Get ready, world! The 2027 Fox Float X and DHX are bringing X2-level descending performance to trail bikes in a smaller package.
The Fox Float X has been a staple on modern mountain bikes for years — that small, reliable air-sprung shock showing up on everything from playful trail rigs to burly all-mountain machines. For model year 2027, Fox isn’t reinventing the wheel with flashy new externals (just confusing us about how we are referencing 2027 only a few months into 2026), but they’ve applied the same high-flow, moto-inspired damping philosophy that’s made their recent GripX and GripX2 forks so damn good to the rear end. The result? A more sensitive, supportive, and controllable Float X and its coil-sprung sibling, the DHX… without adding complexity, weight, or cost.
You can’t judge a book by its cover — or a shock by its industrial design. On the outside, the new Float X and DHX look frustratingly identical to their predecessors. So much so that when we first went to dissect the shocks to compare the internal systems, we accidentally had the same version of the shocks side-by-side… Oops, but also… hooray?
But first… how did we get here?
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Editor’s Note:
These articles are adapted by Savannah (Handles) from Jeff Kendall-Weed’s YouTube videos for riders who prefer reading over watching. They’re written in Jeff’s first-person voice to stay true to the style and storytelling of the original content.
Andiamo in Italia! High Hopes in the Mediterranean, but Zero Shocks in Sight
Fox flew Logan and me out to Italy for what sounded like the perfect setup: get hands-on with the brand-new 2027 Float X and DHX shocks, ride some Mediterranean trails, and geek out on the details straight from the engineers. Hopefully, with some delicious Italian pizza. We were hyped — to finally see (and feel) this high-flow, moto-inspired evolution in person, and maybe even snap some photos of the internals before anyone else. But… life got weird. Perhaps Mercury was in retrograde? Because we showed up, sat through the presentations, stared at one super cryptic diagram that looked more like abstract art than a shock blueprint… and that was it. No physical Float X. No DHX. Not a single production sample ready to show, touch, or mount on a bike. No photos either — just that one hard-to-decipher drawing. It was oddly anticlimactic for such a big update (but don’t fret — we still tested the other new product from Fox, which will be coming out shortly!).
We left the land of pesto and focaccia with more questions than answers, but the real story was waiting back home when the actual 2027 shocks showed up on my mossy doorstep. Ahhhh, home sweet home.
“Oh No… Wait, I’ve Been Riding the New One All Along…”
When Fox finally sent over the shiny new 2027 Float X and DHX, I grabbed Grant from Alpine Edge to tear them down side-by-side with an older Float X for an internal comparison. At first glance, everything looked confusingly identical on the outside — same body, same shaft, same decals, no obvious external tells. We cracked them open, and Grant starts poking around: “Hmm… different tune in the shim stacks, but the piston looks the same, no scalloped shims…”
I’m thinking, “Oh no, is this just hype?” I was genuinely bummed for a second — all that buildup for nothing? After a call with Ariel Lindsley, Fox’s Development Engineer and Merman, it was revealed that I had in fact been riding the 2027 shock without realizing it the last couple of months on the new Pivot Shuttle LT.
Yep… the stock shock on that bike was the updated 2027 damper the whole time. We grabbed a confirmed old Float X for a true apples-to-apples comparison, and bam — the differences emerged.
The new (gold) piston has bigger, relocated ports (those kidney-bean cutouts acting like a check valve), the shim stack is loaded with way more shims (the washer looking things- almost twice as many for finer control), the base valve is aggressively machined for massive flow, and there’s that new tunable bleed hole OEMs can dial in.
Grant nailed it: “The pistons are quite a bit different… night and day.” Different flow, folks — more high-flow entry, heavier shim reliance, just like the GripX forks. That “lemonade from lemons” moment turned the whole teardown into proof: these small internal tweaks have been quietly making bikes feel better without anyone noticing… until you look inside.
