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Suspension

Bos Idylle Air 3 Way

Downhill's Smooth Operator

The Idylle RaRe fork has been a favourite for many, many years. Like its stablemate the Deville, it offers a degree of performance ahead of most other forks on the market. Of course there has never been a huge gulf of difference in the performance stakes but it’s enough and that’s what you have always paid for.

“a fork always on high alert, never lazy, never loose with its travel, a fork that only ever uses just enough and not too much”

You first feel it in your hands and then you feel it in your legs, a smooth operator taking care of oil management, a fork always on high alert, never lazy, never loose with its travel, a fork that only ever uses just enough and not too much.

What this translates to on the trail is a bike with a stable chassis – OK, it cannot work miracles with badly designed bikes – but the French company have the measure of what it takes to keep the bike system stable, after all it is not by chance that owner Olivier Bossard has won so many world titles.

More than anything we like the simplicity of the standard fork over the FCV version, even though there’s very little difference in terms of dialling in the fork – it still has compression and rebound to deal with – and luckily for us Bos are quite adept at getting their base setting numbers pretty much bang on.

We found the FCV downhill fork to have a shade too much ‘bounce’ in it, and was building up considerable pressure internally that needed frequent bleeding. Maybe it’s early days for the FCV, but the standard fork continues to deliver impressively and works just like the original Idylle RaRe. In fact we prefer this fork to its more expensive stable mate. Fantastic fluidity, great hold, a really pacey for

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