I'm thinking of getting the 2005 MX comp ETA for my Inbred, mainly for use for off-road expedition riding in the Himalaya, so obviously reliability is my #1 priority.

For whatever reason (presumably performance), the 2005 range has an air shock in one fork and a coil in the other. I've been told that in the event of a failure of one shock or another, the other shock should suffice to provide reasonable performance, or at the very least won't leave me forkless by a roadside in Tibet.

Can anyone confirm this or not? Anyone with positive or negative feedback on this fork? I've used a 2003 MX comp eta and its been great, apart from breaking the eta lever.

I dont think it is a safety back up although its probably a bonus.

Most systems that have coil/air use the coil for suspension characteristics and the air as a top up for setting preload correctly without affecting spring rate.

I had the 2004 mxc comp eta with just the air and loved them but now ride spring forks. Would be happy with either or both as you are looking at.

In ETA forks the air spring is the main spring. The coil is in the ETA side and is solely for the 30mm lock down

Stand corrected

So this means if the air spring were to fail it would leave me with workable 30mm travel only?

I thought ETA was only for the Coil Forks, ECC was the Air forks.

I also thought Marzo's use low air pressure because they run a Coil aswell so seals don't have to be so tight and all the rest of it.

If Kato's right, yes lock the fork down and you'd have 30mm's of travel.

Personally not a Air fan but Marz's makes more sense than others.

"I also thought Marzo's use low air pressure because they run a Coil aswell so seals don't have to be so tight and all the rest of it"

I have a pair of non lockdown MX's in the garage and they're air on both sides with no coil & they're still low pressure

If thats the case you would be better with air only as you get an air spring in both sides so if one side failed you could just pump the other side up more . Not much to go wrong with a coil spring though . I had Marathon coil forks with a lockdown and they had a spring in both sides , I thought the lockdown was to do with the oil damping mechanism not an air spring but I am confused by Marzocchi .

There Dual Air though shares the Loads using 2 air cartridges also if 1 pop's you'll still have some get home suspension.

The ECC is the damper speed makes the fork pack down to the final 30mm's.

Prefer Coil cause lets face it Coils don't fail in the first place.

"Prefer Coil cause lets face it Coils don't fail in the first place."

they will if you run too much preload on a soft spring. COil bound it's called