On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 2:45:30 PM UTC-6, David Banzer wrote:
> I'm considering as a winter project, rebuilding my Riv Redwood as a > low-trail 700c bike...My main question is this: What rake would be > appropriate for this 700c bike running Compass Barlow Pass (38mm) tires? > Headtube is 73 degrees. I'm leaning towards 65mm rake, which would give a > trail measurement of 40mm. > > I had the fork on my original prototype Heron Road pulled to 55 mm, which was as far as John Sotherland felt he could take it without risking collapse. It only has clearance for 28's. I also have a Terraferma 650B ultra low trail bike for comparison. I loved the Heron as designed and built, but I like it even better with the extra rake. It can take a light load in a handlebar bag and feels like just the right balance of stability and responsiveness. I don't feel any need to add more rake than that. By comparison, my Terraferma is a very difficult bike to ride no hands, and gets worse as weight is added to the front bag. For the sake of science, I'm having Waterford make a new fork for that bike, with a bit less rake. My hypothesis is that the current fork is not aligned properly, and that a fresh, properly aligned fork will make a lot of difference, while the 4mm less rake won't make much difference at all. Keep in mind that a different fork may have a different axle-to-headtube dimension, which would change the head angle. Adding more rake changes the angle again. If you start with the same length fork and add some rake, you will steepen the head angle. A little trig work will tell you by how much. I will have to check my archives to see what I calculated the effect is on my Heron. Can you really fit 38's in the Redwood? Sounds like a great bike for the vertically enhanced folk. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
