Originally Posted by
Andrey
Resurrecting old thread.
And...? Did you do it, Road Fan?
I am thinking of re-raking a new fork to a smaller trail (45-50mm) to ride with a front bag on a Nitto rack. I find the trail of around 60mm and heavy front bag makes the bike feel like a truck. What is your experience?
It sounds like you have the same problem and goals that I do. If I had good front bag set-up, I'd probably load it up around 8#. I know that works terribly on my Trek, which has been modified to have a trail around 56 mm.
Raking a new fork is interesting. Look at the tire clearance you have and try to estimate (or calculate, if you're good at math) how much it will decrease with the bend you want to have. If your new fork is already designed for a tight fit on a skinny tire, you'll never fit in a wider tire (maybe 30 mm?)with fenders, after the bend.
I've investigated adding rake to my Woodrup fork and asked several builders if they would take the job. One is willing but does not sound supportive, as in he doesn't buy in to why this would help me. This is not the attitude I want from a craftsman whom I pay for service and collaboration. The other (who modified my Trek), refuses outright, citing concerns about handling, fork tube stress, final bend shape and suitable tooling (needs different tooling to add rake than to remove it), and the possiblility of causing the tubes to buckle. This is a frightening set of concerns and I don't have a year to resolve it, wanting to do a tour in July, several 100ks before that, and a century or 200k or so after that. I don't think this will get resolved on this bike, because I also am not ready to spend the $400 or so for a custom fork built to my spec. When it comes to it, I'll get a bike made for that use.
Another thing, I think I need to do a better evaluation of the bike I have. I've compared the geo of my Woodrup against the bikes that Jan Heine prefers, and for 25 to 28 mm 700c tires it's not far from what he likes. So I'm changing at least the front brake to a Mafac and adding a small TA front bag mount with a Velo Orange decaleur. The bag, to start, will be my old big Rhode Gear bag with the click-mount removed and the decaleur mount added. That will move the bag a lot closer to the steering axis, which might enable the kind of handling I want. At least it will be better than it was with the bag sticking out from the handlebar. The Woody is already a lot better than the Trek after its trail was increased. My rake is only about 5 mm away from Jan's sweet spot for 700x28c. It's closer to right for 700x25c, but I'd rather ride on 28s. I'm a little heavy for 25s.
So that's the plan. Thanks for watching this! Please let me know how you're project, or at least your thinking, gets on.