Hi All,

I have been riding my second frame for about 200 miles so far and notice that there seems to be quite a bit of front deflection in the fork. Additionally, if you hold the front brake and rock the bike back and forth, there is what I would call, more movement than I want. I realize that this happens on all bikes, but mine seems to do it a bit more. There isn't any play in the headset at all, and I know it's solid. For reference I'm using a Columbus Minimal fork with a 1" steerer.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Brandon

Use a 1 1/8" steerer next time.

Don't confuse strength of a carbon fork for it's steerer's stiffness. Andy (who just commented about this on another thread)

It's not strictly a matter of steerer tube diameter, the fork leg and crown stiffness comes into play as well. For example, the Woundup forks are known to be very stiff, even in 1". The old Kestral's were too. As for what currently available forks are stiffer than the Minimal? I'm not sure, but I've always liked the Ouzo Pro.

Thanks guys. I would have preferred a 1 1/8" however the HT is 31.7 and won't allow it. It just seems like a little much for my liking. I'll check out Ouzo Pro too. What other carbon forks are available? I know of Columbus, Moots, and ENVE. ENVE are out of my budget at the moment.

Thanks. [MENTION=12670]Nessism[/MENTION]- where did you get your headbadge done? How did you roll it?

he etched his headbadge himself, pretty impressive.

I didn't realize there were 1" carbon forks available still. I assume the fork rides okay, I wouldn't be concerned about movement with the brakes locked. OTOH, I really like building forks, so if I built a bike that took a Minimal, it would have a steel for on it instead. BITD, a fork was part of a frame, the tube sets came with a steerer and blades. I still have to remind myself of that sometimes

Thanks. Yes it rides fine, and the bike isn't a racer. Just struck me as odd. I found something from Sheldon Brown showing that many forks have as much as 5mm or so of longitudinal deflection and that seems to be in line with mine.

Of course blades and crown are part of the action. But at some point one has to be able to discuss the separate design aspects too. I moved away from solid and thin sectioned crowns a long time ago due to their contribution to flex, independent on the rest of the parts. We have pretty significant hills here and I make good use of my front brake, even when not loaded touring.

Here's a shot of my most recent touring bike's crown.

It's the Everest FC CX design (available in both 25.4 and as used here 28.6). Andy

Yes, homemade. There is a long thread about it...
To get the curve I pressed the badge into a female cradle of the appropriate shape. Couldn't get the proper contour due to spring back so in the end I had to anneal the copper (after it was already painted, thus destroying the paint). Annealing did the trick though and once pressed into the cradle the shape stayed there.

It looks great! What did you make it out of and how thick?

head badge thread: Head Tube Badge Creation

I ordered a brass head badge from shapeways but it violated their design constraints so they refused to try to make it. It's on the back burner for right now.