Originally Posted by Jseis

531 Aussie, maybe you can answer this question. I've been looking at pics of bikes through the period of time of transition from steel to CF forks and though I can't quantify it, it appears that bike builders made steel forks with less sweep, possibly more rigid...but not exactly as "straight" as a CF fork. Of course now I'm really curious. Did CF forks just appear overnight as super stiff front forks, straight and clunky looking or was there some transition period when builders tried to mimic steel forks with CF? Or did titanium and aluminum builders figure this out early? Or did the weight savings of CF make this all a no brainer? I'd guess that builders figured out the bike handling well before modern materials (Al, Ti, Cf) appeared.