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manitou travis single or marzocchi 66 for my 06 jamis diablo

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#1 ·
so heres the deal im pretty strapped on cash right now and im lookin for a nice single crown fork that will get the FR/DH job done. I currently have a manitou travis triple on it right now, but i want to give single crowns a shot. I love the fork its super plush and has an endless travel feel. The only marzocchi ive ever ownd was a jr t and it was a pretty good fork.
so i can either get a 180mm manitou travis single for about 350 or save up the cash and get a used 07 marzocchi 66 for around 500. pretty unsure at this point what to do, so please give me some suggestions.
 
#3 ·
It just so happens that I had an 06 Jamis Diablo 2.0, and had a Travis on it as well. The travis was the TPC+, (not the intrinsic), and it handled just fine. I don't, however, know why you would want to go backwards from a triple to a single, or even a single 1.5. I would just keep the triple.


I'm pretty sure you are going to get the majority of replies to your thread to vote towards Marzocchi, and you'll hear Manipoo this, and Manipoo that, from people who haven't even tried out the fork, and are just from hear say, and not from actual experience... but don't cut manitou short just yet... If you like the way your triple feels, the single 180 feels the exact same, only your turning radius dramatically increases, and you can do half or full bar spins depending on your set up.... you might feel a difference as far as stiffness as well. There is a lot of argumentative controversy about the durability of these forks, but I beat the crap out of mine, and nothing has happened in over a half a year... who knows, maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones.

BUT, at the same time, I'm not going to lie to you. I, too was strapped on a budget at one time, which is why I chose the Travis over the 66. If I would have had the money for a 66, I would have bought one. The 66's are bad @$$, have more adjustments, are easier to tune, and are known for their durability. The only thing it doesn't completely have on the travis is stiffness; maybe due to it only having a 1 1/8 steeror instead of a 1.5 steeror, but the 66 is still pretty stiff none the less.

So if you can afford it, Go for the 66. But if you can't, don't feel bad about getting the Travis. I bought the Travis at first just as a temporary fork until I could get something better. Now after having it for a while, I see no need to change it to anything else...

Oh, and by the interview from Hayes at interbike: to put it short, Hayes made it VERY clear to everyone that they were going to fix all the silly'ness of the previous owners of Manitou... just food for thought.
 
#5 ·
he had problems at whistler, whistler will mess up a lot of forks. demolished my 66 up there last year.

I beat the hell out of my fork, I haven't gotten the cartrage to blow out which was the issue. the travis is a really amazing fork, I love mine and it feels better than any 66 I've ever been on. I did use the travis a little while this year at whistler and didnt have any problems, but really my DC shiver was just a better fork to run up there. single crown is nice, my 6.5 pound travis is a real treat when coming from a 9 pound marzocchi.
 
#8 ·
blender said:
let's wait for EBX to chime in... he ran the Travis SC on his Gran Mal for a while, blew the damper out 4-5 times, and finally wised up and switched to a 66. Last I heard he was a happy camper.
Yep, blew it up 5 times....good memory, Blender. Before my Travis, I had an '05 66 that was pretty much flawless (other than it's ridiculous height).

I've said it before and I'll say it again. When the Travis was running, it was killer. Super plush, really stiff and felt really nice. The issue I had was not the fork's feel, rather the reliability. Also, I was lucky that it happened in Whistler every time and Summit Sports is a service center for Manitou, so I had VERY little downtime on the bike. Sometimes as little as an hour before it was completely rebuilt....however, if I was anywhere else, I would've been SOL.

The issue I kept running into (along with most people that get a lot of days in the park) is that the Travis forks don't play well with long descents that also have big hits during them. Basically, the oil heats up on those descents and then all it takes is one good drop or rough landing and CLANK, there goes the cartridge - as it literally blows the thing apart. The first 3 times that happened, they replaced the intrinsic cartridge and they didn't last very long. The 4th time, they replaced them with the TPC and it was much more durable. The 5th time, they replaced it with a TPC (at my cost) and I sold it. Riding this fork on the shore or on some of our local FR trails, I never blew it up.....so it likely might work for most folks.

Also, it seems like I'm between spring weights for these forks. The stock spring was giving me perfect sag (maybe slightly more) so that's what I was running most of the time. Manitou thought that I was likely bottoming it too hard and, thus, gave me the next level spring during one of the rebuilds (let's call it a "firm" spring for this case). FYI, I was cranking up the damping (both intrinsic and tpc) when I had the stock spring, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference - if any. Well, I rode with the firm spring for a week or two and didn't have any issues blowing up my fork. However, I was having issues with my hands because it was too firm for me and I was getting very little sag and the small bump was shite. So, I went back to the stock spring and it blew up on me not too much later. At that point, I was done with it.

It is fair to say that I gave Manitou every chance to get this right and I really wanted to like this fork. They did all they could for me and honestly, I couldn't have asked for better service than the Summit guys gave me. In the end, my fork was out of warranty and I had to start paying for repairs for something that I view to be a design flaw.....there's a reason all of their pro's are running TPC cartridges and not the intrinsic. That was the point where I sold it and got the '07 66 RC2X. Only have ~10 days on that so far, but it feels good so far and I haven't blown it up. :thumbsup: The nice thing is that the high and low speed compression adjustments actually make a difference....something I was never really able to notice on the Travis.

If you're really broke and don't plan to do long, nasty descents, then it probably won't be an issue, but I have no interest in going back to a manitou anytime soon. My advice would be to save your pennies and get the 66.

Cheers,
EB
 
#9 ·
ive

just gone "backwards"so to speak,i put a new 07 66 sl1ata on my rig inplace of some tripples and couldnt be happier,everyone is different and in my case i was goin bout 5 steps ahead,i say go the 66 :thumbsup:
 
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