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2020 RockShox Pike vs Fox 34 Fork Comparison [Video]

Overview

A few years ago we did a similar review for the Fox 34 vs the Rockshox Pike, and two model years later we felt that there is enough change in the two to revisit this comparison. Both the Fox 34 and the RockShox Pike Ultimate are a staple in the top level of forks specifically for trail bikes. It's no surprise they have many overlapping similarities as they are made for the same type of riding with the same travel range and bike styles. We will be going into a lot of these details of the similarities as well as the differences and who might benefit from buying a Fox 34 or a Rockshox Pike.

Similarities and Differences

As mentioned above, these forks are designed for the same style of mid-travel trail bike. If you are looking for 120mm-140mm of travel, or maybe even 150mm, then the Pike or 34 would be the best options to look at from Rockshox or Fox, respectively. The weight between the two flagship models is only a 45g difference, which isn't much, but I will get into that a little more below. The Fox 34 also has a version called the Fox 34 Step-Cast, which is dedicated to 120mm travel only, and by doing that Fox was able to shave off a sizeable 160g of weight.

There are also some differences with the damper systems. The Fox 34 has a Fit4 damper that features a 3-position mode with a firm mode, whereas the Rockshox Pike Ultimate has the Charger 2.1 RC2 damper that only offers HSC and LSC adjustments, but no firm mode for pedaling. The air systems between the two are very similar, both have equalizing positive and negative air chambers and use air tokens to tune in the ramp-up feel. You can also change the travel with just an air shaft, from 120mm to 150mm travel, going in 10mm increments.

Lastly, the forks’ stanchion diameters are different as well, not by much, 1mm to be exact. The Fox 34 has, yes you guessed it, 34mm stanchions, while the Pike has 35mm stanchions. While that may seem like the smallest difference, I'll get into why it might change your choice more than you think down below.

Specs

2020 Rockshox Pike Ultimate:

27.5” & 29”
120mm, 130mm, 140mm, 150mm & 160mm
Charger 2.1 RC2 Damper
Offset 37mm/46mm for 27.5” & 42mm/51mm for 29”
Tapered Steerer only
15 x 110mm boost spacing only
Bolt-on Maxle Axle
Torque Cap compatible
Weight 1832g

2020 Fox 34:

27.5” & 29”
Normal 34 Travel: 130mm, 140mm, 150mm
Step-Cast Travel: 120mm only
Fit4 3 position Damper
Offset 37mm/44mm for 27.5” & 44mm/51mm for 29”
Tapered Steerer only
15 x 100mm & 15 x 110mm Boost (Step-Cast 15 x 110mm boost only)
Quick Release Axle (Step-Cast Bolt-on Kabolt)
Weight 1770g
Step-Cast Weight: 1623g

On-Trail Feel

Now to split hairs, I am going to try to distinguish the difference between these two similar forks made by different companies. After the updates on both these forks, the way they both ride has changed for the better. The Fox got a bit more plush off the top while the Rockshox got more mid-stroke control and sits a little higher in the travel. Previously we noted that these were the biggest differences between the two, making both of these forks ride even more similarly now.

I would still say the Rockshox Pike tends to come off as a little more plush off the top. I think that has a little to do with both the Charger 2.1 RC2 Damper and the DebonAir airshaft. The Charger 2.1 RC2 damper allows for a lot of small tuning. With HSC and LSC tuning along with rebound adjustment, you can really get some plushness off the top, with mid-stroke support and high-speed compression control in a shorter travel package. This isn't something you see too often until you get into the longer travel forks. The DebonAir shaft has a large negative chamber that also helps with off the top feel, allowing the fork to get into its travel a little easier. I find that with the new RockShox Pike Ultimate fork you don't need to do as much tuning and especially messing with volume spacers as you did in the past. If you are bottoming out easily or need more mid-stroke, you can add 5psi and solve your problem. Before you most likely would have needed to add a token and then see if that helps or make a few more adjustments from there. While I don't normally run LSC on my forks, I do like HSC and think that makes the Pike Ultimate a game-changer for this travel amount. You often will still smash some fast G-outs, or land a decent size jump on a 120-140mm fork, so having some HSC tunability really helps the fork stay up in the travel in those scenarios.

