website to purchase a touring fork
 

Good afternoon,

I am looking for an online-shop that offers forks suitable for some light touring. Having spent quite a bit of time searching and am hoping that one of you can help.

Specifically, I need one that has eyelets and mid-fork brazed on threaded bosses for a low-rider rack, and works with 700c wheels. It will be replacing the 1" threadless carbon fork I've currently got.

So far I have found one that suits my purposes ideally, however it is from an online shop in UK that will charge me $50 for shipping. I am currently in the US and have looked at the Surly Long Haul Trucker fork and it is nearly ideal except that it is expensive and has studs for cantilever brakes which I do not need.

Outside of Universal Cycles, can anyone recommend an online shop for forks?

Thank you for any advice and/or recommendations.

You can probably stop looking now and go ahead and order the fork from SJS.

Hardly any forks are made for 1" steerer, with mid-fork eyes. In fact, the SJS is the only one I know of.

Make sure the axle-to-crown distance is close to your stock fork, or else it will affect steering/handling. You can compensate somewhat with tire size choice F & R.

It'll probably be cheaper to get a plain (no mid-fork eye) steel fork of appropriate length and jury-rig your rack mounting with P-clamps from the hardware store. For example (these are formerly Tange-badged forks and great value, plenty tough):

http://aebike.com/product/dimension-...k0084-qc30.htm

plus a pair of these (from home depot or lowes, 3 diameters available, 2-3 bucks ea):

http://www.touringcyclist.com/gear/model_16556.html

http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product...0_10000_202347

Don't know if this fits the bill. Every touring fork is going to have canti bosses. I couldn't find steer tube specs, but there is a tech support # to find out.

i'm pretty sure that's 1 1/8" since it corresponds to this frame: http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product...1_10000_202389

Why not use a 1" Surly Cross Check fork? It has single eyelets at the dropouts and mid blade eyelets. $76 shipped from Universal.

http://www.universalcycles.com/shopp...ls.php?id=7000

QBP, which has Surly as one of the several brands , ships to thousands
of bike shops around the US.

Online sellers are retail + shipping , get from a brick and mortar shop
and retail margins are typically, including shipping.:rolleyes:

Thank you all for your responses
 

I wouldn't want to use the crosscheck fork b/c of the cantilever bosses. I have caliper brakes and hope not to have to change out my front brake as well....yes I know cantilever is stronger but the issue is with cost and not having to unnecessarily change parts.

What is QBP? From my limited understanding, it is a distributor? Wouldn't I have to be a licensed dealer to go through them? In any case my next step was going to be call around all my local bike shops and have them order me something, maybe they can locate the fork SJS has from a local distributor.

Thank you all. Went ahead with the touring fork from SJS...it was really the only one out there that fit my purposes. It arrived today and happy to say it fits the bike just fine...am one step closer on my gearing up for touring. Next step...order a front rack, and perhaps get serious about planning a quick starter tour?