Hi all
Looking to replace the alloy forks on our Cannondale road tandem for something lighter, so I was looking at a carbon fork. I wondered about just using a normal carbon fork from a road bike, whether it be a full carbon or with an alloy steerer. We're not a heavy team, and wondered if we were asking for trouble? Somehow I can't image it snapping given the strength of carbon fibre.

Steerer tubes a bit thicker on a tandem rated fork. Can't imagine using a fork rated for anything other than a tandem.

Double the weight of a bike and the needed strength of a fork when hitting a hole or other obstruction is considerably more than twice as much. If you have the money, there are carbon tandem forks that are pretty light. If cost is a problem then stick with the fork you have. A pound saved out of 300 lb team+bike weight is not much weight saving. A fork failure can ruin your whole day and the stoker's too.

Half-bike forks have been used on tandems at the highest level. Calfee, Co-Motion and Paketa have used the ENVE 2.0. Co-Motion has since made their own tandem-spec fork.






Cyfac uses the half-bike Columbus Carve Mega Fork.

The Enve website says that their fork is not for tandem use. Because we had ordered our Calfee with the Enve fork, I called Enve and they have that note on their website in order to monitor team weight. If the team is under I believe 350 lbs then the Enve fork can be used.

Be very careful here.....do your own research with the mfr of your choice on this one and draw your own conclusions. You are literally playing with your life, not to mention the life of your stoker.
If there is one part I never want to see fail on our Tandems, particularly in a challenging situation... it is the fork. There are a lot of other places to save weight...either way,Good Luck
Bill j.

I would feel safe using an Enve or Co-motion carbon fork, since both of those are being used by tandem manufacturers in their stock offerings. You may want to have a spacer machined at the crown to match the height of the cannondale fork. Not sure what the figures are, so that's just speculation, but the c'dale forks do look pretty tall.

Something like this:

Agree on c/f tandem specific forks; however some folks have us c/f cyclocross forks.
We have an Alpha Q X-2 on our Zona tandem for the past 30,000+ miles.
Just our input.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem