Non-Carbon fork options for a Titanium Frame?
 

Hi folks

It seems every Ti bike I see has a carbon fork. I don't want any carbon parts on any bike I ride. What else can I use instead?

Realistically your options are Steel or Ti....Alu forks exist but run the gamut form 'truly awful' to 'bearable'.

Personally I'd go steel, if you can't find a nice 531, X53 or Columbus number 2nd hand that you like (and will fit) then start talking to frame builders about what you want and get something bespoke built.

The nice thing about a custom fork is you get to specify all details, aesthetic details like crown and dropouts. but also offset, brake clearance, braze-ons etc. Probably best to take recommendations from the builder on material and tubeset though as they'll know what will work for your weight and intended use.

I guess another way to ask the same question. Carbon forks are matched to Ti frames because otherwise the ride will be too harsh.

What type of ride does a Ti-Ti or Ti-Steel bike give? Or "should" one really do Ti-Carbon?

Do you want a crown? Personally I agree with finding a nice used Columbus or Reynolds fork that fits and paint it.

I think something like the Soma straight blade for would look good on it, it is only Prestige but still a great fork. Soma Straight Blade Track/Road Fork (Threaded )

You posted while I was typing. I had a Ti Bianchi with the more traditional looking MegaPro designed frame and a carbon fork, but I never liked the ride. I always assumed it was the frame but it could have been the fork who knows. I now have the slightly older Ti Mega Tube model with the huge coffin shaped aero foil downtube and a Columbus unicrown fork. I like the ride much better but I can’t say if it the stiffer frame design or the steel fork.

I suspect the main reason for the carbon forks is they are cheaper to source than having steel forks built.

I can't imagine a ti frame being too harsh. If anything, people move on from ti because they are too compliant. So the advantage of a carbon fork is to tighten up the ride. Maybe there are much stiffer ti bikes built with modern design and materials but as a bigger rider, I would rather ride oversized aluminum for most everything.

I dunno. I understand anti-carbon, but most Ti bikes just look cool with a carbon fork. It's like "yeah, I may have a carbon fork, but I have to. Check out the bad-ass frame, though..."

I think you're operating under a mistaken assumption that carbon forks are meant to smooth out a stiff ride from a titanium frame. Ti frames are not known to be particularly stiff, and anyway just like any frame material, stiffness depends mostly on how thick the tubing is, not the material itself.

I would look at a custom steel or ti fork. Some really great quality and lightweight ones can be had from Walt Works, Meriweather, Oddity, Igleheart, Moonmen, Sycip, etc...

All of the original Ti and carbon bikes came with SR Prism aluminum forks or the equivalent, which rode very nicely and came with many bikes of the time, going back to the late '70s. I would strongly suggest a similar aluminum fork as they ride much more like carbon forks than most steel forks do and look nice anodized.

While I might swap it back out, I have one Ti frame currently using a Prism fork. It rides and handles very nicely.


Steel forks on road bikes only persisted on steel frames after the late '80s. That's why practically no aluminum, carbon or Ti road bikes had them.

I disagree about aluminum forks being 'truly awful to bearable'. Why do people have to post their opinions as blanket statement facts? But I digress. I have a factory alu fork on my steel bike and it rides great, in fact it's one of my favorite features of the frame.

I dont know what's available in alu aftermarket, but if available it's something to consider. I bet the right alu fork would ride great on a Ti bike.

You didn't say what frame you have. In addition to the fork mentioned above, Soma has several other attractive options depending on the size and configuration you need. FWIW, a guy I know has a steel fork on a ti bike he uses for touring.

Apologies, you're right I should have pre/suffixed that with 'in my opinion' but I thought that was implied.

There are some decent Alu forks out there that ride nicely but they are few in number by comparison and more difficult to source compared to Steel. Likewise there are a lot of very poor alu forks, either in ride quality or longevity. The former is normally a result of making them robust enough at a sensible price meaning they are overbuilt and excessively stiff, the latter being a result of being built for decent comfort and weight meaning they suffer fatigue sooner. Being able to name a handful of decent Alu forks doesn't negate the fact that when comparing on the whole it's hard to find a good one, and even harder if you don't know what you're looking for.

