Over the past couple of weeks, Fox has been all about its forks, bringing updates to its 36 while unveiling the 34 SL and 36 SL. Today, the brand has turned its attention to its gravity-focussed shocks, the X2 and DHX2 giving both ground-up overhauls with all-new chassis and internals.
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The air-sprung X2 has become a staple among the downhill and enduro circuits, but Fox’s move to a monotube construction addresses durability while providing full pressure balancing in a bid to offer a more usable range. As before, it’s still a four-way adjustable shock with high and low speed compression and rebound adjustments.
Last year, Fox brought new dampers to its fork range, and the goal with the new X2 is to close that perceived performance gap. To do so, the shock now benefits from new internals, including a fresh reservoir shim stack. It gets a larger base valve and more internal valves as well as a pressure balanced tune, says the brand – the benefit of pressure balancing, according to Fox, is the ability to maintain a low positive pressure in the damper to achieve faster damper response time to rider inputs. It also prevents cavitation.
With pressure balancing being such a key point in Fox’s design brief, the twin tube design of old had to go, so the brand went for a monotube design, which also beefs up the shaft diameter to 12.7mm, making the shock stronger, we’re told.
Moving onto the DHX2 coil shock, apart from the fact that it uses a coil spring, it’s identical to the X2.
Prices for the Fox X2 start at £809 and go up to £849, whereas the DHX2 starts at £729 and tops out at £925.
