ktm 300 xc air vs springs!!

I know this is going to blow wide open with a lot of advice. But its been slow on here so why not..

I am looking at a new 300 but its a toss up on air forks or springs. Kreft will do the suspension work so I am not worried about them sticking in mid stroke. I have never road a bike with air forks just gathering more imput.

ive never been a believer in the air forks untill now.

they are amazing, honestly prefer them over my SSS from the yamahas. both yamaha and ktm valved by factory connection. no issues at all with pressure change while riding. very smooth and controllable in the rough chop,roots, logs, rock.. imo the new air fork by ktm is absolutely top of the line and better performing than traditional springs.

austin jones

Heard normal pressure is 130 140?

The thing that scares me about air forks is blowing a seal and getting stranded. When you ride miles from the truck in the mountains, this is a very big deal.

I am running stock air forks set at 115# and couldn't be happier with it, the shock however, is a different story, I do not like the way that the shock is working for me but I am only 145# with a proper spring for my weight.

Any problems with the seals leaking ?

WP is not a true air Fork. It's an air spring fork. Right leg has the valving. Left is just spring. The left leg has an enclosed capsule that holds the air so if the seals start to leak it won't lose air pressure and will continue to be a rideable bike.WP has a kit to turn it into a spring fork.

awwwwwwwwww...Thanks that makes more since.....

I know this thread is old, but I wanted to share my experience with the AER forks.

I'm only a C rider, keep that in mind when reading. At first, the AER for was the best fork I'd ever ridden. Which to me meant that it liked to stay up in the stroke, it could absorb square edges extremely well, and it was pretty smooth over baby heads.

However, I found myself always playing with the air pressure. It went like this : right after an oil and seal change, I'd run 128 PSI and the fork would be great. Then, after 6-8 hours, it would start diving too much and I'd up the pressure and more compression damping. Then it would start bottoming on square edges and I'd add more pressure and compression damping. By the time I had 20 hours on the fork oil I had 145 PSI in it and it behaved like a completely different fork.

I'd change the oil and seals and I'd be back to 128 PSI and a fabulous fork.

I eventually tired of dealing with a fork whos characteristics were always changing and I spent big bucks on Ohlins forks. The Ohlins forks are about as good (to me) as the AER forks right after an oil change, but they don't start degrading for at least 30 hours.

I don't think the air spring is the problem. I think that cramming compression and rebound into a single leg is just too hard on the fork oil. Unfortunately the new XPLOR forks do the same thing. I'm not running them, but my reliable source tells me that the XPLOR forks also eat oil very fast and need super frequent oil changes to reliably work well.