Originally Posted by Dave Mayer

I have an Alpha Q fork on my main road bike. The fork is a great design, is light and strong.
However, you should be concerned, as this fork has a very light steerer tube, and it MUST be reinforced with an appropriate insert. There are a few places on a bike where you do not take any chances, which includes the stem, bar and the fork. Failures here are often sudden and catastrophic.

The insert on this fork is not just to provide a place to root the expander, but it is required to reinforce the steerer against clamping forces by the stem. It is also required to resist bending forces in the vicinity of the headset . So the insert MUST EXTEND BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE TOP HEADSET BEARINGS. On my bike, this means a 4" long insert, which is what the stock unit is. The insert must be expoxied securely in place. This also means that once the insert is installed, the steerer CANNOT BE CUT. Which explains why these forks are constantly cluttering up Ebay and Craigslist. Buyer beware.


The last install I did on one of these forks, I used the reducing shim from a stem. This shim was provided to shim a 1" threaded stem for installation on a bike with a 1 1/8" steerer tube. The dimensions were perfect, as was the length. I of course applied the appropriate dilgence in lightly sanding and then epoxying the insert in place. Final advice: measure carefully. One chance at cutting the steerer.