What the fork?!

Been playing with the front end of the Black Cat, experimenting with different fork setups.

Borrowed David’s Salsa El Mariachi fork, obtained a used Redline Flight fork, and compared to the Soul Cycles Dillinger fork I already have, all unicrown steel forks:


The contenders:

Salsa Cromoto Grande (the red one)
468mm axle-to-crown, 43mm offset
Weight: 2 lbs, 5 oz
Material: True Temper OX Platinum

Redline Flight
474mm axle-to-crown?, 47mm offset
Weight: 2 lbs, 13 oz
Material: Japanese made Sanko steel (double-butted)

Soul Cycles Dillinger
485mm axle-to-crown, 45mm offset
Weight: 2 lbs, 13 oz
Material: 4130 cromoly steel


I set up the Black Cat the same (same bars, same stem, brakes, etc…) but changed the fork and gave each a good 6-8 mile ride minimum to get the feel of each. Keep in mind that this Black Cat was built for a 100mm suspension fork (or 100mm suspension-corrected rigid fork). Weight is measured on my nearly accurate digital fish scale and all forks have nearly equal steerer tube lengths.

The Salsa fork gave the quickest handling due to its relatively short A-C. The Salsa fork also had the nicest finish with the sparkly paint job and handsome polished forward-facing dropouts. The thin tubing of the fork seemed to give the fork a nice plushness and absorbed trail chatter well, and lateral stiffness was good, but the bike was way too twitchy with the Cromoto fork. The newer stock Cromoto Grande fork is now made of “Salsa Classico” steel and has a 45mm offset, same 468mm length.

Salsa fork

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The Redline fork felt nice with it’s middle of the spectrum length. The long offset decreased the trail measurement which quickens the handling, but I felt it had too much offset to feel “right”. Also, I noticed some audible brake rotor rub on the pad during the ride, which tells me I was getting some side-to-side flex. Weight was not impressive, but the length is almost right. I did notice some pedal hits as well, but maybe I wasn’t riding so smooth either.

Redline fork.

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The Dillinger fork raises the front end up nicely with it’s long length and keeps the weight bias towards the rear and less weight on my hands (which is what I want), but the fork sometimes feels a little too long as steering seems a bit labored on fast turns. The ride of this fork was best of the group as it seems to have the best trail-chatter absorption and lateral stiffness. The fork is a little portly as well, but not surprising since it is kinda long so it’s built tough. I do like the aesthetics of the fork the best, and it’s cable guides are placed in the best location for securing the cable housing. It’s also the cheapest of the bunch as I purchased this fork new as a “Blem” at $40 from Soul Cycles direct.

http://www.ridesoul.com/

Soul Cycles fork.

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….so, in the words of double-rainbow guy: “what does it mean???!!”…....well..., long story short, I now have some sorta idea of what the ideal rigid fork would be on this bike. The perfect setup still requires some guessing on the fine measurements, unless of course I can obtain another fork around 475-480mm length to try out....
If I were to get a custom fork built, I’d probably suggest a length of 475 with 40mm offset or a 480mm length fork with 45mm offset.

Now I wonder, what if I change the stem length????