What is a fact and not opinion is that Alu forks do fatigue differently to steel forks and especially for C+V items this is a genuine concern, it shouldn't put you off if you decide you do want one, but you should know what you're looking for and be aware of the issues.

That doesn't mean you can't find a decent one, it just means that you need to discard all the cheap and unpleasant ones, leaving you with a more limited pool of forks to begin with, then out of that pool you need to be wary of anything that has had a moderately hard life, or indeed an unknown life, leaving you with an ever diminishing pool of options.

As far as I am aware the choices for new Alu forks are also somewhat limited, and most modern options, unless custom, will also now be suffering from being overbuilt and overly sturdy.

By comparison the amount of decent steel forks available second hand is huge, and you're much more likely to be able to find something appropriate and while hard use is still a concern for any second hand component it is less of a concern on a steel fork as they simply do not fatigue int he same way. They also don;t tend to fail int he same manner, which is also worth considering.

If you're hell-bent on avoiding carbon then personally I would look for decent steel, get one built, or look at a Ti fork, but the real important question is what do you want and why...

Carbon is to some degree even more varied. It can be built to be super compliant, super stiff, or a mix of both, and it's hard to make generalisations without talking about specific forks, but certainly Carbon can be used to provide a stiff front end, or a comfy compliant one and the reason most Ti frames are seen with them is simply that Ti didn't really take off int he mainstream until after steel forks had fallen out of fashion. If you look at older Ti frames they often did have accompanying Ti forks, or steel, or Alu depending on the builder.

Carbon forks also come in numerous construction types as well, Alu steerer and crown bonded to Carbon legs, Steel steerer bonded to Alu crown bonded to carbon legs, Alu steerer bonded to carbon fork, full Carbon etc. Same with dropouts, bonded, integral...

There are pros and cons to all the above, and they affect price, ride quality and longevity so it's very hard to generalise about Carbon forks, details details details. They really do run the gamut from truly terrifying to truly excellent ;-)

Another fan of aluminum forks here. Fatigue tests of aluminum bikes have consistently demonstrated that they are at least as durable as (and often more durable than) steel bikes. I haven't gone to the trouble of replacing the carbon fork on any of my bikes that came with one, but I prefer aluminum.

Given the ubiquity at one time of Vitus, Trek, Prism and Kinesis bonded forks, what failures have you seen? Or are those all the overbuilt variety?

"all of the above" (+ others in all materials too) is the unfortunate answer.

EDIT - not Prism, don't think I've ever come across a broken one...

FWIW a lot of the Kinesis stuff, their own branded and the OEM stuff badged up for others is actually quite overbuilt, necessarily so and consequently not as compliant as they could be.

'ubiquity' is an interesting word to use there, they're not ubiquitous now, and that's not just down to fashion and economics. By their nature most of the examples you still see around now are ones that have either not had much use, are overbuilt enough to have stood the test of time, or are at the upper end of the bell curve in terms of lifetime.


'bikes' or forks? and it all comes down to details of construction too. And it's not so much about the actual failure, as obviously any design that persisted int he market was made strong enough, but that comes with compromises elsewhere, in terms of weight and stiffness/compliance.


The point is that Aluminium as a fork material results in either a fork that is harsher than it needs to be or weaker than it could be.

I'm not saying you can't make am decent riding fork using Alu, but it comes with compromises, but then all materials do...

I don't want this to come cross like I'm some kind of Alu fork hater, as I'm really not, and I absolutely loved my old Trek with an Alu fork, and I still have Alu bikes now.

But in the context for he OP asking about non-Carbon forks for his Ti frame, taking into account availability, reliability etc. I think Alu is the outside choice, could still be a good one though if the OP wants an Alu fork.

If it's a Merlin or Litespeed with a 1" headtube, any decent lightweight steel fork should work well, assuming you can still find one. It's harder than you think.

If you're concerned about the durability of carbon, you needn't be if your fork comes from a reputable manufacturer (not from some mystery listing on Alibaba) and you install it according to the recommended instructions (e.g. use friction paste, do not exceed torque specifications, no star nuts allowed).

My current modern ride (Lynskey R230) came with a carbon fork (Look) that I got stubborn about. I picked up a Soma Prestige in replacement, then was appalled by how much the thing actually weighed when mounted to the bike. So the Look fork went on and things have been fine and dandy since then.

