# Answer Manitou Three



## luffy (Nov 15, 2005)

This seemed like the most appropriate forum to post this so here goes:

I work in a shop and was given a set of Manitou Three forks for free. They have a 1 1/4" and I have absolutely no use for them. The stantions are flawless and they are in very good overall shape. Judging by the amount of CNC and milled parts I'd guess they were quite high-end for their time. I'll post pictures when I have access to my other computer, but I was curious if anybody was looking for a pair, or could provide me with information. I don't need and will never use these forks, so if someone wants to pay for shipping or come pick them up, they can have them. BTW- no boots.....


Thanks,

Adam


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## WolfgangBock (Jan 13, 2006)

*Manitou three*

Hej Adam,
I would take one!
Pls give me all your informations.
Thanks
Wolfgang from Chicago



luffy said:


> This seemed like the most appropriate forum to post this so here goes:
> 
> I work in a shop and was given a set of Manitou Three forks for free. They have a 1 1/4" and I have absolutely no use for them. The stantions are flawless and they are in very good overall shape. Judging by the amount of CNC and milled parts I'd guess they were quite high-end for their time. I'll post pictures when I have access to my other computer, but I was curious if anybody was looking for a pair, or could provide me with information. I don't need and will never use these forks, so if someone wants to pay for shipping or come pick them up, they can have them. BTW- no boots.....
> 
> ...


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## luffy (Nov 15, 2005)

*Shipping Info*

Hey, I go to school in St. Catharines Ontario. If you want the forks you can work out the shipping and get back to me with a plan.


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## robinmiller (May 31, 2005)

Nice find. Manitou 3s were the top of the line in 1994, but at that time Manitou only made one model anyway! Definitely high end though.

Such pretty forks. IMO, Manitou managed to go from making the most beautiful forks on the market to making the ugliest forks some time between 1995 and 1998.. and they haven't recovered.


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## luffy (Nov 15, 2005)

*well put*

Well put, I agree and I own a set of blacks and shermans. A total of 8 visits to OGC (and I work in a bike store), means I'll never buy one of their products again. I'm not bashing their products, merely stating my personal experiences with their shitty, cheaply made, over priced, over marketed, irrepairable and poorly designed product..... ok, so just a bit of bashing


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## DeeEight (Jan 13, 2004)

robinmiller said:


> Nice find. Manitou 3s were the top of the line in 1994, but at that time Manitou only made one model anyway! Definitely high end though.


Actually they had more than one model in every year after 1992 (when it was just called the Manitou suspension fork). The Manitou 2 in 1993 got a companion M-sport fork, which was basically the Manitou 1 lowers with decals instead of annodized graphics and the newer M2 crown with the press-fit steerer. The 1994 Manitou 3 also had a companion M-sport, although this time the M-sport was based more on the Manitou 3 than simply an updated Manitou 1 or 2. It used the same short stack of elastomers as the previous years, again without preload adjustment but otherwise it got the same style of lowers as the M3, a CNC machined brace, and the same black teflon coated Easton EA70 stanchions and the same crown/steerer. It also had less travel (same as previous year models though) and was lighter by about a tenth of a pound.


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## Pimpride (Nov 14, 2005)

1 1/4 inch tubes are wierd. They would problbay work with cannondales or another oversized head tube frame. Sound like a good deal though, you'll make someone happy.


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## DeeEight (Jan 13, 2004)

Not so weird, about 30 or 40 brands have used 1 1/4" steerer tubes on their frame models between the size's introduction and now. I've got three of those brands represented in my basement right now (alpinestars, titan and manitou). More brands adopted Fisher's evolution sizing than have adopted Manitou's 1point5 sizing. 

What's actually weird, or rather, ironic is that both companies (fisher and answer-manitou) invented these new sizes for claimed reasons that had nothing to do with reality. Both claimed because mountain biking (of their respective era's) was getting more and more aggressive and extreme, that steerer tubes on forks were failing more often and thus a new diameter was needed. Now for Fisher, this was going from 1" (the standard and really only choice at the time, though there was two choices for wall thickness) to 1.25" and for Manitou it was 1.125" to 1.5". That was the marketing department reason for the new sizes, and Yes Fisher bicycles was having steerer failures on their forks all of a sudden, and yes Manitou forks were also having steerer failures in ever increasing numbers. 

