Eurobike 2012: BOS Suspension
BOS are sticking by their words from earlier in the year, air is where it’s at.
Their shorter travel Deville enduro fork was the French company’s first air fork offering, and a mighty fine one it was too. Then earlier this year we got to try out the new air sprung Idylle RaRe…nothing short of incredible. BOS themselves were so impressed with what they had achieved with this fork that in an interview earlier this year they told us that they wouldn’t be surprised if in the not too distant future coil springs became a thing of the past in their products. Well, just a few months later and they clearly seem to be heading down that route, with just one coil sprung fork remaining in their range. That fork is the standard Idylle (not pictured), and to be honest it sounded like they were only still offering this product because they were afraid that they might lose those customers who still believe that a coil spring is the only way to go.
On the air side though we now have two more forks that join the Idylle RaRe. First is an air version of the standard Idylle, and that’s the product that we’re most excited about as previously we’ve found the performance of the coil sprung Idylle to be very close to the coil RaRe version, despite a large price difference. The price of this new fork is still to be finalised but it’s likely that it will cost the same as the coil version, and if not the difference will be very small. The final new air fork is the 180mm travel Idylle SC (single crown). This directly replaces the coil sprung version.
So there you have it, BOS clearly feel that air is the way to go, even on a DH fork, and to be honest if these other forks are anything like the new Idylle RaRe that we’ve ridden then we think they could well be right.
Did BOS shed any light on R53 ditching them? Who’s going to do their servicing now?
For all their great work, it would be nice if they could sort out the servicing/spares side of the house.
J-Tech suspension service Bos forks now.
http://www.j-techsuspension.co.uk/
AFAIK, J-Tech are “unofficial” – they service them with Fox 34 seals and non-standard oil (BOS use some fancy oil) – as far as spares/warranties go, they’re not a licensed BOS agent.
So did Bos ditch R53 or did R53 ditch Bos? I would assume the first since my first conversation with R53 went something like:
Can I have a 2.5 x 350lb spring?
We haven’t got any.
What none at all?
Well we have one, but it’s used.
I’ll take it.
It’s full price.
What, no discount?
No
Well… can I order a new one then?
Certainly, it’ll be here in three months.
Riiigggghhtt. I’ll be calling Hotlines then…
.
There was never a second conversation. Whether that was R53′s attitude or Bos’s attitude leaving R53 no choice I’ll never know, but it’s not a good way to get or keep customers.
Any problems with your fork now means sending them back to France. Not ideal.
http://www.r53sport.com/index.php/products/bos-mtb-suspension
In morzine 2 years ago some complete idiot from Australia working in the bike shop at the bottom of pleney tried to sell me some BOS forks for cash if I met him later. All because he refused to get me some Boxxer lowers. Any way I went to the shop in Champery and got fork lowers fitted on my bike by 12 the following day. Not relevant at all but I just wanted to brand that Australian ‘suspension expert’ a complete bell to all that may read this sight.
classic. Good story bro.
That Australian is Nigel, Nathan Rennie’
Mechanic. The guy is sound.
Its because BOS are a pain to work with and take ages to respond. Seen a pair of the new lowers cracked already too, which isn’t a good sign.
In that case I apologise to R53 for bad mouthing them.
I believe R53 tried their best to give customers a good service but unfortunately it apperars that they had difficulties in getting parts from BOS. Also BOS sold directly to some customers in the UK which undermined R53′s business.
On the servicing side my understanding is that this is going to be done through an address in Germany? As all ready mentioned J Tech is acting as “unofficial” servicing agent in the UK, using the same SKF seals as BOS.
I had exactly the same experience as Hancock with R53 regarding trying to source a spring. Ended up buying brand new 2nd hand one at less than a quarter of the price. Same deal with the oil which is 7.5wt and cost me £5 rather than the £30+ they wanted and I can’t tell the difference. R53 did usually reply even if they couldn’t help because the prices were sky high and when I had my Stoy serviced the turnaround was very quick, sent out Monday and back on Thursday so no riding missed.
I want to try the new Idylle air, I loved my Idylle (coil)! BOS products are the best, but BOS as a company is very far from customer oriented.
BOS are a pain in the arse to deal with, do not answer e-mails from suppliers and service centers, so they can not get forks for a looong time, never mind spare parts and so on. Luckily its rarely needed since the products are so good and require so little, but when they do, it’s not good.
I still want to run an Idylle though, shame BOS doesn’t seem to be too interested in letting me (or others)..
I’ve now got a second pair of broken Idylle lowers, this time being the new style ones (well these ones have bent, and there’s a serious stress mark where they will crack again at the arch if I carry on using them, despite no obvious crash or cause of this, Bos France are being seriously unhelpful and providing a very poor level of service, not responding to my emails etc. Going to try and get it sorted once and for all this week, I’ve been trying since mid july! Not what I’d expect at all after shelling out so much cash for these in the first place
From what R53 have said, they have ditched BOS for the same reasons as TF Tuned did.
Good product, laughable trading terms & appalling support/product availability.
Which to be fair, mirrors my experience with them. I had a Stoy the first time round, which it took TF nearly 4 months to fix as BOS were amazingly unhelpfull in sending parts to fix it & more recently I was an idiot & decided to give a set of Deville’s a go.
In true BOS fashion, they failed spectaculary & were going to cost a fortune to fix & no-one in the UK to work on them (again).
Having used most of the competition now, I can safely say that it really isn’t worth the hassle. They arn’t really any better than anything else out there, and they are a c*nt to fix when they go wrong. There is a very real benefit to mainstream products and the relevant support you get as a result.
Interesting that so many of you slag off BOS and DIRT still keep rating them highly. If your remarks are true them I wish DIRT would add customer service to their review ratings as it’s essential to racers who need a quick turn around before their next race.
That Australian is/was Nathan Rennie’s mechanic – Nigel. The guy is sound.