I am looking at replacing my fork and need to make sure I understand the relationship between changing fork length and rake. Here is what I am looking at...

Fork #1
a-c 403mm
rake 50mm

Fork #2
a-c 400mm
rake 44mm

They are both shorter than the fork I would be replacing by approx 25mm. What I need to understand is which fork will be less of a change to overall steering? I think that fork #2 would be less of a change than fork #1 in that it has a 44mm rake vs. the 50mm. I am guessing the 3mm difference in a-c will be much more minimal a difference than the rake difference, is this correct? Does the reduced rake offset some of the change made by a shorter a-c length than the original fork?

I understand I need to consider the change to BB height and overall geometry but for this post I am mainly concerned with the given questions.


Thank you for any help.