Although the initial surprise of Magura making forks is pretty much done, its still a fairly uncommon sight to see them on the trails. When you tell somebody you are on a Magura fork, by far the most common reaction is "oh. Never seen one before." This is a big improvement of course from "I never knew they made forks" that was so common a year ago.
While Magura makes a fairly decent range of forks, only one really got our attention. The Wotan is Magura's all mountain, long travel single crown. Its got 160mm of travel, 36mm stanchion tubes, and a bunch of features that make it a solid weapon for Magura's attack on the freeride/ all mountain market.
On paper, the Wotan is a monster. As mentioned, it gets a maximum of 160mm of travel. But the Wotan also has Magura's travel adjust system, called Flight Control. Attached to one of the two levers on your bar, the Flight Control system lets you adjust the height of the fork anywhere between 160mm and 120mm. You push down on the lever, push the fork down, let go, and it will stay there. Or, you can push the level all the way down and the fork will sort of soften, giving you a fully active, and very soft 120mm fork. Its very, very similar to Manitou's travel adjust system, although the Manitou doesn't have the soft setting. The Wotan also has Magura's Albert Select platform system, with remote bar lever (lever #2, for those keeping track.) Basically, the Albert Select system is a platform lockout with a threshold adjuster. Using the little center knob that pops up when the Albert system is on, you can adjust the amount of force it takes to break through the platform lockout.
Of course, since the Wotan is air sprung, the amount of air pressure you put in the fork is also a usable adjustment. Airing up the Wotan is a simple task, with only the single air valve on the top of the leg. Magura advises activating the Flight Control system and cycling the fork to equalize air pressure int he positive and negative chambers, ensuring the best performance of the system. On the bottom of the right leg is your rebound adjustment, with its curiously un-intuitive sticker.
Of course, the most outstanding feature of the Wotan has to be the Dual arches. The Wotan sports two sizable arches, one in front and one in back. According to Magura, this provides maximum torsional stiffness, steering precision and minimal braking torsion. Basically, its thier way of saying the fork is one stiff bastard. While I will definitely agree that the fork is stiff and tracks well, I would also say that in my opinion the differences in stiffness between a good single arch fork and the dual arches of the Magura Wotan are likely only discernible in the laboratory, and the only people that could actually feel the difference in such a thing are either lying, or World Cup racers. I think the Dual Arches are more marketing then performance to be honest, but I suppose there are worse examples of that in the market these days.
To top it off, Magura did a brilliant thing and liscenced the Maxle system. Personally, this is one of my favourite front axle systems out there, bested only by the new Maxle 360. Great job on Maguras part by recognizing something that works and using it instead of coming up with some proprietary system that would in all likelyhood not perform nearly as well as the Maxle does.
We rode the Wotan on two bikes, an 07 Kona Coilair and a Turner 6-pack. Trails varied from mellow but fast single track, to steep climps, to rocky trails.
The first thing you will notice on the Wotan is how bloody smooth it is. Without the Albert system engaged, the Wotan just eliminates everything on the trail, large or small. Particularly impressive is how sensitive the fork remained regardless of the air pressure in it, unlike other forks that get a bit of "air stiction" when the pressure gets higher. No matter what pressure we set the Wotan at, it stayed very sensitive initially, but of course got firmer deeper into the stroke. This did some with a penalty though, in a considerable amount of bobbing. Since the Magura was so eager to move and smooth out the trail, it took very little effort to get it to bob around. It would also sink pretty deep into its travel in corners, unlike the RockShox Lyrik, which stayed much higher.
Climbing the Wotan was a fairly good experience. I am a huge fan of locking down the travel adjuster and having a very soft 120mm fork that I can crush down and motor up the hill on. The Flight Control system was very handy in that way, allowing the front wheel to stay planted instead of wheeling up and all over the place. What I wasn't a fan of was trying to get the fork back to full travel. While we had heard it was simply a matter of opening the handlebar mounted adjuster and unweighting the fork, this was simply not the case. In the best case scenario we would have to do a wheelie at the top of the climb to allow the fork to fully extend again. I can only speak for myself, but the last place I want to have to do wheelies is at the top of a climb steep enough that it required me to lock the fork down. Realistically, it was more of a "get off and lift the front of the bike" then a wheelie situation.
the Albert Select system was also hot and cold. On one hand, it helped tame the forks bobbing tendencies nicely, and was fairly easy to use.The threshold adjuster worked, and allowed us to get a personal comfort spot for where the platform would let go. However, breaking through that threshold was not a nice experience. Depending on how stiff the platform was set, breaking through the threshold made the Wotan feel very rough, and felt like it was vibrating as it moved through its travel. It seemed the stiffer you made the platform release the rougher the fork felt. It would have also been nice to have a friction shifter instead of the Wotans on/off handlebar mount, which would allow you to control how much platform the fork had from the bar.