I also have a Losa-built Cinelli Supercorsa (Neuron steel) with a Columbus Minimal carbon fork. It's amazing how nicely the thing tracks. I never have to worry about loose headsets anymore, and I don't miss the extra weight.

People put down and worry too much about aluminum forks in general, IMO,
There were many thousands of Vitus 979 and 999 aluminum forks made for Vitus bikes and so far, I have never seen or heard of any of them failing on owners.
I'm sure just by normal odds, there were failures most likely from defects from the factory or the occasional equipment abusive owner, but they must have been so rare that it does not really show up on anyone's radar.
I have two bikes with Vitus 979 series aluminum, bonded forks and both ride really nicely, not harsh at all. If a fork is designed right, no mater what material it is, it shouldnot fail on a rider in normal conditions and should ride nice. So-called "death forks" were flawed design-wise to start with.....

This statement sums it up perfectly, imo. :)

wat

Then we have a winner. SR Prism forks look good, ride nicely, were OEM on Litespeed and Merlin, are common on the used market and seem to be incredibly durable, even by the measure of someone who thinks aluminum forks are failures waiting to happen (in theory).

I never said that, I said harsher than they need to be or weaker than they could be.

Not death trap, and not impossible to be comfy, but at either end of the scale you need to be either wary of a poor ride, or wary of fatigue. There's a compromise zone/sweet spot in the middle but its a smaller zone than with other materials and realistically speaking the 2nd hand market for Alu forks is a harder one to navigate*.

It would really help if the OP could give us some more details on their frame as at the moment we have no idea what it is, what kind of riding it's aimed at or even what headtube diameter it needs!
If the OP wants a new fork rather than 2nd hand that also somewhat sways the options too....

It's always tricky when people pop up and say 'My X is still fine after Y years" and someone else pops up with "I've seen Z examples of a failed X". It doesn't make either person wrong, but just reporting on personal experiences.

^ There's a post up there about thousands of Vitus forks and having never seen a broken one for example. I have seen (in person) a few Vitus fork failures**, and several more recounted from other mechs/riders. I'm not suggesting that's unique to Vitus, and few is not a big number in the grand scheme of things, and as I mentioned before I've also seen numerous failures of other brands too, and in other materials.

Although I've never documented it all over the hundreds if not thousands of bikes I've worked on and seen through workshops, retail, racing and clubs you do pick up on trends and anomalies and the sample set of Alu fork failures I've seen is greater than steel failures in terms of market share, swiftly followed by carbon, and although I've probably seen more failed steel forks (in absolute numbers) than any other material that's not unexpected given the numbers in circulation, and if anything these days it's predominantly carbon failures as they become more numerous.

IT's also worth noting that most of the Alu failures I've seen have been fatigue related, with a few initiated by impact/external damage. In contrast most of the Carbon failures I've seen have been a result of impact or prior damage, the Carbon fatigue failures I've seen have been proper edge cases. As far as steel goes it's probably about 30/70 split of fatigue/damage.

You don't have to take any notice of me, make decisions based on my observations, or pay any regard at all to my experience, I'm simply relaying it here for other people to read :-)

* Illustrated neatly by the point that people can suggest 'a few' models of decent Alu fork. I'll wager that there's more than a few that people could put forward in steel or carbon (which the OP doesn't want).

** in varying degrees from cracked and replaced for piece of mind, to fully snapped.

If you want to try aluminum, I have an old Alan fork in nice shape I don't need any more. Long steer tube, 205cm, good for a bike sized around 60cm.

I thought it felt a little buzzy on the bike I had it on (an old Technium) but that could have been a combination of confirmation bias and the hard, skinny tires I have on that bike.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4675/...db27d0b8_b.jpg

I think you are engaging in the type of anecdotal behavior that you are decrying. I've been in and out of the bike biz for yearly three decades, and have yet to actually see an aluminum fork in a Trek, Kestrel, Cannondale, Liteseed, Vitus, etc fail from use. Most of those forks are on the less rigid side and don't appear to have any particular frailty - especially not at the in the thinnest parts of the fork blades that receive the work cycles that stresses aluminum.

And I think that maybe that isn't surprising when talking about a bonded fork - the aluminum hasn't gone through the heat of welding and the forces on the fork are fairly simple compared to what a BB or headtube sees for stress, so the bonds have less reason to fail.


