>From what I hear it is common in the pro peloton to use a fork with longer axle to crown measurement and/or a longer rake for races with a lot of pavé sections. Hincapie for instance used a low end Bontrager OCLV carbon fork that fatal day in the 2006 Paris-Roubaix.
On 23 Jan, 20:40, Gino Zahnd <ginoza...@gmail.com> wrote: > I personally know a person who re-raked his Atlantis fork with > questionable to no results. This person rides extremely long events, > and ultimately his conclusion on the experiment was: Meh. It didn't do > anything. Eventually he had a new fork built, and it seems to have > changed the handling with a large front-only load. But wheel flop is > still a factor because the headtube is slack. > > That said, he had a different rando-specific bike built, and it is > still on the higher side of trail figures at 57mm. And it carries a > handlebar bag perfectly fine. So is low trail really the be-all > end-all thing to focus on? Methinks not. > > As Cyclofiend stated, there are FAR more factors to a bike's handling > than just the fork rake. And if you're looking at low trail as The > Thing That Will Help, you can't look at it without also taking into > consideration headtube angle, tire size, what size loads you generally > carry, where you carry them, etc. > > I ride brevets on a Saluki (http://flickr.com/photos/gzahnd/2221488837/) with > a medium sized > Inujirushi handlebar bag, and I don't have problems. I can ride no > handed in just about any condition other than uphill at <10mph. But > really, who climbs without their hands on the bars? That isn't > efficient. Oh, and heavy cross winds seem to bite me with a bar bag > up front. I've never ridden a low trail bike, so I can't compare the > uphill-no-hands or crosswind factors. > > So to answer your philosophical question, my opinion is that you'd be > taking a bike designed for certain types of riding, and trying to make > it something that it is not. It isn't designed for that one very > specific type of load carrying, and anything you do to it is less than > ideal because you're only looking at one of many factors. > > Gino > > (sorry, Jim, about continuing this thread) > > > > On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 6:51 AM, Larry Powers <lapower...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > I randonneur on a Rambouillet with a large Berthoud handlebar bag. Most of > > the time there are no issues with this but when I am tired and climbing > > steep hills I can notice the affect of the bag. For this reason and because > > I would also be able to run bigger tires with fenders, I have toyed with > > getting a new fork for the bike. If I did would this still be a Riv > > Rambouillet? Riv/Grant intentionally build high trail bikes so modifying > > one of their bikes to a low trail bike goes against their philosophy and In > > my mind creates a bike that is no longer a Rivendell. > > > This is merely a philisophical question I am pondering while at work. Many > > people love to tinker and there is nothing wrong with that. When my > > beautiful orange Rambouillet finally needs a paint job I may decide to > > modify it by changing the fork and adding canti studs but when I do I am not > > sure that I can say it is a Rivendell. > > > Larry Powers > > > "just when you think that you've been gyped the bearded lady comes and does > > a double back flip" - John Hiatt > > > ________________________________ > > Hotmail(R) goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. See how.- > > Dölj citerad text - > > - Visa citerad text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