The Fox 34 seems to be just ever so slightly stiffer than the RockShox Pike, and that doesn't really mean it's stiff in a bad way. When I say stiff, I mean it sits a bit higher in the travel and takes more effort to get deeper into the fork’s travel. I think the Fox feels a bit better when you are really charging a trail. The feedback you get from the Fox makes you want to keep riding hard, but when you back off you might get that sense of the fork feeling stiff. Also, the Fox 34 only has 3 positions on the damper, Open, Medium, Firm with an LSC adjustment that only works in the Open position. So the Fox is a bit less tunable from a damper side with the Fit4 damper than the RockShox Pike Ultimate with the Charger 2.1 RC2 damper. One thing that could help you make your mind up easily is if you prefer the Medium or Firm position for fire road or pavement riding. While you can make the Pike more firm, it will not get nearly as firm as the Fox in the Firm position. The Fox’s Firm is pretty much locked out and has very little movement. As mentioned before, I rarely use the LSC on any fork as I want the supple off the top to ease the shock going to my hands and arms. For the air side, it's very similar to the Rockshox, but I will say you might need to use volume spacers for getting that perfect tune vs the Rockshox Pike not as much. I think the Fox feels great once you get that exact air pressure and volume spacer count.

So there is also the Fox 34 Step-Cast, which has the same 34mm stanchions as the standard Fox 34, but the chassis has been dedicated to 120mm travel only and weight has been shaved off wherever possible. That weight savings is quite significant from the standard 34, and even more so over the Pike. So if you are looking for 120mm travel only, and do not want to go any higher, it's really hard to bet against the Fox 34 Step-Cast. It's strong, light, and feels good in just about any situation you can put a 120mm fork up against. If you are looking at about 130mm travel only, I would still lean towards the Fox 34, as it's a little lighter and you might want that feeling compared to the more plush feeling Pike. But if you are looking to go around the 140mm or 150mm travel, I think it's a pretty even wash. And if 150mm is what you're after but still want to watch your weight, then the Rockshox Pike would be your top choice.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, now you have a little more clarity and less confusion, and not more confusion and less clarity. If so, I’m sorry. I think the main difference comes down to the adjustability for me.

If you like to tinker and get that extra dialed suspension feeling, then the Rockshox Pike Ultimate with the Charger 2.1 RC2 might be the better choice as you have some more compression adjustment. The Rockshox is also a bit plusher off the top than the Fox 34.

If you are looking for simple adjustments, and also like the Firm lockout position, then the Fox 34 would be better for you. As well, if you are looking for a light 120mm only option, the Fox 34 Step-Cast takes the win. These both really come down to what you are looking for in adjustment and weight. It's hard to have it all but that is also why we have so many options since each rider likes their own flavors.

Check out our previous Pike vs 34 video here:

If you're one strange human and would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

All right I got this. I know who the pike is for and who the 34 is for, but I'm not gonna tell you until the end of the video. All right well the two dominant forces in the mountain bike suspension world: Rockshox and Fox. They have two very competitive I guess you could call them trail bike forks. Fox having the 34 and RockShox having the pike. So both of these brands make a bunch of different forks for different use cases. These two tend to get compared back to back a lot because they do offer them on the same travel range, wheel sizes and stuff and they're typically on your trail bikes or light trail bikes slash enduro trail bikes whatever you want to call them. Anyways, we definitely get asked a lot which one's better than the other. It's a very hard question to answer because they are both phenomenal suspension products. They do have some unique features about them that might work better for some of you and you know the other might work better for a different you know group of you guys depending on what you're looking for in a fork. So for this video we're gonna focus on the two sort of top tier segments of these forks. Being the factory version of the 34 and the ultimate version of the pike. There's a couple other variants offered in different price points, a lot of different variants and specs and stuff go into all these. So for all of that hit the link below in the video description and there is a nice long blog article that details all of that sort of stuff.