I'm not saying that they are bulletproof - but I have definitely seen a lot more frame failures than any kind of fork failure, and the fork failures I've seen have been dropouts and steerer tubes, followed by steel at the crowns and carbon blades. If you do an image search on google for bicycle fork failure you won't find any bonded aluminum forks that failed from riding. Of course there must be some, but you'll find more pictures of failed Trek 1200 frames than 1200 forks.

Can you post a picture of what a bonded aluminum road fork fatigue failure looks like? This just seems like one of those things you hear about that no one can actually demonstrate, like Raleigh Technium bonding failures. I'd like to see at least one.

This is my experience. My first ti frame had a carbon fork, the second ti frame I put a steel fork with it. The difference is night and day. The steel fork is much more to my liking and is by far more comfortable as it absorbs larger pavement imperfections better than the carbon fork. Both bikes use the same tire and tube, frame angle is only a degree slacker on the second frame, however fork offset is the same. All fit dimensions are the same between the two frames.
I will say, most carbon forks are not built for compliance, and I have never seen one outside of mountain bikes, that is. It is important to note the steel and diameter used on the fork blades, and the fork offset will affect ride quality.

Well I'm trying to be very up front about the fact that I'm only relaying my experience and observations as anecdote. I'm not suggesting I have a handle on exact figures or anything more than 'examples of what I've seen'.

The trend element is based on what I've observed, nothing more, and clearly you've had a different experience, although I must say I'm surprised that you've not seen any failures given your time in the industry too.

This does remind me of another thread where I've been discussing rim wear and commenting how very specific it can be to location and use case, with local geology and geography playing a big part in that particular can of worms. The same is likely true with regard to failures, it very much depends on the kind of riders and riding you've been exposed to, but I don't think my experience is that out of the ordinary, certainly not here in the UK.

This is particularly curious to me as I have seen my fair share of bonding failures on alu crown/carbon leg forks, both at the crown but also at the dropout as forks of this construction are also likely to have bonded dropouts.
However, it should be noted that most of those were 'soft failures' in that the degraded bond (often due to movement or creaking) was spotted and the fork replaced before catastrophic failure, perhaps why not so sensationalised?
Another type of failure that I've seen several times is vertical cracks in the leg, normally at the centre of the leg propagating from the crown/leg bond downwards, and sometimes, but less frequently similar vertical cracks at the bottom end where bonded to dropouts, again normally spotted before catastrophic failure but I know of a couple where the fork has collapsed when the cracks have 'gone' so to speak.
A recurring but not widespread failure mode that seems very much more prevalent in Alu compared to any other material is cracked/snapped dropouts.

This is something that is worth making note of though, for any material, regular and thorough inspection can catch a lot of failures before they are catastrophic. 'Failed' doesn't have to mean collapsed/snapped etc.

Due to the climate here it's also not unusual for many bonded forks to suffer corrosion at the crown, normally first noticed as a bubbling paint and if left to proceed, material flaking and significantly weakening the fork. This seems to affect carbon/alu bonded forks much more than alu/alu, and is an entirely different beast to a bit of surface rust on a steel fork.

Basically all this is enough to make me wary of using a C+V, and especially 2nd hand, Alu fork on any bike I intend to put any kind of miles on. To be fair I'm wary of many things, and equally if not more wary of second hand carbon whether new models or C+V. I'll pretty much only fit brand new Carbon forks to my bikes unless I know the exact prior history. Steel I'm a lot more gung-ho about...

Not got any pictures to hand as I don't routinely document things like that, but I do have a Steel steererd, Alu crowned, Carbon legged Time fork on one of my bikes which I am now keeping a VERY close eye on as it has developed cracks in the paint on both sides at the join between the crown and legs. There is no visible or detectable movement so it may just be brittle paint that has cracked, but brittle or not it implies stress and/or movement at that location and without destructive testing it's hard to know if that joint has been compromised yet. Needless to say it's now out of rotation and on 'special rides' only duty.

a decade ago there was a deal with a Russian aerospace company to get Ti Frames with Ti Forks.. tapered blade.. looked nice..

If there is Money behind your desires , I expect a Ti Fork could be fabricated straight blade not tapered..