Have the opportunity to buy a mountain bike and can put either of the two forks on it.
It comes with the dart 3 but can upgrade to the recon xc if I want to spend a bit more money. Is it worth it for doing xterra racing and for commuting into work?
Whats the benefits of the better fork if I’m not going to be doing jumps or anything like that?
The Dart is a very basic fork and even though it has compression and rebound adjust these do very little and the fork can feel completely uncontrolled at times and very flexy especially off road. The Recon is miles better and for a little extra $$$ it is well worth it.
I have the Dart 3 & it’s a POS & leaks. If you google it, you’ll see leakage is a pretty pervasive problem with this shock, so I would avoid it.
Recon is far and away the better fork. 32mm alloy upper tubes on the Recon vs. 28mm steel on the Dart- much stiffer and lighter weight. The Recon is an air spring that can be tuned to rider weight, the Dart is a coil spring that would need lighter/stiffer springs if the stock spring isnt appropriate.
Keep in mind though, that the Recon XC only has an adjustable rebound damper, no lockout like the Dart. Id rather have the stiffer lighter fork than a lockout.