As Sean Estes, Fox’s Product Marketing Manager, put it: “The goal is to bring as much of that X2-level descending performance into these smaller, lighter weight, easier to set up trail products.”
Sergio Avanto’s Take: You Can Do Anything with 23 Valves
This high-flow ethos comes straight from Sergio Avanto, Fox’s Product Performance Manager and a moto-tuning veteran with 20+ years dialing in suspension for legends like Jeremy McGrath, James Stewart, and Tim Ferry. Sergio’s background in motocross shines through — he emphasizes that with the right shim setup (he’s said that you can do anything with 23 valves), you get tunable, rider-specific damping without overcomplicating things. The new Float X and DHX follow that: prioritize oil flow through bigger piston ports and machined base valves… then let a stack of shims handle the real damping work.
A key addition is the bleed feature, which is essentially a tunable bypass that lets OEMs customize how quickly oil transitions from piston bleed to full shim control. Smaller bleed holes overwhelm sooner, pushing more oil to the valves early for quicker response; larger ones delay shim engagement for a plusher initial feel. This makes the shock highly adaptable across bike platforms.
Sergio Avanto explained the real-world benefit on the trail: “The longer it is, the more time I have to absorb, and it puts you back in the attack position where the bike is more neutral, and not in the most unstable position, which is with the front end low.”
That forgiveness is huge. When you’re smashing through chunky sections or landing sketchy, good damping encourages the bike to recover from human-made mistakes — soaking up impacts, maintaining traction, and keeping control instead of throwing you into a tree. The suspension cycles freely over small bumps for better grip and comfort, yet ramps up support for bigger hits so you don’t blow through travel or lose the front end.
Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary — But Small Changes Still Matter
Fox positions itself as a moto-inspired company, even though they no longer build actual motorcycle product — and this update is one that backs that claim. The same principles that transformed the GripX forks (high piston flow + heavy shim reliance) now live on in a well matched shock via a smaller, lighter, more affordable trail package. It’s more evolutionary than revolutionary, but these incremental changes are why bikes continue to feel more and more dialed. Applied to our daily lives, even if you only improve 1% everyday, you’ll find yourself a different person a year from now.
Trail Feels: Pivot Shuttle LT and Norco VLT CX Impressions
On the trail, the new damper holds its own. On the heavy-hitting Pivot Shuttle LT (paired with a GripX2 Podium fork up front), the stock 2027 Float X delivered excellent small-bump compliance and enough high-speed support for flat landings and hard charging — no complaints despite the bike’s 53+ lb weight.
The aftermarket version Fox sent felt a touch more aggressive in valving, which suited harder riding perfectly. Swapping to the new DHX coil on a bomber bike like the Norco Sight VLT CX impressed too — traction stayed planted, support was there for jumps, and it matched X2-like feel without the extra weight or external adjustments.
These shocks aren’t as externally tunable as the flagship X2/DHX2 family (no high-speed compression dials here), but the internal tuning delivers surprisingly close performance in a simpler, lighter form factor. For lighter riders pushing hard, or anyone upgrading an aging shock, the 2027 version is a clear step up. If your current Float X is still going strong, no need to rush — but when it’s time for a new bike or a replacement, the MY27 damper will have you grinning tree-to-tree.
Shock-Curious?
Check out the full lineup of 2027 Float X and DHX options here, at Jenson USA.
For coil fans, you can find the updated DHX here. And if you’re curious about the GripX/GripX2 forks that started this high-flow trend, dive in over here.
Big thanks to Grant at Alpine Edge for the teardown help — hit him up for suspension servicing, eBike motor rebuilds, and more at Alpine Edge in Bellingham, WA.
And, lastly, a big shoutout to SQ Lab for the saddle/grip/bar support, and for sponsoring a video a couple weeks ago.
If you’re riding hard on trails that demand control without harshness, Fox’s 2027 Float X and DHX direction feels spot-on.
