Magura Thor Fork Review
MSRP: $899 (Killer Deals Below)
Avg. Rating: Not Rated
Description: Magura jumps onto the red hot 140mm bandwagon with this excellent offering they have dubbed the Magura Thor! We love forks with cool names and this one has one. The Magura Thor compares very favorably with the likes of the RockShox Revelation or the Fox QR15 series of forks and best of all, it's different than what everyone else is running on the trail. If you like to blaze your own way, then check out our in-depth review of the Magura Thor below and please feel free to leave your own review. We'd like to hear what you think of the Magura Thor 140 mm Mountain Bike Fork.
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US $529.00
Magura Thor Fork Review
Magura Thor is a great looking fork!
Magura forks might not be a name many of us are familiar with as they don't have the name recognition of something like RockShox or Marzocchi but that doesn't mean they aren't a quality mountain bike fork. If you are one of those who prefer to have something unique and different than the 1200 other guys that ride your trail, then this might be the perfect fork for you. Let's take a closer look at it.
The Magura Thor fork is going to be the fork that we look at in this article and the Thor is a welcome and needed addition to the Magura lineup. It fills a gap between the Magura 130mm Menja and the massive Magura 160mm Wotan. Coming in at 140mm of travel and utlizing the much vaunted Maxle axle system the Thor is a fork to look at right out of the gate, but no add the fact that it comes in right under the 4lb (or 2kg for you metric system weirdos) and suddenly you are looking at the Magura Thor as a direct competitor for a fork you may be very familiar with and that's the RockShox Revelation.
The last fork we had on our trusty test mule was the RockShox Pike and we have to say the Thor took an entire lb off the front end compared to the Pike. It might not be a fair comparison, because those two forks are in different classes and the RockShox Pike utilizes a coil spring but still, the bike felt much lighter to us already and we liked it.
Magura Thor Construction
Nothing ground breaking but a rock solid choice!
Let's run down the basic construction of the Magura Thor fork. If we work our way down from the top, we start with forged aluminum crown attached to a standard pair of 32mm stanchions. From there the Magura Thor deviates a bit from the norm and you notice what they call the Magura Dual Arch Design. These are exactly what they say, a pair of arches front and rear that are designed to improve the stiffness and rigidity of the fork. We will share our opinion on whether they work or not later on but they sure look cool. As you can see in the picture, this fork looks like it means business.
As we continue to the lower end of the Thor, we find the SRAM Maxle quick release axle setup. Magura includes the Maxle 360 axle setup with the Thor, which is slightly easier to use. They also include a hard core option for you weight weenies. Magura includes a single pinch bolt at the bottom of the right fork leg. This allows you to ditch the Maxle if you choose and use a standard Magura thru-axle and lock it down with the pinch bolt. This takes away the quick change feature but it will save you 60 grams if you so choose. Not for everyone, but some will appreciate this feature.
The left fork contains the mount for the brake and it's set up to take a 180 mm rotor but you could use up to a 210mm if you are a brake junkie. Upgradeability....nice.
Magura Thor Internal Construction
Magura Thor 20mm Thru Axle
The Magura Thor doesn't break any new ground on the internals, you will find the standard air spring in the left fork and the the right leg contains the oil damping setup. The Magura Thor includes a feature they call "Flight Control Remote travel" adjust system. It works quite simply, depress the lever, compress the fork and release the lever. The Magura Thor is now a 100mm travel fork, perfect for uphill climbs but not so short that it will bounce you out of the saddle. To go back to 140mm, you simple do the reverse, push the lever and unload the front wheel, then release the lever again. 140mm of travel again, just like that.
The rebound damping controls are on the right-hand leg at the bottom and the compression damping dial is located at the top, again a standard setup for many forks on the market these days. The Magura is a bit different though and here is how it works, the blue outer knob turns the damping circuit on or off and the inner gold knob determines how firm the ride is. It varies from pretty squishy to almost locked out. Technical terms like squishy might be hard to follow, but you get the idea. Like many forks, you also can utlize a remote lever drive mounted on the handlebars to control this as well.
Fork adjustment and setup is pretty straightforward as we have one air valve, a rebound dial and the compression damping. Magura includes a table of recommended air pressures for various rider weights but you will have to adjust to your personal tastes. Our experience was that we needed more air pressure than the recommended starting point from Magura. Their settings were too light for our taste but your experience may vary.
Magura flight Control Lever
The Flight Control Remote lockdown also complicates matters a bit, nothing serious but you need to make sure the fork's negative air chamber has enough pressure as well. This is what allows the fork to operate in 100mm or 140mm mode. It's simple to do, just occasionally depress the FCR lever while charging the fork or on the flip side if you need to release some pressure you simple depress the lever but do not compress the fork, this will remove pressure from the negative side of the air chamber. It sounds more complicated than it is but it's really pretty simple and the fork comes with directions on proper setup.
Magura Thor Ride Quality
The good news is that once you do finally get the Magura setup, it's a killer fork. This fork gives the same stiffness and sure handling that heavier forks do but without the weight penalty. I am sure it's due to the Magura Dual Arch system as we put this puppy through it's paces on some tight singletrack and found it to be very stable and solid. The fork action is very smooth and fluid and works well once we sorted out the adjustments. This is a required step with any fork so while the Magura might be a bit more complicated than some, it wasn't a big deal. For overall performance we'd easily rank the Magura Thor with any of the better known forks.
We had heard of earlier versions of the Magura Thor having a knocking sound when the fork topped out but I think Magura has fixed the production versions now as ours was fine. To summarize our thoughts on the Magura Thor, it's a great fork from a well respected German company. It looks waaay cool and performs just as good as any fork in this category that we've tested. If you want something different than the rest of the herd, then the Magura Thor Fork could be the perfect choice for you.
Video Reviews
Check out this cool video review from Competitive Cyclist of the Magura Thor 140mm Fork.
