The bull and bear case for a $2,600 mountain bike fork.

This week Colorado based Push Industries released the Nine.One, the company’s first attempt at building a front suspension fork from the ground up. Among the staggering data points, the price might be the most eye catching – coming in ~2-3x the price of more well known competitor products such as Fox and Rockshox. Being the suspension and gear nerd I am, I felt compelled to make some comments on this product. However, I am admittedly torn on this product launch. On one hand I really want to make terrible financial decisions and buy one of these to try out (don’t worry, with my current job situation, I won’t). On the other hand, I can’t help but scratch my head a bit with what I believe is the most expensive mountain bike suspension product ever launched.

Before I go on, a few disclaimers. First, I have immense respect for anyone who tries to build or create a product of any sort. Its so freakin’ hard to create literally anything, especially when the manipulation of atoms in the physical world is required. Second, I also have huge respect for successful smaller businesses that compete against massive companies, which Push very much is doing. Third, small digression, I first had an experience with a Darren Murphy (founder of the company) product way back in 2005 when I stole a Darren modified Fox shock off of Steve Wentz’s Turner DHR and bolted it on my (absolutely awful) Cannondale Gemini for NCCA nationals. It was an incredible upgrade and outside one other rear suspension product of the era (Avalanche), a lens into what the future of suspension performance might bring. If you take only one thing away from this post it should be “Push makes amazing (albeit expensive) stuff”. Darren really knows his stuff and has never wanted to compromise performance for price. This is something any gear nerd can respect (even if the product is a bit like the girl out of his league).

Without further adieu, the bull and bear case for this product…

Bull Case: The fork (or is it forks because its upside down?) follows in Darren Murphy’s pedigree and track record which is to say he is putting out something that appears very well engineered and thought out. Here is my list of what it seems they got right…

• It looks amazing. There are no two ways about it, this product looks incredible.
• Moto forks are USD for a reason. As a general rule, the more we adopt from dirt bikes, the better our mountain bikes work. Turns out, dirt bike engineers solved many of the problems mountain bikers have wrestled with many decades ago. This is reflected in our adoption of moto suspension valving architecture, frame geometry and brake design. If we would have borrowed faster, we could have had much (much) better mtbs ~15-20 years faster than we otherwise have had to this point. Its in this vein it makes sense we ought to look more closely at the benefits USD offers, including flex profile (see below), lubrication where it counts, less sprung weight, etc.
• Flex is a good thing. For many years I’ve recognized tuning chassis stiffness to be “baby bear porridge” is important. Push seems to recognize this with the Nine.One. If something is too soft, it feels like junk and is downright scary when going fast. If something is too stiff, it beats the hell out of you, reduces wheel grip and puts you on the ground. Finding the right amount of flex between tires, wheels, chassis, bar, cranks etc is an important performance variable if you are really trying to go super fast. (KTM famously spends a ton of time on this) Darren seems to understand this and designed the product with a certain amount of desirable flex in mind.
• Coils are awesome: I have long loved coil suspension when weight doesn’t really matter, and this fork is one of the few high end coil forks on the market. To add, the Nine.One has much needed bottom out mitigation technology (that is easy to adjust). This means the fork will have a lot of qualities we all desire in a suspension product in that its consistent at all elevations, isn’t as effected by heat, has a linear forces curve until bottom out and fewer seals for less friction.
• Damper quality is likely killer. Darren knows how to build a top tier damper so I’m sure the forks innards work very well. I may not like the tune (I’ve been critical of his rear shock’s 11.6 tunes in the past to a degree) but I’m sure it functions very well, and is tunable to anyone’s liking.
• Bushing overlap and tolerances are critical. If you go back to my very first VitalMTB suspension review on the Pike from a decade ago (or longer) I really hone in on how a fork can feel amazing in the parking lot, but once load is applied to the chassis, you can get what I describe as binding. There are a few ways to mitigate this, the easiest being to make the tolerances of your bushings super precise and to make the bushings slightly larger. While this comes at the expense of more friction in an aligned environment (IE, parking lot test), it comes at the benefit of more surface area distribution in a loaded environment (aka it works). Push very much understood the assignment when it comes to this, at least on paper, so I expect this fork to work incredibly well under load (which is…all the time)
• On bike oil changes. This is a killer idea and one I’ve long dreamed of. Being able to swap oil without taking the fork(s) off the bike is awesome.
• A-Kit suspension. In the moto world A-kit suspension (and price points like this) have been around forever. Is it for everyone? No. Does it make everyone who buys A-Kit stuff faster? Again, no. But in the words of Ferris Bueller… “It is so choice”. So maybe I ought to check my price critique at the door…
• Luxury product aren’t intended for everyone, and that’s okay: Can’t afford this? Cool, you probably can’t afford a bazillion other luxury products that don’t do their thing better either. My Kirkland branded hoody does a great job of keeping me warm in my slightly-too-cold house. Does this mean buying an LVMH brand (of any kind) sweater is dumb? To me, sure. But considering LVHM has minted the second wealthiest man on the planet, clearly there is always room for luxory. this point alone should make most of my points against the product totally meaningless.
• Fast isn’t everything. As you’ll see below, I’m predicting you won’t actually be faster on this product. That said, it might offer an experience that is nonetheless great (better in some ways) than the other product on the market.
• Their warranty is…cool? I’m the first to admit the bike industry needs to go back to the drawing board with the way warranty works. Dirt bike frankly has this right. Stop with the egregious warranties being offered and just make good stuff. These costs just get transferred down to the consumer regardless. That aside, Push does something kind of cool, kind of weird. You send your product in every year for service (which costs money) and they reset your warranty for another year. You can do this in perpetuity. While it makes sense, you are really just paying for a year to year warranty in the form of paying them for service. Nuance is everything here, and I think its cool everything can be replaced on these products. Ship of Theseus vibes aside, its an interesting take on keeping people out there on the product for years, not months.

