changing from a old style fork to a 1" threadless
 

hi. thank you for a moment of your time. i acquired a bianchi megalite steel cross bike, with a stem and quill style fork. took it off road, on a steep downhill, the fork seemed to fold under and the wheel went one way and the handlebars went another. got up, straigthened and tightened the thing. another slick downhill, did it again. i had a redline with a newer threadless fork, never did this. is this too much for an older style fork? is it hard to convert to a new fork? what is involved in the changover? i appreciate the advise.

I wouldn't be so fast to blame the threaded/quill system per se. Remove and inspect the stem. Then, make sure you do not have the quill any higher up than the min insertion/max height line and that it is really tight. Some quill/headset combos are looser or tighter than others. A new, better stem may be all you need.

If you go the threadless route, you'll need a new fork, headset and stem (and spacers maybe). It'd be ideal to match the rake of the new fork to the old. If you don't know the rake, you can probably eyeball them next to each other. I assume the old headset is the ISO standard, so any newer 1" threadless ISO headset should work.

Then again, it may be too low!

If the wedge is trying to grab the tapered, butted section of the steerer, it can pop out without warning!


1" threadLESS is generally a bad idea. ThreadLESS is the norm for 1 1/8" stuff, but is not being well supported in the 1" size.

Generally speaking, with rigid forks, the original fork that was made for the frame will be the best possible fork. Replacing it with a generic fork is liable to lead to handling issues, as it is unlikely that the replacement fork will match the geometry of the original.

Generally, the only good reason to replace the fork on a road bike is because the old one was wrecked in a crash. If your original fork is not damaged, my very strong advice is:

"It it ain't broke, don't 'fix' it!"

Sheldon "Original Fork Is Best" Brown

oh never knew that steere tubes were butted too.

Maybe a bit off topic - but you can buy an adaptor which converts your threaded fork to use the newer threadless headsets. I use one on one of my road bikes and it works quite well, and I can use my columbus cromo forks without having to upgrade.

Thank you, Mr. Brown, and the other kind responders to my question. The original fork did not come with this bike. I will look for one (bianchi reparto corsa lite steel cross bike). In the meantime, I will try adjusting the current stem I am using. I am using a Nasbar converter so I can use my Richy stem and bars off my Redline cross bike. Thank you all again. (you have bailed me out several times in the past, Mr. Brown, and I thank you again!)