The reality was though, it had nothing to do with the actual physics behind the steerer sizes, but behind the MATERIALS used. Fisher had been getting forks with lower quality steels to save money, and when they failed time and again, they had to try and direct the blame elsewhere before too many folks notices. No other bike makers at the time had these rash of failures though, not in the usa, and not in canada, so the whole "evolution" was really more a "coverup" that suckered in a lot of other brands. More recently, after a falling out between Answer-Manitou and Easton, Manitou stopped using Easton's EA70 aluminium tubes for its alloy steerer tubes on its forks. And poof... steerer failures went up.

Marzocchi and Rockshox never stopped using Easton supplied steerer tubes though, and as such didn't have these problems manitou was experiencing, and you'd think Marzocchi at the very least would have had the biggest problem with steerers failing because of how much more popular their forks are for the aggro freeriding bunch. So long story short, we got the 1point5 size and it was specifically marketed along with a new fork model (which would have been perfectly fine in 1 1/8" if either EA70 or better still, good quality steel steerers were used).


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## Pimpride (Nov 14, 2005)

*1 1/4*



DeeEight said:


> not so weird, about 30 or 40 brands have used 1 1/4" steerer tubes on their frame models between the size's introduction and now. I've got three of those brands represented in my basement right now (alpinestars, titan and manitou). More brands adopted Fisher's evolution sizing than have adopted Manitou's 1point5 sizing.


Cool, then there are a lot of people who could use this vintage fork then.


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## Lloyd395 (Dec 14, 2004)

I have to agree with D8... I had a manitou magnum. It looked the same as a 3 or 4, in fact I thought it was a four when I bought it until I opened the box.


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## DeeEight (Jan 13, 2004)

Magnum and Comp were the two lower models offered in 1995 alongside the Manitou 4 and Manitou EFC. There was also a version of the comp/magnum version made for 700C wheels that occassionally shows up on ebay in NOS shape. Also about the same period, Answer had licensed the brand name and production rights to the Proforx design, and was marketting them as Answer Proforx in the standard and long travel formats. They cost less than Manitou's but they basically didn't get marketted very well and were phased out a couple years later. White Brothers would be the next brand to license the ProForx forks and would totally overhall them but unfortunetly the price went up enormously as a result. Prior to Answer being involved, Girvin had licensed the design as well, but at the time Proforx was still doing production of all the forks and selling them themselves as well. 

Proforx got its start doing replacement fork braces for rockshox RS-1 forks, and as a result, their forks were based off the rockshox RS-1 configuration, but with a hybrid coil spring/elastomer stack configuration (which years later Manitou would copy for their Mach 5 models), but sharing the same stanchion diameters, crown spacing, leg offsets, etc. Proforx crowns and Rockshox crowns could be swapped around to a large degree giving owners the chance to one-off their forks into something that didn't look factory stock anymore.


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## Rumpfy (Dec 21, 2003)

It it's actually for sale...it need to be put in the MTBR classifieds.


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## EJ (Aug 29, 2005)

Pimpride said:


> 1 1/4 inch tubes are wierd. They would problbay work with cannondales or another oversized head tube frame. Sound like a good deal though, you'll make someone happy.


I had a 92 Cannondale (M2000) that I put a Manitou 3 on. That era 'dale frame has the cable stops on the downtube right where the fork crown can smack em. I called Answer and they sent me a Manitou 2 crown (which had more of a drop to it) and that cleared the stops. 
Once upon a time Answer's customer service rocked, but that's another thread.


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## luffy (Nov 15, 2005)

*Its not for sale....*

This fork isn't for sale, its free to the first one who wants to pick it up or work out shipping, if you want photos, you e-mail me a [email protected]. This fork is in very good condition and will be worth your while.


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