Does anybody else have this problem? Or maybe it's not a problem?
Just today I was standing over my road bike, with a carbon fork and integrated headset, and checking the brakes before going off for a ride. I squeezed the front brake and rocked the bike fore and aft with the brake on and noticed, and felt, the fork move inside the head tube. The bearings are preloaded correctly and the brake caliper was tight on the fork. The top bearing seems to move inside the head tube a small amount and the fork steerer tube doesn't fit very tightly inside the top bearing. Is this normal? I checked my other road bike, integrated headset and carbon fork also, and it has the same wobble. If this situation is abnormal how do I fix it? Or is this a feature of integrated headsets. Any opinions?
I squeezed the front brake and rocked the bike fore and aft with the brake on and noticed, and felt, the fork move inside the head tube. The bearings are preloaded correctly...
If the steerer feels obviously loose when you do this the bearings are *not* preloaded properly. Adjust the preload and try again.
I squeezed the front brake and rocked the bike fore and aft with the brake on and noticed, and felt, the fork move inside the head tube. The bearings are preloaded correctly...
If the steerer feels obviously loose when you do this the bearings are *not* preloaded properly. Adjust the preload and try again.
And, be sure to loosen the stem binding bolts before you try to tighten the bolt on top of the fork. If you think it's tight enough because that bolt is snug, you are looking at the wrong thing.
You might be in for some expense here, since if you rode the bikes for a while with bearings that loose, you may have damaged them.
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David L. Johnson
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