown. Some of the fork's features
(lockout & travel adjust) have a bar-mounted remote as an option.
It's pitched (in terms of features) against the RS Reba,
Manitou Minute, Marz Marathon and is cheaper than all of them. Does that
automatically mean its worse? Well, Suntour have been making budget forks for a
long time, and some of them quite naff (their cheaper forks still are).
Recently though, Suntour have been making a
play for the middle of the budget range and getting some favourable reviews on
their efforts...
Pick a fork, any fork
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| Please excuse crappy smartphone pic! |
The model I bought is the Epicon X1 RL-R, in 100mm travel
(and I should say this choice was, erm, “strongly influenced” by its availability on Ebay, direct from Taiwan, I'm definitely on a budget here). "RL-R" indicates remote lockout (RL) and rebound
adjust (R). The 100mm travel fork is (manufacturer claimed weight) 1620g which I thought was impressively
light for the price (£170 including taxes by the time it reached me from the
Taiwan based Ebay bike shop, buy it in the UK and its about £220). It was destined for my light(ish) hardtail XC
bike that is typically hacked around on natural trails as opposed to trail
centres, a mixture of terrain that doesn't really feature a lot of
"features" but does have a lot of bumpy stuff to smooth out with the
odd rock step and jump thrown in.
Setup was generally easy, although getting the remote lockout
attached was a bit fiddly (in particular, you have to make sure the gear cable was both long enough to
reach the clamp, and short enough to not foul the fork attachment - the cable length needs
to be cut carefully). Other than that, nothing that was any different to any
other fork - tap on the crown race, drift the star nut into the steerer, pop
the fork on the bike, fit brake calliper, tighten up the stem, set the sag. All
done in the space of about an hour. Alloy steerer - so easy
to chop to the right length.
Suntour vs The World
How does it ride then?
Actually rather nicely. After getting the sag and rebound
dialled in, it was out for a quick test ride up and down my local hill.
Initially, I'd have expected a bit of stickiness in the
forks’ movement, until it bedded in, but the fork was pleasantly smooth right
from the get go. The remote lockout: useful on tarmac (well, got to get to the hill
somehow), but on anything other than smooth roads my preference is to let the fork soak up
the bumps - but I climb "sit and spin" style, I'm not out of the
saddle.
And, soaking up bumps? Yeah, very nicely. The forks air
spring is progressive, it feels sensitive around the beginning of
travel, which is just what you want, really. The rate ramps up nicely to cope
with bigger lumps, bumps and hits, although with 100mm of travel anything
really big will overwhelm the fork and have you at the bump stop (but at this
point in a ride, you’re probably riding the wrong bike - this is an XC fork, short travel). Its probably a better test of this fork's abilities to
ride staircase-like rocky descents, and here the fork didn't pack down, and made
fairly light work of the terrain - so I'd say the damping is nicely controlled,
and it never feels like the fork was unable to control the motion here.
I'm not going to comment on "stiffness" and all
that jazz, mainly because I never felt like I've ever ridden a fork that isn't
stiff, so I don't know what a stiff fork vs a not stiff fork feels like. I
turned the bars, the wheel went the same way, no sensations of wobbliness, or
whatever.
Sunset
Summing up then; this fork rides really very well. It’s a
controlled and capable piece of kit. A couple of years ago I would never have
even considered Suntour, I would have been straight to the RockShox range for a
decent value performer, Recon or Reba, but RS's prices have drifted upwards - a
lot - of late, and from what I can see, Suntour seem to be filling that
lower/mid priced area of the market with what are (based on my admittedly small
sample size of one) very much comparable quality products.
I've had several similar RockShox forks - Recon Race, almost
identical to this fork in terms of features, which even 5 years ago was
retailing for more than this, and a Dual Air 140mm Revelation. Yeah, ok, the Rev was better, but not by much, and only because I do like the dual air system and
it had low speed compression control, and of course it'd be better to compare that to an Epicon fork that has compression adjust. Anyway my gut feeling is that the Epicon is very much their equal.
I'd love to say what the long term ownership is like on the
Epicon, but I haven't had it long enough. Word on the forums is that they are
pretty good for reliability.
Anyway, I am a happy bunny, and looking forward to getting
some more miles in on this fork.
