I'm building a winter beater. I've got an old steel bridgestone frame with no fork. A friend gave me a nice Sakae alluminum fork that happens to have the amount of rake I like. Should I not use it? I've only had experience with lugged steel frames and am hesitant to try out an alluminum fork on a steel frame. What will my ride be like? Durability? Just thought I'd see what everyone thinks.

buy mine!

I have experience with some early/mid '90s carbon/Al road bikes with Al forks.. in that context they work well, countering some of the "dead" feel of the early carbon. It will probably ride "harsher" than a steel fork. In terms of durability, Al will not bend back like steel so it has to be stiffer to start with. So the Al fork ought to perform better in crashes, up to a certain amount of force, after which it will permanently deform and become junk. If the fork is well engineered and you don't crash much, I'd say you'll be fine.

The first generation of Al forks got a bad reputation for failing (search for "death fork"), make sure it's newer than those.

you know, in england it's pronounced (and spelled!) "aluminium."

I know some people riding steel bikes with al forks, no problems for them, I say go for it, if it doesn't feel right, change it.

There was a time where Alu was considered too soft for frames and was used for forks to add cushion. Go for it, you will be fine.

Aluminum gets a bad rap - totally undeserved at this point in time vis à vis the evolution of framebuilding techniques and materials. I say install the fork and forget what it's made of.

Speaking of aluminium, I saw some special on Discovery last nite and they were showing abunch of man made structures and vehicles that failed catastrophically. One of them was an Aloha airliner jet that had part of the roof rip apart, causing one stewardess who wasn't buckled in to be sucked out of the plane. They attributed the failure to metal fatigue and poor inspection/check ups.

i so saw that. The history channel rocks. Nothing like comign home and relaxing by watchign crap get blowed up or falling apart. I never realized that when flying all that seperates me from the clear blue yonder is a thin crummny piece of aluminium.

i have an old specialized steel fork thats been painted black if you want it..by "want" i mean free..to have

Not only that, but the aluminum skin is glued onto the inner frame with a substance similar to locktite.