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Old 01-12-19 | 10:45 AM
  #21  
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WizardOfBoz
Generally bewildered
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Joined: Aug 2015
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From: Eastern PA, USA

Bikes: 2014 Trek Domane 6.9, 1999 LeMond Zurich, 1978 Schwinn Superior

So the fork has a dominant resonant frequency. As mentioned above, a function of stiffness. Higher stiffness (Young's modulus), higher frequency. Also inversely a function of mass along the fork (actually, the second moment of the area of the fork blades, times the density of the material. So a larger moment, lower frequency.

Shouldn't really be an issue unless you happen to hit pavement at a speed where the bumps are hitting at exactly the resonant frequency of the fork. The fork wouldn't reject that movement, and you'd get the thing bending and flexing a lot. Some of us have had the experience of pushing a street sign back and forth at its frequency. Impossible to move much in one direction, but if you get it resonating, you can almost shake a sign out of concrete. Or, remember the videos of the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I think that, with a CF fork, the resonant frequency is so high you'd never experience this type of resonance and extreme flex.

Otherwise, the dominant thing affecting ride is stiffness.
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