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Manitou Nixon Platinum review from BikeMagic
Over the last couple of years, Manitou made a serious move into the all-mountain / freeride fork market with the introduction of their Sherman lineup. While the forks did have a number of issues on early production and OEM models, by 2004 Manitou had done a decent job of ironing out the biggest kinks in the line. In 2005, Manitou bumped up the travel on their Sherman forks (from 5.3ish” to a claimed 6″) and moved them more firmly towards the freeride end of the market. To fill the gap in the all mountain arena, Manitou introduced the Nixon, a fork that was lighter than its freeride brethren and featured a little more adjustability when it came to travel.
BikeMagic has a review of the 2005 Nixon Platinum, the high end offering in the Nixon line. I’ve played around with one of these forks in the past, and I agree with most of the comments regarding the product’s feature set — mediocre small bump compliance, lots of rigidity, and a convenient and useful travel adjust system (much more so than the ‘lockout’ on the Firefly and the Flick).
Unlike the BikeMagic reviewers, I never had any issues with Manitou’s hex thruaxle and appreciate the snug fit that it allows. For me, it’s never been a whole lot more difficult than the ‘conventional’ system. And, while I’m not a huge fan of using four pinch bolts to cinch up the fork’s axle, it’s good to see that Manitou now uses threaded inserts for those tiny bolts — I know far too many people who stripped the holes on theirs…
Check out the BikeMagic review — it has some good technical info on the way that the fork’s travel adjust and damping systems work.
1. Posted by First look at the 2006 Manitou Minute:04 fork » The Biking Hub | 12:25 am, 20 March 2006
[…] Smack in the middle of the lineup, between the freeride-focused Travis line and the xc-oriented R7, are three versions of the Manitou Minute models. Featuring travel that tops out at 130mm and weights that range from 4 to 4.4lbs, the Minute forks are meant to slide into the enduro / trail market, with the Nixon taking care of the all mountain / light freeride crowd. […]