RockShox ZEB owners - Lend me your ears!

[440MTB]

Greetings!

I've heard from a few folks, and seen quite a few topics on ZEB forks, where people complain they are harsh, having to run super low PSI not to suffer from arm pump/numb hands, people not able to use the full travel, or just overall issues getting the forks dialed...

This seems to boil down to negative and positive chambers being unable to equalize due to ports being blocked, then after a lower service, a lot of guys say the forks are better, some still battle and end up upgrading the damper (in the case of older Select, Select+ models, they get the RC3 damper from the Ultimate variant).

So a few questions for you ZEB owners:

What model are you running?
Did this come on a new bike, or did you buy it separately?
If on a bike, what bike? 
Were you happy with it out the box/on the bike?
Did you have to do anything to get it dialed in?

I'm looking at the Trek sales, and saw the Slash 9.8XT which has the ZEB Select+,  and I've currently got a Lyrik Ultimate (RC2.1 - 160mm) which is a superb fork, so not really sure how to feel about the ZEB Select+ and Super Deluxe Select+ combo, as I don't want to buy a new bike and not be happy with the suspension on it.

Cheers!

Edited October 15 by 440MTB

[440MTB]

Just saw this video:

It seems a lot of people are used to running 25-30% sag, whereas it seems RS recommends the ZEB be run at 20%... but I'd like to hear your feedback too.

Cheers!

Edited October 15 by 440MTB

[Chadvdw67]

I dont have any experience with the ZEB forks, but I follow Diaz Suspension on Instagram, go watch some of their videos on uppers and lowers not being properly aligned, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the issue with most ZEB forks

[440MTB]

28 minutes ago, Chadvdw67 said:

I dont have any experience with the ZEB forks, but I follow Diaz Suspension on Instagram, go watch some of their videos on uppers and lowers not being properly aligned, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the issue with most ZEB forks

Hey there! I follow them too, not sure how common that issue is to be honest... the only reels I've seen on their page has been Fox (36/38/40)... only RS fork I've seen on there is a Reeba.

[Chadvdw67]

2 minutes ago, 440MTB said:

Hey there! I follow them too, not sure how common that issue is to be honest... the only reels I've seen on their page has been Fox (36/38/40)... only RS fork I've seen on there is a Reeba.

Yeah, they have mostly been FOX forks, but they do always say that it happens on RS stuff as well, they just haven't made many videos on the RS stuff, after checking those videos I tried it out on my Pike fork, if I just put one leg at a time it is smooth, but both legs at the same time with the wheel fitted and torqued down it has a little more stiction, like they wont just fall into one another under there own weight, I have to sort of jerk it around a little, nothing near as bad as what some of their video's have shown thankfully

[440MTB]

So I ended up buying the 2023 Slash that comes with the Charger 3 ZEB Select+ (HSC & LSC, etc)...

Will see how it goes, thus far the fork does feel super plush from just bouncing around on it in the street, and I haven't even started tuning it properly yet.