Bicycle Mechanics - Puzzling....

I found an old Supergo catalog while shredding old documents. It was a real trip down memory lane to look through it.

One thing caught my eye.

They were clearing out some Iron Horse 7 Point bikes; two had single-crown forks, one a double. The headtube on all 3 was a 1.5. Spec listed for the SC bikes was 1.5, the DC zero-stack 1-1/8.

I have a hard time believing IH made the headtubes differently. So would these be cross-compatible?

not cross compatable - you can get a headset that will let you put a 1 1/8" fork in a 1.5" head tube. that is what they probably did. But it was not uncommon to have different sized headtubes in the same model - some people wouldn't touch the new 1.5 standard because there was not a lot of fork choice.

Getting bikes made by Asian manufacturers (like Iron Horse does) is like ordering food in a restaurant... you ask for something and they make it.

If you ask for 1000 frames with 1.5" headtubes and 500 frames with 1 - 1/8 headtubes, that is what you get.

OK, I guess that's why each frame was listed as having a 1.5 headtube, and only one of the three sported a different headset.

Yeah, I know all about reducer headsets; what I have yet to encounter is a ZERO-STACK reducer headset. That would be what this would take for you to be right.

Guess I'll have to research further. I was hoping some arcane expert would pop up, but it's same old same old. Hey, peeps -- read a little closer.

OK, I love Google -- find things like a left-nostril inhaler that glows in the dark, with your state motto on it....

ID of headtubes -- 1.5 is 49.6, ZS is 43.5. Not cross-compat.

WTF -- oh, of course... Iron Horse, what was I THINKING?!?