Originally Posted by
aeshultz
I fell into an older Alan frameset a few years back, and built it up to play with it. These were "screwed & glued" aluminum, pretty light for what they were. Had a blast with it until I realized that I could watch the front axle move 1" or so front to back while the fork sucked up bumps - was probably OK, but it gave me pause, as I didn't fancy seeing the fork blades go their own way as I wailed on it.
Replaced it a little later with a steel LeMond Poprad - way better.
I had an off-topic 2008 GT cyclocross bike with an Easton carbon fiber fork and cantilever brakes. One race that I did that was basically a loop down and back up quite a steep hill I found that with the cable hangar up by the stem there was a significant amount of judder when braking hard on the front. It's probably exaggerated in my head, but it looked like my fork was flexing back and forth about an inch as well!
I found out over two races that I don't really like racing cyclocross, but I sure do want a vintage CX frame.