First Look: Trust Performance's $2,700 Carbon Fiber Linkage Fork

What do Dave Weagle, linkage forks, and a lot of carbon fiber all have in common? The answer to that question would have been ''diddly squat'' not all that long ago, but you're looking at The Message, a 130mm-travel, carbon fiber linkage fork that Trust Performance (the company behind it), is claiming to be the next leap forward in suspension performance.

This wild looking creation isn't some one-off prototype either. The first production run of 2,500 forks is ready to be sold straight from Trust's website... For $2,700 USD. Wowza.

Some bold claims

Also not normal are the claims that Trust is making about The Message. Now, I'm sure a lot of us are a bit salty when it comes marketing newspeak, but Trust's claims are so bold, so emphatic, that they're worth singling out because if they're true, we might have something special here. Actually, if they can check off even half this list, The Message will have an interesting future, which is a hell of a lot more than any other linkage fork has been able to say.

Of course, we hear the obligatory ''... pedals like it’s running XC suspension, but it descends like a full-on enduro suspension.'' Trust then describes the travel as offering, ''supple performance early in the stroke to provide ground-hugging traction, support through the mid-stroke, and more bottom-out resistance at the end of the travel,'' and they also say that it's, ''competitively lightweight and resoundingly stiff.''

The big claim, though, is the added steering stability that Weagle and Company believe is key to riding a bike faster, in more control, and in more comfort.

Why a linkage fork? And why now?

If you think this whole linkage fork thing is a new idea, it's very much not. Using pivots instead of telescoping tubes has been done for many decades and on the front of everything from folding bicycles to Grand Prix racing motorbikes. But despite grandiose claims that these glorified Erector Sets would make stanchion tubes and bushings seem silly, it's probably fair to say that linkage forks have been laughed off as the platypus of the mountain bike world - most people think they're neat, but they might as well have a duck bill, webbed feet, and venomous spurs. And lay eggs, too.








''The equation has changed now, and the thing that's changed in the equation is materials and technology,'' Jason Schiers, Trust CEO and President, replied when I hit him with that one. ''The damper technology that Dave has developed and created is unique. It hasn't been done before. And, being able to capitalize on composites and the physical characteristics of composites is new. It's only in the last ten years that people have been making composites at the level where you could load them and create the structures and weights that we're creating,''

Not coincidentally, stability comes largely from stable geometry, and the usual approach with a telescoping fork involves adding low-speed compression and/or firming up the spring rate to keep the fork from going into its travel when you're braking or moving your body around. That can help, but Trust's PR says that the very fact the fork isn't being allowed to go through its stroke freely, due to the added damping or higher spring rate, means that you really aren't doing yourself any favors. And the more your fork compresses, the more funky and unstable your steering can be, which is something that I'm sure we've all felt.

So, rather than depend on damping or the spring rate to bring stability, Weagle uses four-bar trailing linkage. The link arrangement meant that he could determine the fork's kinematics, just like he would if he was penning a rear-suspension layout, and also that the Message has a leverage rate, also just like a rear-suspension system. Weagle combined those two things, along with a whole lot of carbon fiber, to tackle the stability problem in a way that a telescoping fork, with its 1:1 ratio, isn't able to. Physics and calculators and science stuff.


It sounds like Dave had to do a hell of a lot of math, but what it all means is that The Message's axle path isn't dictated by the steering axis like it always is with a telescoping fork, and also that it's offset changes in relation to the steering angle. Even more importantly, it maintains the same mechanical trail number through its travel, and that is why Trust is claiming that their linkage fork can outperform a telescopic fork.

''To put it simply: handling remains the same even when the head angle changes - early in the turn, at the apex, and at the exit, climbing or descending, your bike always steers the same,'' are their exact words.

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How is it different from other linkage forks?

I have a bit of a soft spot for anyone who's doing things differently, no matter how good we think the norm might be, and you've probably seen a few of the linkage forks I've covered and ridden in the past. France's Motion Ride showed me theirs at the last Eurobike show, while the Wild Scurra 2 and Structure Cycleworks both made the Motion Ride creation look somewhat normal.




There are others, too, from Whyte's PRST-1 (which had consistent trail) to the aforementioned Pro-Flex, but they all have one very important thing in common: They were all a flop in the marketplace, if they even made it that far. Failures, every single one of them.

Last time I checked, I had a bunch of Fox and RockShox forks in my shop, but not a single linkage fork. So, how is Trust's new baby any different?




