Fox Podium
Travel Options: 160 & 170 mm
Wheel Size: 29’’
Offset: 44 mm
Stanchion Diameter: 36 mm
Spring Type: Air
Axle: 20 x 110 mm Boost
Stated Weight: 2,695 g
Blister’s Measured Weight: 2,756 g (170 mm travel, w/ stanchion guards)
MSRP: $2,000 USD / $2,679 CAD / €2,399
Intro
Fox made quite a splash at the 2025 Sea Otter Classic, where they prominently displayed an inverted single-crown fork in front of their booth. It was labeled as a prototype, and Fox was tight-lipped about its design details — they wouldn’t even say if it would ever make it to the public market.
But the new fork looked polished and production-ready, leading to widespread speculation that it wasn’t far off.
That speculation was correct, and we can now share all the details on the new Podium fork, plus our initial on-trail impressions. There’s a lot to cover here, so let’s get right to it.
Design & Features
The inverted chassis is the big deal here. Of course, the Podium is far from the first mountain bike fork with the layout, but it is the first time one of the ‘big two’ suspension brands has given an inverted fork a go in quite some time.
For reference, Fox built a prototype inverted DH fork almost 15 years ago, but that never came to market; RockShox offered the inverted RS-1 XC fork for a few years, but it was never widely adopted.
So, why try again now?
Fox’s take is that the inverted layout helps them build a fork that’s stiffer fore-aft than their conventional Enduro fork, the Fox 38 (which isn’t going anywhere), and that the inverted layout leads to lower friction and less unsprung weight.
For starters, the Podium’s inverted layout means that the upper tubes are much larger in diameter than the stanchions on a conventional fork (47 mm for the Podium vs. 38 mm for the Fox 38).
Fork legs are more heavily stressed — especially fore-aft — up high near the crown. So, putting the larger-diameter portion up there and the smaller-diameter stanchions at the dropouts makes it easier to achieve higher fore-aft stiffness. The Podium’s crown is also much bigger than that of the 38, again to help make the fork stiffer.
The inverted layout lets Fox give the Podium more bushing overlap (i.e., the distance between the upper and lower bushing in each fork leg) than the 38 (and the dual-crown Fox 40, for that matter). That increased bushing spacing further helps stiffen the fork fore-aft and helps reduce friction when it’s heavily loaded.
In fact, Fox says that the Podium is nearly as stiff as the 40 fore-aft — which is quite a claim for a single-crown fork, especially in comparison to one of the stiffer dual-crown ones out there.
But what about torsional stiffness? Fox acknowledges that inverted MTB forks have often fallen short on that front, and while they’re not claiming that the Podium is ultra-stiff torsionally, Fox’s take is that they’ve hit a nice middle ground there.
To help stiffen things up torsionally, the Podium uses a steel 20 x 110 mm DH Boost axle with two pinch bolts on each dropout. That’s potentially inconvenient in a world where many front hubs are no longer 20 mm compatible; it’s also almost certainly the right call. I wish 15 mm axles for long-travel forks had never happened in the first place, but that ship sailed a while ago.
The tradeoff to making an (allegedly) fairly stiff inverted single crown is weight. The Podium weighs 2,756 grams, over 300 more than the Fox 38 (which isn’t particularly light to begin with).
As for the other chassis details, the Podium gets 36 mm-diameter stanchions and a brake mount for a 200 mm rotor; Fox condones running up to a 230mm-diameter rotor with an adapter.
The top cap for each leg features a pressure-relief valve, and Fox plans to offer a crown-mounted fender for the Podium starting in Fall 2025. The Podium is also offered with either a 58mm or 68mm-diameter crown (as measured at the crown-race interface). The 58 mm option is standard for a 1.5’’ tapered steerer tube, while the 68 mm version is meant to match the aesthetics of a chunky eMTB downtube.
