Is anyone able to give me a balanced opinion on Cannondale Lefty forks? I may trade in my 08 Prophet  for an 09 Rush. Question is do I go for an alu Rush with 110mm Lefty at £1899, or a Carbon Rush with 120mm Fox-F RL at £1799?

Are they good enough to warrant the extra money, how reliable are they and and how much of a hassle are they to service yourself?

The current Lefty is servicable at home with common tools, this includes replacing the wearing parts.  They can still suffer from bearing migration if not built properly but it's easily fixed by someone who knows what they're doing.  The fork itself is one of the best on the market IMO, extremely stiff and plush and I think you'll be hard pushed to find a Lefty owner who thinks otherwise.  Admittedly it can be expensive if you have problems but it's only proportional to the cost of the fork.

One thing you need to get the best from a Lefty is a stiff ffont wheel, they give fantastic off camber performance with the right wheel.

I serviced mine (an older 2003 Carbon DLR) a few weeks back, it hadn't been done for about 3k miles and it needed no new parts and was clean inside.

They are mega stiff, mega plush and I've been using mine for three years and the only servicing required has been to reset the needle bearing (procedure here).  After you've figured out how to do that it takes literally five minutes and I've had to do mine about once a year and I ride it pretty hard though I am only 79Kg. They are a great XC fork, just the smoothest imo. That said, that carbon rush is gorgeous and I'd have no worries about buying carbon these days especially from C'Dale as they have a lifetime warranty. I'm seriously considering getting that Rush myself now the prices have come down but I wish it had the Lefty.The drawbacks of the Lefty are limited choice of stock wheels but then you can always get custom jobs.

LOL

Hello

Lefty Fan Club in synchronised posting shocker.

I'm thinking of sending my Lefty to 88+ (Lefty specialist), mine still feels like new but I think I should have an expert look at it as it's three years old now. Did you say you have used them Mike?

My mate Kev has used Tony Nunn (aka Thumbprint tuning) and was very pleased. Mine's only been apart twice, once when it arrived and then again a few weeks back.

If I had to choose a new one it'd be the Speed Carbon 110 DLR SL, but to be honest I can't find an excuse to change the one that I have.