I'm gonna kind of stay a little bit high level today so this video doesn't end up being an hour long because there's a lot to say about these forks and just kind of give you a broad overview of some of the major differences between the two that you're gonna want to consider if you're in the market for a new fork for your trail bike. A whole bunch of us in the shop ride trail bikes all the time, myself included, and I think every one of us goes back and forth between Fox and RockShox at some point or we're trying some other, a little bit more exotic suspension brand. There's a lot of good stuff out there these days for everything in the mountain bike world, but there definitely is for suspension as well as trail bikes for being one of the most popular things. I definitely go back and forth between Fox and rockshox, I like them both, they do have sort of slightly different use cases and as much as the 34 and the pike are similar, rockshox and Fox where they kind of differ is RockShox lineup is just kind of segmented slightly differently right, so a 34, all Fox Forks are named based off the diameter of the stanchion. so this is a 34 millimeter diameter stanchion, then they have the 36 and the 40 and then also have the 32 like on the cross country side. RockShox is a little bit different so they're Pike lyric and yari are all 35 millimeters stanchions. So to me when I look at these two forks I kind of see the pike as slightly in between the 34 and the 36 in terms of travel and weight and adjustability and features so to talk about some of the key differences between the two of them, the 34 is a little bit lighter, they also offer the 34 in the 34 step cast which is a really cool you know lighter weight version of this thing where you can see now and it's got basically some machine stuff on the lowers that's casted differently so it's shaved some weight that's only offered in 120 mil travel. But if you're in a hundred and twenty mile travel segment the 34 is probably the ultimate way to go in terms of weight and performance right there. It's gonna be way stiffer and better performing than a 32 but still give you something really lightweight when you step up when you're closer to like 130 to 150 ml travel that's where you might really be considering the pike versus the 34. So once again, 34 is in any travel range or a little bit lighter, not a lot we're talking a couple ounces or so, so they're pretty similar and weight so that's a factor to consider weights a big one other than that in terms of adjustability.

Adjustability on forks these days is crazy. There's a lot of different variations of stuff out there Fox all the 34 is the factory series are coming with their fit4 damper so the way that works is you have a three position damper open medium and firm and then you have a low-speed clicker on the top the low speed only adjusts the fork in the open position. There's 22 clicks of it, in our experience almost nobody uses low speed compression damping, it's definitely something you can as you dial it in dial it up it makes the fork kind of make it like feels like it's has sand in it and it gives it almost a dead feeling which can be kind of good to some extent if you're riding smoother trails and you're pumping jumps and corners and berms, it's actually kind of nice it kind of prevents the floor from diving and gives it a little bit more stiff off the top throughout the stroke feel which can be good. But I would say 98% of riders don't use that - they're going to leave the low-speed all the way off and just run the thing in the open position. So the dampers do differ on these things. So again fit4 in the factory 34 - open medium firm, and then a pike you have the charger 2.1 rc2. So this has high and low speed adjustments that are independent of each other which is not the case for the 34. So this has 5 clicks of high speed compression and 20 of low speed, and again no matter what position this high speed is in, the low speed is going to be independent of it. This is a little bit technical and probably over the head of most people and most riders out there. This is a little bit more simplified for everyone when you do play around with this which can be fun if you spend some time adjusting the sort of stuff getting your high and low speed like balanced in this perfect spot just for what your riding can be really cool to play with and tweak with having five positions is pretty nice for high speed again like that high speed compression is one of those things where if you have both of these all the way off you're getting like the ultimate supple fork that's going to want to like go through the travel as fast as possible start cranking the high speed those are like your high speed hits you're pushing into a corner your G-outs your jumps you're landing off of a drop your low speed stuff is gonna be a little bit more like pumping into a corner or pumping into like maybe just like a big transition type of thing. Again most people don't use low speed so as not to get too into the weeds of all suspension adjustments. On the air side, both of these Forks are obviously air Springs and they do run tokens. They come in the box with tokens. Both of them that's gonna change how progressive the air side is. So again these are premium level forks at nearly $1,000, Pike being $929 and the factory 34 being $909. So tons of adjustments on both of these things but they are a little bit different. So the pike is a lot more similar to the Fox 36 because that fork has individual high and low speed adjustments right; the individual high-low speed adjustments get more important the longer your fork gets and the faster you're riding a thing. So for an enduro racer that's gonna be a little bit more important. For your general trail rider the simplicity of a three-position damper is probably a little bit more convenient for everyone. Of course these things both do have a rebound adjust in the lower-right so yeah hopefully I didn't get to in the weeds of suspension tuning there but that's some of the main differences between these things that might give you a little bit of an idea of the difference between them and how they're gonna feel on the trail.

Another kind of interesting difference is that all the 34s are coming with a quick-release axle so it's still a 15 by 1/10 or 15 by 100 so you can get an on boost for the Fox the pike is coming with a bolt on axle and it's only 15 by 1/10 boost it doesn't they don't offer it a non boost anymore like Fox still does. Currently RockShox has compatibility with torque caps so that's a special end caps for your hubs that give you a huge amount of contact on to the lowers of the fork giving you like a super stiff front hub feel which is actually a pretty good design. A lot of wheel manufacturers make what 's called torque caps so you can get them if you have a pike whereas you couldn't if you're running a fox fork. You just kind of run the traditional end caps. So that's some of the more technical differences. Now let’s see what they’re like on the trail.

