Rockshox SID Select Charger RL [Rider Review]

Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

The RockShox SID Fork is their key player in the world of cross country and short travel trail forks. We see the SID on bikes from normal weekend warriors to World Cup XC Races and even the Olympics. Luckily, RockShox has a more cost friendly version of the SID so people without an endless supply of sponsor money can still gain the benefits of the SID fork. Our buddy Jonathan recently purchased the SID Select Fork. Let's see what he thought of it:

Jonathan's Review

I recently purchased the SID for a lightweight bike build on a transition spur frame. The build came out to 25lbs and it rides really really well for only 120mm! I can compare this fork to a Fox 36, Fox 40, and Lyric Ultimate that I have on my other bikes.

It is very supple compared to the RockShox Lyric, Fox 36, and not as supple as the Fox 40 of course. It feels like a bigger fork that just has less travel, so not as much mid-stroke support, I could add air spacers if I wanted to feel all the parts of proper fork travel in this fork but I have appreciated the feeling of comfort without concern for soaking up all of the big hits. It handles landing big jumps and bottoming out well, predictably, when it isn’t really set up for them. And it deals with rolling on rocks and roots really well. On fast and choosy downhill black/double black enduro trails it eats up the chatter and square hits well enough to keep the speed up to where it is with the 170 enduro bike with only the major contour feedback left for my arms to deal with.

I am 170lbs and have 75lbs of air pressure in this fork. I’m riding it with a set of We Are One Faction Wheels that I have been riding for years which have familiar Maxxis Forecaster tires on them as well.

I ride in BC, so a mix of the bike park and trails, mostly Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, Williams Lake, Kamloops, and Kelowna, and my own trails I’m building at home in 100 Mile House like Kraken.

Currently, the trails are dry and hard as this heatwave has changed the character of the trails and that is what I have spent the past few weeks riding this new fork on. Superfast rolling compared to normal and the fork is now my favorite on this bike. I felt like having a longer travel bike helped me get used to the barrage of rocks and roots the trails throw at you here but now having a supple fork that rides high and is light is better than say the Lyric which had the issue of sitting 10% into its travel and just being more sluggish feeling because of the travel and weight. I compare torsion stiffness by riding my Fox 40 at the bike park and then switching to another bike/fork for a repeat lap. The Lyric is shockingly different from the 40 but this SID (although inappropriate for regular bike park use) isn’t any worse than the Lyric, which impressed me.

Conclusion

"Weight matters to me still and the three attributes of torsional stiffness, weight, and suppleness (and price?)all seem to beat the comparable Fox 34 for me and I am glad that this is the fork Transition recommended for their Spur frame. After riding this for a few weeks, I decided to ride this fork/frame combo over the previous bike with a Lyric Ultimate fork that I had built up for the BC Bike Race this year." - Jonathan