Speaking of the bar mounts, they too were a mixed blessing. The travel adjust was nice to have so accessable, and was pretty handy. The Albert Select system was debatable, as a fork mounted knob would have done just as well (note, for 08 the Wotan has a fork mounted Albert Select knob, so this hardly matters.) One big negative was getting the levers on the bar just right. Finding a spot on the bars where the levers would fit without interfering with your brakes and shifters took some work, especially if you have oversized 31.8 bars. This also made it tricky to find a spot where the levers were practical.
Going down, the Magura Wotan shows where is excels. The big legs, big arches, supple stroke helped the big fork plow through just about anything. The Wotan ramps up nicely, and has a really good bottomless feel to it. Of course, all 47 arches on the fork keep things nice and stiff, as you'd expect.
Overall, the Magura Wotan is a decent fork. But its not excellent. At this price point, its got some pretty heavy competition, namely the Fox 36 and the RockShox Lyrik. The new Marzocchi 55 falls in here too, but we don't have any time on one to compare it to. Comparing the Wotan directly to the two models of forks that are air sprung and have travel adjust (36 Talas RC2 and Lyrik 2-step.), the Wotan falls short in a few ways.
First, the lack of any type of compression damping adjustment is, in our opinion, a big mistake. People who pay this much for forks like this expect a decent list of tuning options, and compression adjustment is one of them. Whether or not they can use it isn't the point, the point is that at this price point, the Wotan should offer some sort of compression adjustment other then air pressure and the platform. Botht eh Fox and Rockshox offer high and low speed.
Second, the Wotan is heavier by a fair bit. At 2720.64 grams (steerer cut to 8", both levers included but no star nut) the Wotan is close to a pound heavier then both the Lyrik and 36 Talas. The Talas for example is 2350g, including full steerer and star nut. Thats a significant difference for some, and means nothing to others. I can't help but wonder how much that second arch added to the overall weight, and wonder whether the arguably negligible gains are worth the weight.
The travel adjust is ok, but if you are going to copy a system you can do a hell of a lot better then Manitou's. Both the Lyrik 2-step system and the Talas system simply require a flick of a switch to get the forks back to full travel. At the top of a long climb, thats a hell of a lot nicer then having to do wheelies.
The weight and action of the fork makes it far more suitable for freeride stuff then tamer all mountain. The bobbing and fantastically plush stroke lends itself well to riding where you go down a lot more then going up. The big 36mm legs, dual arches and beefy construction gives the fork a great chance at surviving some pretty hairy stuff.
The Wotan is made for an 8 inch post mount brake ONLY. While its generally agreed that using a 7 or 8 inch rotor is the thing to do with this kind of fork, the dedicated 8 inch mount means there is no chance you can adapt any sort of IS brake to the fork, effectively screwing over people with IS Hope brakes, and even (lol!) IS Magura brake owners. Seems a very strange choice.
The question is, of course, would we recommend this fork? Well, thats hard to say. MSRP on the Wotan is $1250, which is a decent bit less then the 36 Talas RC2, or the Lyrik 2-Steps MSRP. However, MSRP doesn't really reflect what pricing is in the real world. In speaking to a few dealers, the general agreement is that the Wotan is going to cost you about $200 less then the 08 Fox 36 Talas RC2, and about $100 less the the 08 RockShox Lyrik 2-Step. At that price, I would rather get the Lyrik or 36, as they are arguably better forks. BUT, that said, if you can score a good deal on the Wotan, its a fun fork to own. Its plush, stiff, does a great job of erasing trail nastyness, and now has good support for parts and service in Canada.
If Magura can address a few small details on the fork, they should have something that can directly compete with the kings of the 6" all mountain fork category. As it is now, they fall a bit short, although its a hell of an effort.
