Mountain bike suspension forks

For £300 you should get a decent chassis, which will often be a hand-me-down from a previously more expensive fork - for example, the Sektor being old Revelation. You should get reliable seals and adjustable rebound damping that gives a consistent and controlled return. There should be no banging bottom-out at full compression or top-out when it returns. Because Europeans love them, you'll often find lockout levers for smooth surface sprinting too but we don't know many UK riders who use them much. Screw-through axles are a really useful option that's increasingly common on cost-effective forks, but remember a matching through-axle wheel (or a rebuild onto a new hub) adds a big extra cost if you're existing one can't be converted easily. Aggressively priced brands like X-Fusion and Suntour mean this mid-price market contains some really impressive forks now.

At the price of a fork increases to between £500 and £700 you'll get more complicated damping systems with separate high and low speed compression damping adjustment. Chassis design also becomes more refined, which hopefully means lighter and/or stiffer results. When prices start to exceed £800, you should be getting something really special. Ultralight expensive material such as carbon fiber, surface treatment such as Fox's Kashima coating or pro raced derived damping circuitry such as RockShox' Mission Control DH.

You obviously need to choose the right travel for your riding and your bike too. If you're after a 100 to 140mm travel fork then you need to check the simultaneous review of another 15 shorter-travel forks. We've concentrated on 140 to 180mm travel because the longer the fork, the more stroke it has to control a hit. Therefore the temptation for trail riding is always to add travel. Always check your frame warranty for the maximum recommended fork length before fitting a new one though. Even if it's safe increasing travel by over 20mm from original spec will make big changes to geometry. While a slacker head angle can be fun, a higher bottom bracked can really ruin things.

Finally we need to talk about wheel size. Many forks are 26in wheel versions mostly for freeride and downhill riding style. Some are available in 650B or 29er versions thought and where they are we've included relevant notes, because comparative performance can be very different.

1991 Original RS1

Always pushing things forward, RockShox released one of the first suspension forks, the RS1 in 1991. Weighing 1.4kg, the RS1 had 49mm (1.9in) travel. The alloy crown was revolutionary and the chromoly bolt-on brace helped keep the RS1 stiff. An air spring system and oil damping doesn't put the RS1 a million miles away from the forks of today.

2013 Revelation RCT3

The revelation puts out anything from 100 to 150mm of travel and weighs 1.63kg. Keeping with the times it's available in 26in, 650B and 29in wheel size options, and there are choices of axle and steerer tube size too. The one-piece carbon crown and steerer is cutting edge, and using an air spring system, the Revelation's adjustable compression and rebound damping makes set-up easy.