Bear Case: Its not hard to hate a lot of things about a product this expensive. Again, its like the girl out of your league, the car you can’t afford, the job you want but can’t get. Its just…out of reach for most people (myself included) which in my experience can open up a big can of haterade. In that vein, here are some things I’m not so impressed with…

• It’s $2,600. I keep coming back to this but it has to be said. At street pricing, I can buy 3 Fox 38s for this price. Or I can buy two and have one being serviced at all times. Or I can buy a whole bike for about this price. The opportunity cost of $2,600 is literally eyeball watering.
• Mountain bike forks are super good. The current offerings from Fox and Rockshox are *very* good. From damper technology to the air springs in them, they are very (very) good and no matter how fast you are, likely to perform above your ability. If you want, you can always upgrade to a coil package (though some might argue its not a real “upgrade”) through a number of aftermarket companies (including Push). To add, more premium products such as Ohlins and EXT are also out there, and though expensive significantly less than the Push product. In fact, you could buy an EXT and a Fox 38 for less money than the Nine.One.
• Its a first gen product and their first attempt at a front suspension fork.
• Its absurdly heavy. If I’m honest, I don’t *really* care about weight, but they are bordering dual crown weight at their 2,790 gram weight target. With this amount of heft, I would have preferred them to go dual crown (which would have made manufacturing easier too), but I know there are frame limitations to this design spec (so I get it). Side point, but I’ve long argued for dual crown USD forks for the enduro set and still see this product being worthwhile, even if the pinkbike nerds won’t get it.
• It wasn’t race tested. I know, racing isn’t the end all be all, but if I’m buying a crazy expensive suspension product, I want to know its been tested by some of the fastest in the world. I don’t care how fast you think you are as a local bro test rider (I’m talking about me here) there is usually no substitute for the durability testing of a top(ish) tier heavy(ish) WC/EWS rider (or riders). I find it absolutely essential you put your product in the hands of your 1% of 1% to get real world feedback, both qualitatively and quantitatively. There is no substitute.
• I’d be shocked if it makes you faster (pun intended). I’ve used lots of really cool and expensive products in the bike/snowmobile/dirt bike/ski industry. Many of them are touted as being better, but don’t get you from A-B any faster or offer any *real* performance improvements on trail/snow/race course. Sometimes that’s okay, and speed isn’t actually the end all be all of everything. However, as a washed up racer, I feel in mtb I want a product that is going to make me faster or lowers the standard deviation of my lap times (makes me more consistent). I’m not convinced this product will do either of those over a well setup Fox 36/38/Zeb etc.
• The travel range is a little head scratching. For the fork’s weight, this fork should be a 180mm+ to 150 or 160. The 170-140 range makes little sense. While I could see putting this on an enduro bike, I can’t imagine putting it on something that was originally designed around a 34 or 35mm chassis (34 or Pike). It just doesn’t make sense in the weight department.
• Custom? At the price point, valving ought to be custom (which I don’t believe they are doing).
• Coil forks can leave you in between. Though Push is offering a lot of spring rates, its still possible you are in between spring rates or (more likely) you want to change spring rate for a certain trail/course/ride. Though not a huge deal, this does requires a bit more work than just pumping up your air spring. I know, can’t have your cake and eat it too, but just something to think about. Also, I’d like to see ti at the price point. Lets go full swank, eh?
• I’m still not sure what problem this fork aimed to fix. I listened to the podcast with Darren and Spomer on Vital. It was great. Again, I have huge respect for Darren. However, I am still scratching my head as to what (exactly) he was trying to fix when you compare this to other suspension products. He readily admits “right side up” forks are really good, and outside of being different and offering a USD fork, I can’t figure out what problems they were really trying to solve (outside of those that exist when you decide to build a single crown USD fork). It sounds like another mountain bike suspension fork, that looks killer has a coil spring and a good damper. But I don’t see anything that tells me this is actually better.

Clearly, my thoughts don’t matter. The fork(s) are sold out and the waiting list long, so good on Darren and the Push team for doing what they do. If my nightmare job search ends and I find a good fit again, (and this article doesn’t blacklist me from Push) I’d 100% pick one up and do a head to head against a Marzocchi Z1 coil, a Fox 36/38 and the Nine One. Anyone want to sponsor this?!

Final point, we’re in an incredible era of mountain bike (and broadly, mountain sports) products. From sub $2,000 mountain bikes that actually perform alright to aerospace grade engineering in wheels, frames and suspension bits, there are more (well performing) choices at the disposal of your average rider now, than ever. And that’s rad. As I alluded to above, my haterade is a bit cringeworthy here. Luxury products exist in literally every space, so why not mountain bikes, too? We’ve already seen a huge push this direction, and with those who grew up with mountain bikes (like me) finally starting to make some real money (not me) it should be no surprise the market is willing to offer top (top) tier product to those with the means. For those who can’t afford them, the right thing to do is work harder…not complain on the internet. I hope those who read this can take all of this with a big giant grain of salt, and enjoy both sides of this coin.

Ps – Great podcast between Vital’s Shawn Spomer and Push’s Darren Murphy Here