Rock Shox revives the "Lyrik" - and launches the "Yari

The boom in enduro bikes with 16 centimeters of suspension travel that can do almost anything has caused one type of bike to almost disappear from the market: Freeriders. This type of bike for the really rough stuff could experience a renaissance - because the market-leading manufacturer Rock Shox is launching two new forks with up to 180 millimetres of travel.

Classic - reissued
Rock Shox sums it up for the new Lyrik: The revived classic Lyrik should have all the virtues of the popular and proven Pike suspension fork - but more travel. The fork is equipped with a 35 millimeter chassis, damping is provided by the Charger Damper cartridge and the wiper rings from SKF should ensure a fine response.

Lots of setting options and lots of stroke
The progression of the air spring can be adjusted using the bottomless tokens, and this applies to the RCT3 Solo Air and Dual Position Air (lowerable) versions. If you want to intervene in the rebound speed, you can tweak the shim stack, similar to the Boxxer fork. The 27.5" version has 160, 170 or 180 millimetres of travel on the menu, while the 29" and 27.5"+ versions have 150 or 160 millimetres of travel. A weight of a few grams over 2 kg is remarkable for a fork in this travel range. The light weight is said to have been made possible mainly thanks to a more heavily butted casting and a new design of the fork crown.

Quality of choice for axle format
The fork is available in the 15x100mm standard - and also in the new 15x110 Boost format. However, the 20x110mm thru-axle format - as known from the old Lyrik - has been abandoned. Those who rely on hubs or wheels from Sram (SRAM Rise XX, RISE 60, Roam 30 and 40, Rail 40, XO hubs) can rely on so-called torque caps. These offer a larger clamping surface between the hub and dropout, which should give the suspension fork-wheel combination more stiffness and therefore steering precision. The new Lyrik should be available from October 2015.

Upgrade for the old lyric
Rock Shox has a heart for long-serving forks: with an upgrade kit, 26-inch Lyrik forks (up to 170mm travel, air or steel spring) can be converted to the new RCT3 damping unit. The kit consists of a complete inner workings of the left shock, including a bleed kit to fill the cartridge with oil and bleed it.

Yari fork: New in the Rock Shox stable
The US suspension pioneer will soon be sending a new suspension fork model onto the trails. The Yari fork is based on the Lyrik, but offers several stroke variants from 120 to 180 millimetres. The fork is priced around a third lower. The rider has to make do without the Charger damping cartridge, on board is a further developed Motion Control damping system. A newly tuned high-speed compression stage and a Rapid Recovery rebound stage should give the Yari equally fast, sensitive off-road behavior. In terms of weight, the Yari fork is also just over 2 kg - the versions are as follows: