Gear Review: RockShox Boxxer
By Rob Manning

Downhill demon.

Solid and sleek.

Downhill aficionados have reason to celebrate as for the first time in its existence; RockShox has given their most popular long-travel fork, the Boxxer, a complete redesign.

The goal of their efforts was to make the new unit stiffer and lighter. While these two elements have typically contradicted each other, RockShox pulled out all the stops for 2009.

The first plan of action was to toss the 32mm stanchions of the previous model and to replace them with thin-wall 35s. Surprisingly, the 35mm units actually came in weighing less than the 32s! RS boasts that a whopping 31 different configurations were put through the ringer before the company selected the final specs.

With 35mm worth of upper fork tube to distribute the workload, RockShox was able to then lighten up the steerer tube itself. All new forged crowns with weight-saving trussing provided additional strength.

Axel duties come in the form of the Maxle Lite DH, which boasts increased solidity over previous Maxle designs.

The Boxxer will offer a new Mission Control DH Dual Flow Adjust set that controls both compression and rebound. In addition, the spring and aluminum shaft damper are all new (and slimmed up to boot).

While pricing has yet to be finalized, the all new RockShox Boxxer should find its way into bike shops by March. Stay tuned for a complete test.

For more information on this or any of SRAM’s product lines head over to: Sram.com