Why no Ti forks?
 

It seems like all the Ti bikes that I see, come with carbon forks. Even the ones that have Ti seatposts have carbon forks.
Why have I not seen Ti forks on Ti bikes?

I think I remember Ti forks on some of the earliest Ti bikes. The tubing is very difficult to taper though, that may have been one of the issues.

Ti is one of the toughest metals to work with I could see it being to hard to shape

Those early Ti bikes were mostly un-bent straight-gauge tubes. These days, moulding a set of carbon forks is just way easier.

You haven't been looking hard enough: http://www.deanbikes.com/menu.htm

http://www.deanbikes.com/components/Road.Fork.jpg

It's not pretty but it is titanium...

http://www.deanbikes.com/Nahbs/SuperLite.jpg

not pretty is right. How does it feel?

What's going on with that Dean? Is that an integrated seat mast? Or just an extended tube?

I guess I don't know if with the ISM you still use a seat post. I don't think so.

That Dean looks to have a regular post inserted into the extended mast.

There was another thread the other day regarding the benefits of the ISM. I'm still in the dark about them and the pros they offer. It makes me nervous to think I'd only get one chance to choose my saddle height. But, maybe I'm just clueless about them.

OP - this may not be the answer you are looking for but Litespeed had a Ti infused carbon fork several years ago. I have one on a Quintana Roo bike and the fork is just amazing. Can not figure out why it did not catch on.

I've seen ISM tops(don't really know the term but they connect seat to mast) allowing for up to 4.5cm of adjustment. I think the stock ones usually allow up to 1cm. Since most people riding a bike with an ISM have a pretty good Idea of there position they can probably get in the 1cm range first try.

I think the high seat-tube is a "look at my custom bike!" thing. Like leaving a cuff button on your custom suit un-buttoned: to show that you can.

^ Uh...but there are plenty of non-custom new bicycles coming with the ISM...

here is another one. Morati made cross forks in Ti also

http://cgi.ebay.com/Morati-road-fork...item45eedb7c1e

has anyone here used a ti fork I would love to know how they ride.

that fork makes it look like a 29'er. damn kids.

That is a lot more expensive than I was thinking it would be....hmm

Check out Jeff Jones, the mountain bike ti frame maker. He's got a very bizarre front end design.

http://www.jonesbikes.com/production_framesets.html

I think during a fast decent those titanium forks would feel like a noodle and cause speed wobbles more that a steel bike.

Yeah I have always heard that TI forks were a bit noodly.

< sigh> tired of the noodley comment WRT TI

any frame material can be designed to be noodley. likewise, TI can be used to build non noodley frames and forks.

I have three ti road forks from Black Sheep Bikes
1. one custom Black Sheep TI touring frame. Fork NOT noodley.
2. on a TI Black Sheep racing frame. Fork not noodly
3. I like this fork so much that I am also using one on a Performance Bicycle (built by Lynsky) Scattante TI road Frame I am currently building up.

the ride IS plush. but never noodley. AS plush as any carbon frame including the Roubaix (I owned one). Probably more plush than the roubaix, and as stiff too.

touring bike: I weight 195, use a heavily loaded handlebar bag, had 65 pounds of gear in rear panniers - no front panniers, and the rear rack is WELL set back to clear a disc rotor. If ANYTHING is going to feel noodly at 45+ MPH, this would be it. DUring a tour of China, in the SOuthern Himalaya, made a 45 mph descent from 14000' to 6000'. not a single problem. ROCK SOLID handling. More so than the Cro-Mo trek 520 that it replaced.

racing bike: Use this regularly for high speed descents in the rockies. 50MPH, no wobble.


I

Ti does tend to flex. (part of the reason for the comfortable ride feel of many Ti bikes.)

With a Ti frame, you've got triangulation to stiffen the frame, so its not hard to design an acceptably stiff Ti frame.

With a fork, you've got two tubes, on their own, with no other support.

So if you want to make an acceptably stiff Ti fork, you end up with big, and or comparitively heavy tubes.

In other words, the nature of Ti does not lend itself well to making a fork, compared to ther materials.

Hence, the .001% market share for Ti forks, even on Ti frames.

This thread inspired me to draw a Venn diagram:

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...tra/bfvenn.jpg
Carry on...

Matthew

good explanation...and that doesn't even address the fabrication costs of what is a very difficult material to work.

I have used a Ti fork before way back in the day. Not many companies make them for good reason. They are just horrible. Yes, bad. The feeling you get diving sharply in a corner is beyond sketchy. Ti forks are just too flexy. Seriously. If you have objections to using a carbon fork, then get a steel fork. I did on my Ti frame ages ago and the difference is night and day. The Ti fork was not even any more comfortable than a steel fork. I like Ti as a material for use in frames, but for forks... No way.

Wasn't going to comment in this thread until reading this silliness.:roflmao2:

Ti forks can be made plenty stiff, but it will require fairly large tubes which look "chunky" to most folks. Also, fabricating Ti forks is expensive which puts the builder at a disadvantage with carbon forks. For these reasons Ti forks did not catch on. It has nothing to do with them being overly flexy, although I believe that there were some flexy Ti forks on the market the same as there were flexy carbon forks on the market in days gone by.

well then, balsa wood and paper machete can be stiff enough if you compress it into the right super thick density.

I'm not sure a paper machete could ever be made strong enough or sharp enough to do the job right...