KOWA 160ss fork Thoughts

The Kowa 160ss made headlines when they announced it way back in 2007 - 2008. fast forward to 2015, there's virtually no info about newer products from the brand. Although they showcased new technologies during the last year's biking expo, you really never get to see them online, for sale, on bike shelves. The same may not be true in Japan where the forks are coming from.

I'm no suspension guru and I won't delve into the details of the damping system inside the fork.

Appearance - The appearance is of the fork is boring enough. But somehow with the current crop of marzocchi expresso forks, you'd be forgiven to think it is one from afar. That's kashima coating by the way. Unfortunately mine had chips on the upper part of the stanchion. Then again this is an 8 year old fork.

The fork arch is very industrial in appearance, nothing like your BOS or Marzocchi fork that's machined so well, they're practically works of art. 

20mm axle for the wheels and the solid lowers makes the fork simply stiff.

Features - Travel adjust. You can adjust the travel from 0mm to 180mm, but 100 to 160mm is recommended. rotating the left leg knob works the travel adjust. It's not just the trails where you can benefit from the travel adjust really. If I don't have the pickup to transport my bike, I'd stuff the bike inside our Toyota Innova and yes, the thing fits just by compressing the fork.

 No compression adjust here, just rebound a total of 20 clicks I believe. It works.

Ride - Its an old fork but honestly, it rides so well, it's ridiculous. It's so plush that small irregularities in the trail simply disappears. I've never had my hands numbing because of the roughness of the suspension. I set up the fork with 30% sag by the way and even with that much sag, it resists bottoming out. Add the stiff lowers, and you got one amazing fork to boot. 

Quibbles 

The lack of compression adjustment will certainly turn off people. I wanted that feature too but the fork works so well, its difficult not to love how it performs. Even without that feature, it hardly compresses when braking. Although it does, it's very minimal. 

You'd need to remove the wheels with the help of an allen wrench. No way around it. If only it worked like those maxle systems out there or something. You have to loosen and remove 5 bolts by the way to remove the wheel.

Boxxer mount for the brakes, you're forced to use 180mm and up rotors, then again this fork was never meant as an XC or Trail fork but for AM and freeride riding. Still with that travel adjust feature, it can be a good XC fork in 100mm.

The travel adjust feature is wonderful but Kowa, if you're going to put that feature, why not put travel markers on the stanchion like what they did on U turn rockshox forks before. That would certainly be of great help.

Reliability

Ever since I received this fork, it has performed flawlessly to this date. That also means I haven't serviced it yet ever since. Granted I only ride my bike 3 times in a week. I think it is enough to say that its needs very little maintenance.

Should you get one?

I heard that these were sold for $600 -$1000 when they came out way back 2007 and 2008. I got mine for $300. Some of you might think that I could get someting better for that money, let alone a brand new durolux fork from suntour and today entery level marzocchi 55s, but never did I regretted the purchase. Why? Its simply is an amazing fork. It's plush and it works and it doesn't need to be caressed too much every other time. Its bang on it what it does. Yes it lacks features but it balances all that with plush performance in the trail. Still for $1000 i won't buy one even if its new, I'm of course talking with the year in perspective. There are many capable forks out there with compression features that I would rather have than the travel adjust.

Yes its a great featre but honestly, I hardly use it on the trail. It helps on the climb but i can climb in 160mm travel up front. Yes it helps in travelling but once you lower that travel, better have a ruler to boot since you'll need it to get that 160mm of travel spot on back.