Several of us at the shop have spent a lot of time on these Forks, myself included, and I've definitely seen both of these Forks evolve over the years and they both come a really long way. These are both 2020 models although it is 2019 they usually release them a year early. How that makes sense, I don't know. But welcome to the bike industry. So the fit4 now is pretty revised for 2020, so is the charger 2.1, they've both come a super long way and what they've done is kind of as both of these Forks evolve they're kind of aiming for the same kind of things right they wanted them to be really supple off the top, they wanted to have useful and relevant adjustments that work really well, and then they also wanted to give them that ability to wear like they had mixed mid-stroke support but it wasn't too stiff and then they had some progressivity to it so you could use the tokens as an adjustment they were kind of going for that all-around perfect feel and a suspension fork right where it's like reduces hand fatigue has really good small bump compliance but it also doesn't want to like dive in when you pump into a corner or something like that. Both of these things on the trail are really really similar. Again, I'm typically gonna spec a 34 on a lighter weight bike, so if I have a 120 mil travel 29er or 27.5 bike, or a hundred mil travel, that's where I'm gonna totally favor the 34 because it's lighter and because it kind of makes more sense on that type of bike. Whereas if you have something that's maybe 130mm, that’s where the pike might make a little bit more sense. So if you're wondering just a straight up recommendation that's mine if you're riding something that's you know 125 mil or less rear travel I would totally go with a 34 if you're routing something in between like 125 to 150 I think the pike makes a lot more sense and just in terms like maybe slightly stiffer slightly more like enduro fork feel again I really feel like in terms of the feel of a pike it's kind of in between a 34 and a 36, 34 being a little bit more lightweight trail bike feel of a fork and 36 being a lot more aggressive stiffer and enduro type of a fork. On the RockShox side, obviously you have the lyrik which kind of directly competes with the 36 but both of these things work awesome. It's really hard to really like pin down differences in the things I feel like small bump absorptions probably a little bit better on the on the pike although the new fit four is amazing. So it's like they're almost to be honest too close to call like if you rode them back-to-back blindfolded it would be really hard to be like oh this one's way better than the other one. That's just a really challenging thing to do. again like we talked about earlier, adjustability can play a role right, if you're someone who does really care about really fine-tuning your high speed low speed compression and having them be independent of each other then you have to go with the pike right or 36 but in this case you're gonna go with the pike. If you want simplicity and just that straight up three levels of adjustment open medium firm 34 makes a lot more sense which a lot of trail riders are gonna love that you know and actually prefer because it just makes it simple right. you have open for this medium for that firm for that so adjustability is a bit more simplified over here which can be nice depending on what you're looking for. So those are kind of differences in who might favor one of these forks over the other but on trail both these things are phenomenal. It's hard to imagine how they could get any better at this point when you're comparing these two. There's really no major complaints anymore you know four or five years ago there was a lot of complaints with Forks they blew through travel in the mid stroke support they had no small bump absorption unless you had no air in it but now they've come a long way all the dampers are using negative Springs then they're just working super well these days so it's it's really hard to tell the difference.

So I think when you're deciding between each one of these, it does come down to like what are you doing with the bike, how much do you care about adjustments, what what type of travel range is that bike, I mean those are the things you kind of want to consider and just what kind of adjustments do you prefer is really gonna be a big factor there as well. So on the trail yeah I mean there's no real like overall winner between these two things. They both work killer, it really does boil down to you know what type of rear end suspension you've got on your bike. Like I said a little bit more might go this way a little bit less you might go this way simplicity of adjustment ease of use over here a little bit more technical adjustment and fine-tuning ability boom over there.

Well I hope that helped you guys out if you're kind of wondering the differences between these two forks and trying to figure out which one makes sense for you. Definitely check the link below in the video description to have a big long write-up and a little bit more details about these things comparing exact travel, offerings the different variants they offer, as well all the other little nitty-gritty details are all in that blog video description below. If you need help or just have any more questions don't hesitate to reach out to us. We have bike nerds on staff all day every day that ride these Forks and all the products we sell and we're totally open to answering questions. Make sure to hit us up, let us know down in the comments what do you guys think, which one of these do you prefer, hit that subscribe button and we'll see you in the next one.