Brake-hose routing can be a challenge on inverted forks. To keep things tidy and (hopefully) rattle-free, Fox uses a pair of clip-on guides that attach to the non-drive side upper tube. The brake hose is secured to the top of the stanchion guard and is meant to slide through the guides on the upper tube. The stanchion guards are made from carbon fiber to reduce the unsprung weight. Fox also includes a separate brake hose guide “mast” and blanking plate for the drive side stanchion guard mount if you want to leave the guards off.
The Podium uses the Grip X2 damper that Fox debuted last year and uses in their higher-end, more gravity-oriented forks. It offers adjustable high- and low-speed compression and high- and low-speed rebound. Some of the packaging details have been tweaked to accommodate the inverted chassis of the Podium, but the fundamental damper architecture is the same as the other, non-inverted Grip X2 variants.
Fox has tweaked the standard damper tune for the Podium, though. They say that they’ve firmed up the compression tune to compensate for the fact that the Podium has less chassis friction than the 38. The inverted layout puts more of the fork’s total weight in the upper (sprung) portion of the fork. The seals and lower bushings are also submerged in oil for reduced friction, rather than needing it to be splashed up from the bottom of the lowers, as is the case with conventional forks. Fox also lightened the rebound tune because the Podium has less unsprung weight to control.
On the spring side, the Podium gets a version of the “GlideCore” air spring that Fox launched in the 36 and 36 SL earlier this year. At a high level, it’s a fairly conventional design with a self-equalizing negative spring; what sets it apart from Fox’s earlier designs is that the air shaft can deflect slightly on large O-rings in the piston and seal head to reduce friction and binding when the fork is flexed.
Formula has done something similar for some time now (including on the just-announced Selva V that we’re also testing), and it makes a lot of sense on paper. Any fork is going to flex appreciably to one degree or another under real-world conditions, and when that happens, the stanchion and spring shaft come slightly out of alignment. Allowing them to float slightly should reduce the side loading on the air piston and thus the amount of friction in the spring.
The Podium uses volume spacers to tune the amount of progression in the air spring, as Fox does across their whole fork lineup. The Podium spacers come in 5 cc increments to give finer tuning options (the clip-on spacers that Fox uses in most of their forks are 10 cc in volume).
Some Questions / Things We’re Curious About
(1) Inverted MTB forks — single-crown ones especially — are pretty rare these days. So, how does the chassis feel of the Podium compare to its conventional counterparts, including Fox’s own 38? And how much do those changes impact the Podium’s suspension performance?
(2) Along those same lines, what sorts of riders will the Podium work best for, and who will be better off with a 38?
(3) Is the Podium a harbinger of more inverted forks to come?
Bottom Line (For Now)
Long-travel single-crown forks got a major overhaul a few years ago with the introduction of the Fox 38 and, shortly thereafter, the RockShox ZEB, Öhlins RXF 38, and similarly beefed-up options from other manufacturers.
While the 38 is sticking around, Fox is taking the class in a new direction with their inverted Podium, and they’re talking a very big game about its performance.
The Podium isn’t cheap or light on a scale, but we’re very curious to see how its performance stacks up in other respects — and have started spending time on it to find out.
Check out our Flash Review for our take so far, and stay tuned for a whole lot more on the Podium as we log more time on it.
Flash Review: Our Initial On-Trail Impressions
BLISTER+ members and those who purchase our Digital Access Pass can check out the Flash Review below to read our initial on-trail impressions. Get our Digital Access Pass to view all our Flash Reviews and Deep Dives, or become a BLISTER+ member today to get access to that and a LOT more, including the best worldwide Outdoor Injury Insurance, exclusive deals and discounts on skis, personalized gear recommendations from us, and much more.
Flash Review: Fox Podium
The new Fox Podium doesn’t look like much else out there, and its on-trail performance stands out, too. Check out our take so far.
Blister’s Flash Reviews and Deep Dives are accessible to those who purchase one of our paid subscriptions
To get our comprehensive Deep Dives and our initial, unfiltered reports on new gear, become a member and receive many other services, deals, and discounts.
If you’re already an active member, please log in.
(If you’re already logged in and a member in good standing and seeing this message in error, please refresh this page in your browser.)