RockShox Rudy XPLR Ultimate
£779 A gravel-specific fork from the mountain bike legend
Weight 1,300g Travel 30mm Rake 45mm Axle to crown 425mm
This gravel fork has been designed and built from the ground up. Its internals are the most impressive on test, with all-alloy polished and anodised parts, and quality construction overall. It’s lighter than most here, too. Setting up the Rudy is quite simple. Compared to the complexity of modern mountain bike forks, you only have to adjust the air spring pressure (for my 92kg frame I used 168psi) and rebound damping (the speed at which the fork re-extends following a compression). This is done using a small 2.5mm Allen key.
The sensitive initial stroke brilliantly absorbs the impact on your bar from poor roads, dry trails or golf ball-sized gravel and is far superior to just relying on larger volume tyres – the comfort the Rudy provides more than justifies the upgrade. There’s also a significant improvement in control, with the fork’s supple, swift movement meaning you maintain tyre contact with the ground and stopping your front wheel skittering off-line. If you’re running a tubeless set-up, the fork’s cushioning allows you to run lower pressures without the fear of burping the tyre.
The compression ramps up progressively. This means at speed on rocky or rooty descents the Rudy never ‘bottoms out’ on big hits, despite having just 40mm of travel. It also makes the Rudy one of the best for riding out of the saddle – it bobs less than the others here and handles weight over the bar better than the Lauf Grit too, and that’s without even resorting to using the fork lockout lever. It has an almost rigid feel when grinding up the steepest climbs. This stiffness is ample to keep the handling of your bike as it should be, tracking superbly when sprinting hard.
Even if some of its rivals may edge ahead in single elements – the Lefty in handling, the KS on price, the Lauf on weight – overall the Rudy offers the best combination of performance, handling, weight and price.
Verdict The best all-round gravel suspension fork available