The X-Fusion Microlite RL is a rear shock for weight saving. Its priority is to help you have a bike – a XC race bike – that is as light as possible.

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However, this is not to say to say that performance has been demoted entirely. It’s more that gram-counting has been factored in more so than such things as countering shock-fade or offering on-the-fly compression adjustment or volume spacer potential and so on.

The whole point of the X-Fusion Microlite RL is that less is more. Less weight. Less adjustability. Less to think about. Less to go wrong. Less to have poorly setup.

There are a grand total of three things you can adjust on the X-Fusion Microlite RL rear shock: air pressure, rebound and lock-out.

I’m pleased to say that all three of these are very easy to access and extremely positive in operation. The rebound dial is very clicky (both audibly and in finger-feel). The lock-out is proud and positive. Even the air valve sticks out nicely and isn’t fiddly to attach a shock pump too.

Go on then, how much does it weigh?

X-Fusion list the shock weight as 170g but that’s for the 165mm eye-to-eye version. I have the 190mm eye-to-eye size and it weighs bang-on 200g (minus mounting hardware).

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What you may not be able to appreciate from the photographs is that the Microlite RL achieves a great deal of its low weight by simple virtue of being… small. It’s like a scaled down version of a ‘regular’ shock. The air can is 38mm in diameter. The shock shaft is a mere 22mm in diameter. Compare this to a RockShox Deluxe RT DebonAir which has a 52mm air can and a 29mm shaft.

Despite this miniaturisation I am impressed by the actual feel of the Microlite RL. It is a very, very supple feeling shock. There’s no hint of a stiff or sticky action. The ‘gold slick ano’ and seals do a great job of keeping the shock feeling fluid.

I was also impressed by how well the shock handled rough stuff. The was no sudden trapdoor effect of blowing through the travel too eagerly. The shock offers a good level of support to work against and deal with bigger hits and landings. It’s on the less progressive side of things but it is definitely not a collapsing linear feel.

I can’t profess to have tested the shock on any extended alpine-style length descents but for all the stuff I encountered here in the UK it behaved the same at the end of a descent as it had at the start.

The rebound range was more than adequate, which is pleasingly atypical for me as a lightish rider, but as expected for a shock aimed at XC racers.

The one and only niggle I had with the X-Fusion Microlite RL was the lock-out. It tended to bounce around a bit, as if running without any rebound damping, if the sag was set to anything more than the trad 25%.

The cure? Either don’t use the lock-out if running a saggy setup (dial in a couple more clicks of rebound instead) or, as I ended up opting to do, just run it with the usual 25% sag and it’ll be fine. This is after all how XC racers will have it set.

The X-Fusion Microlite RL is not a brand new shock, it’s been available in this guise for a few years now, but it is still well worth considering if you’re on the lookout for a light, no-nonsense rear shock for a shorter travel bike that can deal with proper trails as well as with groomed XC and Endurance race courses.