''Most of those other link designs end up with forward-arcing axle paths or try to mimic the linear motion of a telescopic fork while adding some braking anti-dive feature with their link,'' Weagle said. ''That’s probably partly why our product looks so different than anything else. In the end, by focusing on stability, we ended up with a pretty novel invention.'' Preventing brake dive actually wasn't the focus of his efforts, even if it ended up being a byproduct of it.


Haven't most of the linkage forks in the past been about preserving geometry, which is something I might refer to as increasing stability? ''Yup, about preserving geometry under brake dive. So I just said straight up from the beginning, 'Brake dive is something I'm not concerned about when building test mules.' Let's go back to 2011 when I was talking to partners of mine about lower, longer, slacker geometry, and it was kinda falling on deaf ears. But in 2013, it's not falling on deaf ears anymore. All of a sudden, people are pretty freaking receptive. There's a marketplace shift, and I'm saying, 'Holy shit, people finally get that more stability is better; not worse, better.''

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Chassis and internals

Not surprisingly, The Message is largely made from carbon fiber, with the legs, crown, tapered steerer, and linkage pieces all being the expensive black stuff. The pivot hardware is aluminum because, rather than saving some grams by using bushings, you'll find sealed bearings at all eight pivot points. There's a 180mm post mount on the brake side, but you can jump up to 203mm by bolting on an adapter. I think that also underlines the fact that Trust really does intend this thing to be used in any setting where you'd put a 150mm-travel fork into action.




I expected the axle to be keyed on the ends so as to tie the left and right clamps together, but Weagle says that they've gone with a standard 15 x 110mm Boost thru-axle that's also Torque Cap compatible. He was originally expecting to have to use pinch clamps (they're on the older prototypes), but the chassis proved to be impressively rigid and they weren't needed.

If you're thinking that the fork legs are a little bit fat, it's because they're hiding two air springs and single twin-tube, thru-shaft damper. Weagle wasn't too keen to jump into what's going on inside The Message's damper, but he did let on that it uses a nitrogen-charged IFP that runs at very low pressures, and also that it can pretty much be rebuilt anywhere with a bucket of oil and a few tools. That means the those who know what they're doing can get inside to tinker with things, and those who don't know what they're doing might take it to someone who does.

As far as adjustments go, the silver lever at the top of the right fork leg toggles between your open, medium, and firm low-speed compression settings, while an anodized red clicker tweaks the low-speed rebound at the opposite end. Pretty straightforward stuff damping-wise, but the guys at Trust sounded a bit coy when I wanted to get into it, so I suspect there's still more to learn.




When was the last time you saw an air-sprung fork with valves on both legs? These days, essentially everything uses a single air spring in one leg, but remember what I said about normal and Trust not doing that? The Message has an air spring in each leg, both with self-adjusting negative springs via a dimple on the air rod. Weagle did the math to have the volume of the two chambers call for the rider's body weight in PSI, at least as a close starting point. So, at 165lb, I'd put 165 PSI in each leg. They'll also have volume-reducing tokens to put in there if you need more ramp-up, but Trust did say that they went pretty aggressive with the spring curve. There are some pretty skookum-looking bottom-out bumpers, too.

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Is it going to work?

My test fork is only hours away from showing up on my doorstep, so I can't tell you what it's like to ride quite yet, but that's not really what I'm wondering when I ask if it's going to work or not. I suspect that it'll perform well, but will it work in the marketplace? As we see at nearly every trade show, someone is always showing up with a new Erector Set of a linkage fork that we'll never end up seeing again.

All sorts of promises and then, nothing.




This is quite different, however, as Trust Performance has 2,500 forks ready to send out the door pretty quickly. They're also keeping service in-house for the first year so as to see every single issue that might come up, and there's also that 250-hour service schedule and lifetime warranty on the sealed bearings. It's all sounding promising, especially with Weagle's know-how and name attached to it, but is the buying public ready for a linkage fork that costs $2,700 USD and doesn't have a clearly defined customer yet?

I guess it's you guys that are going to answer that question, but I suspect that Trust is going to have an uphill battle when it comes to convincing people to look the other way when it comes to The Message's appearance. Function trumps fashion, always, but also not actually always because we're all funny and looks do count for points. That said, this one is less kooky-looking than most that have come before it, and if it rides even half as well as Trust is saying it will, it should blow us all away.

Stay tuned for an in-depth video and ride impressions of Trust Performance's new linkage fork.

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Reviews and Tech Forks Linkage Forks Trust Performance