Carbon fork upgrade?

hippy said:

So, Peter S might want some carbon forks for his
fixie and I think I'd like to put some on mine to solve
the brake-reach issue. (I can see I'm going to end
up buying a whole frame and doing a groupset
transplant.. shhh ;-) ).

Does anyone have any carbon forks they want to
get rid of?

Has anyone been to Bicycle Recycle and spotted
any recently?

hippy
- off to check ebay for cheap frames..

shops usually have a carbon fork or two banging around the back....

Hippy said:

Does anyone have any carbon forks they want
to get rid of?

Quoted message said:

Has anyone been to Bicycle Recycle and spotted
any recently?

It would be a good idea to do some measuring first so that you don't get interesting handling. Most carbon forks are 385mm long (between the bottom of the lower headset race and the center of the axle), with between 40 and 45mm rake. This suits head-tube angles from around 72.5 degrees (45 mm rake) to 74 odd degrees (40mm rake).

Your current fork is made for 27" wheels, so is going to be somewhat longer. Being a high quality Apollo frame, it's likely that it'll have a slightly shallower head angle than is common now. I'd imagine it's something like 71 degrees, with around 50mm rake.

The good news is that by putting in a shorter fork, you'll make the head angle a bit steeper, so it's likely to all work, but it would be a good idea to do some measurements first to see what's going to happen. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation says that for every centimetre you take off the fork length, you'll increase the head-tube angle by 0.6 degrees (assuming 1m wheelbase). So if the new fork is 1cm shorter then the old one, and the original angle was 71, then you're up to 71.6, in which case you still want a bit more rake than is commonly available, or you'll have really dead, self-centering steering. If the difference is more like 2cm, or if your head tube angle is a tad steeper, then you're cooking with gas.

Best of luck,

Suzy

"byron27" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

hippy said:

Does anyone have any carbon forks they want to
get rid of?

Has anyone been to Bicycle Recycle and spotted
any recently?

shops usually have a carbon fork or two banging around the back....

Yeah.. I'd let my fingers do the walking but I'm
allergic to phones.. ;-)

Buying a used fork would be better given the
application. I was hoping someone wanted to
get rid of one or knew of one for sale.

hippy

In article <[email hidden]>,

hippy said:

Buying a used fork would be better

Given that serious damage to carbon fibre is often invisible to the
naked eye, is that such a good idea? I guess I just wonder why someone
would be getting rid of one, other than maybe they don't trust it after
a crash or something.

--
Shane Stanley

Shane Stanley said:

Given that serious damage to carbon fibre is often invisible
to the naked eye, is that such a good idea?

I disagree with this. I think it's a bit of a myth that carbon fails unexpectedly like that. Carbon will fail after fairly minor crashes (sometimes just scratching a carbon part is enough to make it unravel), but the original damage is generally pretty easy to spot. I'd say aluminium fatigue breaks are the most unexpected ones. I've seen a pretty nasty prang in an a-grade sprint when someone's handlebar just snapped, for example.

Quoted message said:

I guess I just wonder why someone would be getting rid of
one, other than maybe they don't trust it after a crash or
something.

Well I may be selling a couple of near new Look HSC3 forks, for no better reason than that I plan on upgrading to steel ones (yes, I'm a retro-grouch). However given the rest of my bicycle acquisition program, it's actually more likely they'll sit in the back of the garage or spare room for a while before finding their way onto other bikes.

Regards,

Suzy

In article <[email hidden]>,

suzyj said:

I disagree with this. I think it's a bit of a myth that carbon fails
unexpectedly like that. Carbon will fail after fairly minor crashes
(sometimes just scratching a carbon part is enough to make it unravel),
but the original damage is generally pretty easy to spot.

I'll take your word for it. I was under the impression that checking
frames for damage, at least by Trek in the US, involved some kind of
expensive scanning process, and that in most cases it was just easier to
replace no questions asked. But that's from Usenet, where stories have a
habbit of getting mangled.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I guess I just wonder why someone would be getting rid of
one, other than maybe they don't trust it after a crash or
something.

Well I may be selling a couple of near new Look HSC3 forks, for no
better reason than that I plan on upgrading to steel ones (yes, I'm a
retro-grouch). However given the rest of my bicycle acquisition
program, it's actually more likely they'll sit in the back of the
garage or spare room for a while before finding their way onto other
bikes.

Right. So my question about why someone would be selling one still
stands ;-)

--
Shane Stanley

[QUOTE= I guess I just wonder why someone would be getting rid of one, other than maybe they don't trust it after a crash or something.[/QUOTE]
Plenty of people change because of brands, performance and maybe color etc.
Carbon fibre can be tuned to produce different performance characteristics during manufacture. All carbon forks don't behave the same.
I ride all carbon and have never heard of anyones front forks breaking yet, plenty of seat posts though

malcom