|   I need your feedback on titanium forks... | kyezle
Jul 25, 2003 10:54 AM | | I've been thinking about putting a rigid ti fork on my Airborne SS, so I inquired on craigslist about wanting to purchase a used Ti disc fork off someone, and got these email responses in return:
"There are a few people who have produced Ti forks, but they have a history of breaking. I had a rare RockShox with a Ti steerer until it was stolen, but several properties with Ti made it rather undesireable. #1, it's horrible to cut and nearly impossible to thread (if you use an Ahead system that's the best.)
Most 3/2.5 Ti is pretty flexible unless it's a larger thickness making it less desireable from a weight persepective. If you must have one, i'd talk to Tom Kellogg at Spectrum Cycles or try calling Seven and see if they'll do a one off Ti fork for you.
The only near 100% Ti fork i've ridden that didn't feel like it was going to break was from Ti cycles bike, i think (they are in the Seattle WA area, if i remember correctly). It looked liked the Sycip or DeKerf Mono seat stay assembly, with tubes that were
welded from the steerer to the stantions. It was made from 100% straight gauge Ti and it was rather heavy. There were no brakebosses on it and it was for an oversized 26" BMX style singlespeed.
I guess the other thing to look into is to find an old Bontrager straight blade fork with the aluminum crown and find someone who can weld dropouts and disc tabs on the fork blades for you.
Good Luck. If there is something that's production out there that Sandvik/Lightspeed is producing, let me know. The Carbon forks have sort of taken over."
and:
"i don't think there is such a thing. teledyne experimented with these in the seventies, but judged that they were too brittle to be safe. and definitely not a disc fork- too much torsional stress. if you are after a good fork, i think wound-up might make a disc fork that is al/ carbon fiber. i'm assuming this is for a 700c bike. or, a kona project 2 with disc tabs will do you good, and they only cost seventy bucks. besides, the ride a ti fork would provide would be unimaginably noodly. i might be wrong, but i don't think i am on this one. i'd hate to see you waste your time."
No offense to these guys, I appreciate their concern, but this just seems contrary to comments from singlespeeders I have ridden with.
What are your experiences with Ti forks? BTW, I weight 154 lbs. and ride somewhat technical trails, but not very fast.
Kyle |
| Buncha hippies on craigslist. | Fast Eddy
Jul 25, 2003 11:41 AM | |
Check out a Spicer fork, or a PlanetX/On-One fork. Either would bring you to Ti nirvana. I've never had one though. |
| Not to mention all the guys looking for BJs... | kyezle
Jul 25, 2003 11:56 AM | | Craigslist provides a lot of great bored-at-work reading entertainment.
Like this:
What part of "I'm f--king sorry" don't you understand?
All right. You're upset. I had sex with your sister. Hell, if you had sex with my sister I'd be kind of upset too. But you know as well as I do that I had two perfectly good reasons for doing so. (1) Your sister is really, really hot, and (2) I was sure you'd never find out.
You know, maybe if you'd slip on a pair of Wolford's once in a while instead of that Ann Taylor crap you wear to work I wouldn't be driven between the legs of another woman. I'm just saying.
Holy crap, that's funny.
If no one sells me their used fork, I'm going with a Spicer... |
| I like the bontrager idea | damn lurker
Jul 25, 2003 12:56 PM | | I have been thinking about the idea using the Bontrager crown for my own ride. I was looing to get new legs for mine in order to get it to match my suspension corrected frame. I figured that Ti would give me a more complient ride.
I figure that I will have to resort to the trick done with the origional legs which is that they had an aluminum tube inside the top portion of the leg down to just below the brake bosses in order to give them some stiffness. I would want to try different aluminum thicknesses and possibly carbo to fine-tune the ride.
I'm a little surprised that others have been thinking of this. There goes the 'Holy Sh_t' factor I was hoping to get when I got it done and posted it. Damn.
Seriously, is anyone on this already, has it been done? If anyone else is interested we might want to approach a builder with a few orders to get a price break.
Take it easy all. |
| Ti forks can be good... | terminaut
Jul 25, 2003 1:10 PM | | Here's a pic of my 6/4 ti road fork for my "ultimate ti road bike" someday... A lot of people say you can't make a good ti road fork, but they just don't know any better. This thing is as stiff as Tommy Lee in a video! ;-) Admittedly, it is a little heavier than a lot of modern day all-carbon forks.
I think a pretty decent MTB fork would be possible as well, using old crown/steerer units such as the Bonty's. I've got more thoughts on this but gotta run to the bike shop!!!
|
| Or bad | Bigwheel
Jul 25, 2003 6:36 PM | | as the case may be. As in it's too bad these babies are so hard to make, there should be more of them for sure. |
| Destiny... | terminaut
Jul 25, 2003 10:55 PM | | That fork is bad-arsed... |
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