I will probably do a lot more mini reviews than real reviews, most of the time when i get stuff that is review worthy i’ve not got it for long. Usually only a couple of weeks or so.

I’ve had these Manitou Dorados since the middle of August and so far i have loved just about every minute on them. I have used them in the Whistler Bike Park, on the North Shore, at home out at Moose Mtn and even managed to use them for the Provincial Champs at Canyon Ski area.

The Dorado is one of the few downhill forks on the market that is an ‘inverted’ design. There is no other major manufacturer that still produces an inverted design. Marzocchi did in the past, and Fox has had various prototypes floating around, but right now the Dorado pretty much has the market to itself. A Dorado is an inverted, air sprung downhill fork with rebound, high speed compression and TPC+ damping adjustment. The TPC+ damper acts similar to a low speed compression damper adjustment. The Hex lock axle is the best axle on the market – simple in design and adding stiffness to the lower of the fork.

An inverted design has several advantages over a regular fork, and a couple of disadvantages, but we’ll get to those in a moment. Advantages like massive amounts of front to back stiffness due to the huge upper legs, there is always oil where it is needed lubricating the seals and keeping the fork supple. There is almost no weight in the unsprung part of the fork – what is the lower leg assembly in a regular fork – meaning that the fork can have excellent small bump compliance.

Disadvantages are often mostly perceived – some riders feel like the fork is much less torsionally stiff than a comparable fork like a Fox 40 or Boxxer World Cup; i didn’t feel that this was an issue for me at 180Lbs. That certainly is the question that most riders want answered when they see that you are riding a Dorado. The other issue is that usually an inverted fork is heavier than the other guys can make a ‘right way up’ fork. That was the main reason that Marzocchi abandoned the Shiver fork, and one of the reasons that Manitou worked so hard to get their fork lightened up with cool technology like the hollow crown that they use.

I grabbed the Dorado right from the Manitou distributors Trident Sports, and they set up the fork to what they expected i would need in terms of Compression and Rebound damper adjustment. If you are not lucky enough to pick up a Dorado from these guys (and you won’t be) the Manitou website has an excellent setup chart that does a good job of explaining simply how to use each adjuster, what each also provides a great starting point that allows you to get riding with minimal fuss.

By the time i was finished riding on day 1 i had added some extra clicks of TPC+ as i using a little too much of the travel on step drop ins or off ledges. Even with the extra adjustment i still had plenty of range left, and finished the day thinking that i should add a couple of Psi to the air spring. The fork was supple over the roots and rocks in the bike park, and if there was any flex in the fork, it certainly wasn’t slowing me down.

The next time i rode the fork was at the Provincial Championships and it continued the stellar performance that i had come to expect after day1, the biggest upside was that i hadn’t had to overhaul the fork. This runs completely counter to my experience with the Boxxer World Cup which has proved to be one of the most maintenance intensive forks i have owned. I would have expected to overhaul my Boxxer (a 15 minute job at most) at least once, but no need with the Dorado.

The last time i spent on the Dorado was back in BC for more bike park action and a day on the shore. All the time that i had on the fork, i never had any doubt that it was going to soak up my bad line choices, control my landings or do anything less than working flawlessly. I really appreciated the stiffness that the Dorado brought, and the low maintenance was bliss. The adjusters have a noticeable effect and the fork was very easy to dial in to the way i wanted it to feel. I regularly used all of the travel but never felt a harsh bottom out.

I loved the Dorados’ feel in short – it was plush, stiff, reliable and super sexy to look at. The pricing is comparable with the other guys’ top forks and you get some cool stuff with the Dorado that you don’t with the others. Buy a new Dorado and you’ll get a free overhaul on the fork from the Factory trained service techs at Trident Sports, and the fork comes with a sturdy case (actually a gun case!) to transport it in.

I didn’t love the separate lower legs when i was trying to get my wheel in, i’m sure with more practice i would become more proficient. I think a lip on the inside of the drop outs would make it a little easier to get the wheel located for the axle. I also didn’t love the length of the fork – at least in theory. At it’s lowest, the Dorado is about three quarters of an inch taller than the Boxxer i was used to riding. Combined with the fat upper tubes i had to run another spacer below the crown to get stop my handlebars interfering with the top of the fork. All in all i was running with my bars about 1.5″ higher than normal which didn’t adversely affect my riding performance but i did have to work a little harder to weight the front of the bike in flat turns. Manitou have been making forks that are longer than the rest of the field for a while now, mostly due to the Reverse Arch design that they championed, i can’t help but wonder why the Dorado is so long though – it has no arch…

TL;DR – Stiff, sexy, supple, no overhauling every two rides, but tall and fiddly when fitting the wheel.