Old 04-21-08, 04:35 AM
  #4  
Rowan
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The questions are:

Do you intend to carry all or most of your gear up front? It's not an unusual practice in Europe, for example, and can help improve the feel or a bike.

Just how much gear do you intend to carry? As jp said, the amount you suggest seems a lot if you are also carrying a similar amount on the rear.

How does the bike feel currently with the alloy fork? A steel fork might improve the feel, but from what I have seen of newer steel forks, their engineering suggests very stiff to the point where there might not be an improvement in ride feel.

You may be able to achieve a better ride feel by lowering tyre pressures a fraction, and lightly loading the front with a low-rider rack held in place mid-fork by the U-clamps shooter suggests.

FWIW, I am not so sure about the feasibility of low-rider racks improving the ride feel of a bike. What you trade out by changing to a steel fork, might be lost by fitting a low-rider rack.

I am figuring, through observation over quite long distances and road types, that the configuration of the rack mounts, both midfork and down on the drop-outs, limits or eliminates the intended movement of the fork-ends to act as a kind of suspension. It is, I think, why the French love the front racks that are mounted at the crown and mid-fork braze-ons, leaving the fork-ends to do the stuff they were meant to do.
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