Fork

[Karennel]

We have a Litespeed Taliani and are thinking about putting a Morati Titanium rigid MTB fork on along with a disc brake. We tried it and it sure rode nice, felt good. It did flex a bit though, so we are now wondering if this is a good idea. Any input would be appreciated.

[zonatandem]

ariZonaTandems.com does a carbon fiber fork with disc tab . . .

[TandemGeek]

We have a Litespeed Taliani and are thinking about putting a Morati Titanium rigid MTB fork on along with a disc brake. We tried it and it sure rode nice, felt good. It did flex a bit though, so we are now wondering if this is a good idea. Any input would be appreciated.

Did you test a Morati Ti MTB fork on your tandem (???) or, was it a Morati Ti Road SC (700c) fork, or did you just ride a 1/2 bike with one of their forks? Just a bit confused since the Taliani is "usually" a 700c machine.

Anyway, all of that aside, I guess the answer would depend on your motivation, how you intend to use the tandem, your team weight, and I'd also call the folks back in the tech department at Litespeed and get their input as I'm sure they'll have some questions along the same lines.

I seem to recall from a second hand report by Chris Timm that a few teams over in Europe fitted Morati ti forks to their racing tandems. As you have already discovered, they're not the stiffest forks in the world by a large margin and, once you beef them up to make them stiff, any weight savings is lost.

So, back to your research...

1. Have you talked to Morati about a custom tandem-rated fork with disc tabs matched to your stock Litespeed's fork geometry or, if you're considering a stock Morati Road SC, have you confirmed with them that it is adequate for your max. total team / bike weight that you'll subject it to, e.g., loaded touring or stripped for racing?

2. Have you talked to Litespeed to confirm that they have no issues with respect to putting a disc brake on the front of your tandem, relative to warranty coverage (assuming it's still under warranty) and shared the Morati forks geometry data with Litespeed (fork leg length & fork rake) to verify that it won't adversely affect the handling of your Taliani?

Those are the first two things I'd want to do before getting my checkbook out. While Ti forks sometimes work quite well in certain applications, they're no more ideal for every team than a carbon fork, low spoke count wheels, or any of the other boutique-level components are.