himespau 

Oh, see that's a problem right there. Buying a used frame without a fork is a good way to buy a frame with undisclosed crash damage. Not always, but where else did the fork go?

79pmooney

ljsense, I hope you are not really serious about riding this fork. I had the opportunity to have a fork break on my many years ago so I have seen the consequences. Maybe getting that fork "right", takes precedence over the risk of a week in a coma and 7 years of recovery and lost earnings.

You said that one blade was shimmying before you got the set "right" on the other. Let me tell you avbout a little incident I had last summer. I started to feel a big shudder everytime I hit the front brake. Nursed the bike home, using only the rear brake on the downhill close to home. Discovered the I had a crack running 80% of the way around one fork blade at the crown. Another crack started on the other blade. Unlike you, I know how lucky I was that day. 20 miles before, I was at the high point of my ride with 2000' of descending to go. I discovered I had issues with the cog I brought for the descent (this was on a fix gear) so I babied the bike down the hill to be easy on the chain.

I was lucky. Maybe someone was looking after me. Now my fork failure was due to a combination of three decisions my builder and I made; to use Columbus SL tubing, a minimal crown with no scallops (investment cast and very strong, but not reducing local stress concentration at the fork blade and to have the fork nickle plated by an outfit that did not do a post plate heat treat. (The builder did not know of the importance of the heat treat and assumed the plater knew what he was doing. And the plater did have the facility to heat treat but would charge $20 extra and kept his mouth shut. Soon after my fork was plated, the builder went to another plater. That plater did the heat treat on high strength steel as a matter of course.)

I did not know the risk. I trusted the builder (who has a very solid reputation and had already built me a previous bike and fork). The fork had ~8000 miles, low mileage for a quality steel fork. It had never been crashed. By contrast, you know the risk. 2 paragraphs above, I outlined a possible outcome of a fork failure. If you choose to ride this fork 1) pay up your insurance and 2) get everything right with your loved ones.

I did know the risks with that fork 37 years ago. I believed it wouldn't happen to me, much like you seem to believe. It cost me more than you can imagine.

Ben

Jed19

The most critical part on a bicycle safety-wise, is the FORK. I won't screw with it, period.

CharlyAlfaRomeo

This is an early contender for the dumbest thing I'll read all year.

Congratulations.

SquidPuppet

Indeed.

FBinNY 

The year's still young ---- give it time.

Leebo

Do you like your teeth? How is your insurance? Tell me your joking? Just check with the bike Co, I'm sue they would approve.

Homebrew01

Haven't heard from Stuntex in a while.

Homebrew01

Buy a new fork, measure how much force it takes to break it.

Take your modified fork and see how much force it takes to break it.

If they are about the same, then you are ok, and you can get a 3rd fork and modify that one

SquidPuppet

I like this. Logical and methodical. Win/Win.

dabac

So it's a build sheet - not a bible. Deviating from the Word will not result in eternal damnation.

Also, how do you think the manufacturer settled on 45, by determining through extensive testing that either 43 or 47 would cause the bike to self-destruct?
Quite possibly, they had a small group of test riders, who merely were asked "does the bike ride OK as this?"
If enough of them said "yes", they might not even have tried any other configurations.

Shimagnolo

Go shopping the online stores for a road fork. 43mm-45mm is pretty much a defacto standard, so I would expect most frames to be designed to work with rake in that range.
That is why I had to go custom when I needed a 39mm fork, (on a custom-built frame for a tall rider).

Rubato

Organ donor?

lostarchitect 

I suggest wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet when you ride this bike.

Wheever

I'm very disappointed: No one has used the word "asplode" nor "crabon." You've all let me down. Sigh.

KLiNCK

+



=

noglider 

bicyclelove

Ok, usually I'm a carbon fiber fan and support people who post about CF. But this is over the top. You can't be serious about doing this. Really********************? Who would even think this will work?
Ummmm, really**********???

cyccommute 

You have it backwards. Thermoset is polymer that cross links irreversibly with heat. Thermoplastic is is a polymer that doesn't crosslink with heat and can be reformed. Thermosets are plastics like epoxy, phenol/formaldehyde, urethane, and polyesters for example. Examples of thermoplastics are PET, polypropylene, polyethylene and nylon.

You are correct that the fork shouldn't be reformed.

FBinNY 

All kidding and ridicule aside, one of the best bits of mechanical advice I ever got dates back almost 50 years, and is very apropos here.

Never sacrifice the good on the alter of perfection.

You took a perfectly decent fork with a trivial difference in rake (43 vs 45mm), and in your effort to make it "right" now have a fork of dubious integrity, that you don't know if you can trust. It might be fine, it might not, but you're no longer sure, and now have to take additional measures. This doesn't even factor the cosmetic damage (unless you like bubbly top coats).

So whatever happens to the fork, there's an object lesson. Before modifying something, compare the amount of improvement you're going after to the risk of a serious setback which will have you struggling to break even. Sometimes good enough is as good as it's ever going to be.

Andrew R Stewart 

I should have remembered that having sold GT bikes back in the late 1990s. Thanks for the correction. Andy.

squirtdad

Ok if I have not been duped by almost trick and am missing the satire:

if this heat bending is not a problem why would Almost tricks company want a waiver? Why wouldn't they provide a guarantee or replacement factory warranty? I would like to see before and after pics and a see a website offering these services.

check your warranty to see if the fork played with is still under warranty. I have a feeling it is not.


There are some logical conclusion to be made

FBinNY 

This is not logically supportable.

The "void if modified" clause in a warranty is SOP boilerplate that we see in just about all warranties. It's logical and appropriate because the seller has no idea how you're going to modify something, and how well you'll do it, and whether that modification will compromise the item. Since they cannot list those specific actions (unknown unknowns) that shouldn't be done, the only logical option is to make a blanket statement.

But losing warranty coverage isn't the end of the world. If you know what you're doing, it's perfectly reasonable to prefer a modified, but no longer warrantied item that suits your needs to one that doesn't but is still warrantied.

ljsense

Well guys, all of you who expressed skepticism or even downright ridicule have a lot of friends at my local bike shop. I checked in with them tonight and I don't know how you'd put it. Braying, I guess. There was a lot of braying. One dude called all the mechanics over, actually all the people who worked at the shop, plus just the other people around, to check out my work.

But I don't imagine Henry Ford or the Wright brothers got it exactly right on the first try. So I am pushing on with this undaunted and I have some initial photos to show.

One is the unmolested fork, the other is it mounted in part of my bending jig with the new layer of carbon fiber lightly mocked up and getting ready for glue. Fingers crossed!

ragtoplvr

There must be thousands of epoxy formulations out there, different cures, different ratio, different flexibility, different adhesion. It stands to reason that some are more able to be hot formed than others. Unless you know what one the mfg used, which is most likely a closely held secret, you are taking a shot the dark. Shots in the dark get folks hurt.

Rod