AT ITS BEST, MRP’s evolved Stage is even smoother than before, but accurate, instruction following set-up is crucial.
The Stage is structurally unchanged for 2016 but that’s fine because it has a usefully stiff and solid trail feel for a sub-2kg fork.The QtapeR axle uses a conical collar to increase contact area and it’s secure and easy to use if kept clean. Different colour stickers are included in case the original orange doesn’t match your bike.
New seals reduce stiction on what’s already a potentially very plush fork.Add a generous negative spring with a manual pressure-balance button and our group test sample tracked irregular surfaces and sucked up small bumps so smoothly it was like running a plus-size tyre at 10psi, giving outstanding grip even on flat or off-camber corners and climbs.
Keeping things controlled over bigger hits is harder though, because increasing the manual ‘Ramp Control’ to stop the fork diving too much can stop it getting full travel.A separate low-speed compression damper can also be called into play, and you can change the negative/positive spring balance, but the various intersecting damping/spring adjustments mean it can take a while to find your sweet spot.
While it’s been fine so far,we’ll continue using this fork to check that reliability and consistency of feel are improved over the Stage samples we ran last year.
WEIGHT: 1,980g
TRAVEL: 140, 150, 160 (tested), 170mm
Price 1170$