MRP “Stage” 29 Fork: First Impressions- by Guitar Ted
The MRP Stage fork has been mounted to the Singular Cycles Buzzard, (Project LTHT), now for a bit and I have enough time on the fork now to give you all my first thoughts on what it is like. Technical data and features were covered in the previous post. See the Out Of The Box for that. Now let’s see what I thought of the fork after a few rides…..
The MRP Stage fork gracing the front of our Project LTHT Singular Cycles Buzzard
Ride Performance & Feel: The MRP Stage fork installed easily and the QtapeR 15mm through axle was pretty easy to get figured out. The set up on the fork was also made very easy by the clear instructions on the card supplied with the fork. I set the air pressure to the softer side of the range for my weight and adjusted the Compression control to halfway with the rebound left at the setting it was at out of the box, which is 8 full clicks from full slow. The Ramp Control was about 5 clicks in from the wide open setting, I think… The clicks are a little vague, so I may be off on the exact setting there. With that, the rides commenced and I have not changed the settings with the first few rides.
The MRP Stage fork climbed with little wandering, which I chalked up to the 51mm offset.
The fork obviously has not been broken in properly yet, but initial feelings are that the Stage has a smooth, even feeling stroke with the Ramp Control set where it is. (I will adjust this to see how it affects the performance and report in my next update.) The Compression setting was very good at keeping brake dive at bay and it limited the out of the saddle movement to a degree I found acceptable. It moves, for sure, when standing and climbing, but I am okay with some amount of suspension all the time, (or why bother having it at all? 😉 ), but in my next update I will have more on how the locked out setting feels.
Going down, the fork was absorbing everything well, but I did notice a tendency for a bit of an “air hiss” sound when hitting sudden impacts. This seems to be abating as time on the fork goes along but it is still there. Otherwise I found no faults with the performance at this point. The MRP Stage fork is certainly stiffer than the previous Rock Shox I had on this bike and steering precision is definitely solid and I have no complaints there.
Speaking of steering, the fork seemed to carve up the single track with little extra effort, which lead me to believe MRP was using a 51mm offset on the fork. Grannygear and I have both found that having the original G2 Fisher bikes offset on these longer travel forks is quite nice. The MRP definitely had that feel in the twisties. After a bit of investigation, I found out the Stage fork does indeed have a 51mm offset.
First Impressions Conclusions: MRP has a stiff, precise steering, supple fork here that has a wide range of adjustments available to tune the ride. It steers quite nicely with the 51mm offset here and so far I am pleased to find that it not only has worked to essentially erase smaller trail chatter, but that it has a nice, even stroke which promises a good base to tune from.
I will be fiddling with adjustments and pushing this fork a bit harder where I hope to learn more about this new fork’s capabilities. Look for a Mid-Term update in a few weeks or so.
Note: MRP sent over the Stage 29 fork for test and review at no charge to Twenty Nine Inches. We are not being bribed nor paid for this review and we will strive to give our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.
