Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club

Those of you on Facebook would know I recently crashed my bike, snapping the fork. My quest to purchase a new fork has proven more difficult than anticipated.

The fork I require is a tapered carbon fork with a 50mm rake. It turns out 50mm is quite hard to come by and 46mm seems to be the best I can do. However, this will likely change the way the bike handles and create toe overlap.

Burwood Cycleworld have done the online research and have offered me 46mm. I've written to Avanti direct to question why they would not sell forks separately and I've also emailed Peter Bundy to see if he has any bright ideas.

So... to the DHBC fraternity, can anyone help me find the fork I require? My only other options appear to be to buy a new frame or a new bike. Given I have a long European holiday coming up, neither of these are ideal.

On the plus side, my fixie is getting a good workout which can only be an advantage with the fixie century coming up!

3t does a 49mm fork, which is close enough but you looking at around the 400USD dollar mark. I believe Columbus also do a 50mm one but i cant find anyone selling one.

http://www.3tcycling.com/products.aspx?p=Funda

I hope its a straight 1 1/18 steertube, if its tapered then Avanti would be your only option.

Or if your looking for something ultra sexy..... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Enve-1-0-car ... 33763d6c8c

Thanks for looking Alex but no, it needs to be tapered... That seems to be half the problem. 50mm straight: OK. 46mm tapered: OK. 50mm tapered? Impossible.

The best Burwood could find from 3T was 46mm. I think they mentioned the 49mm but would be a 10-12 week wait and I'd have to pay for it upfront. And would 49mm work? Still seems a bit risky.

you know you'r talking about 4mm here it's like this --- tiny. you'll be all right. measure how much space you have between you'r shoe and tyre. if it's more than 5mm you'r sweet!

and it won't effect the handling. you ride a small bike, as christian says, the handling of small bikes sucks.

The solution to toe rub is to wear black shoes, that way the tyre marks don't show

I'd reccomend a Wound-Up fork
http://www.woundupcomposites.com/road_fork.html
CW

Or if your looking for something ultra sexy..... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Enve-1-0-car ... 33763d6c8c

Ha! Roberto Biciletas! He used to live down the road from me in the UK. His prices have sure gone up. I got 2x Miche primato track BB english thread, GBP20 for both (new in box). To be fair that was his moving overseas sale price.

OK I've never heard of tapered head tubes, I'm obviously old fassioned. But a similar thing happened to me - my headset ovalised in this case and the carbon forks looked fine. But I didn't trust the forks, I didn't want a hairline fracture to undo me out on the road. When I changed them over, I unwittingly ended up with less-raked forks, and it was fine. The bike was that little bit more willing to turn in and I already had toe overlap. In fact, I do on all my bikes except MTB. 4mm difference would only be noticable at the extreme (ie when turning sharply).

That's my opinion from my own experience, but I'm no expert.

Had a quick look at the Avanti frame geometries (can't remember which model you have), and the frames with the 50mm rake fork have quite relaxed geometry, so a shorter rake shouldn't be too big an issue. Another thing to keep in mind is axle to crown length, but that can sometimes be difficult to find out.

There's a Specialized fork on ebay which is 50mm and tapered, i'm just not sure if the site for the lower bearing is correct.

Thanks everyone! I've pulled a favour from someone who works for Shimano and it looks like he has come through with the goods. I find out on Tuesday.

Also scored an invitation to the Shimano 2013 launch!

do you need a date for the launch?
i can be single!

If it doesn't work out, this may.....

I picked up a fork yesterday!

So after a lot of dead ends, I wrote direct to Avanti and said 'what gives?' for a company of your size not to be selling bike parts. A nice lady wrote back to say that that is the first she has heard of it seeing as you can! You just need to speak to the Avanti salesperson as they are not sold direct on the website.

I recontacted Burwood Cycleworld who contacted the Avanti salesperson and Voila! A fork!!

Alex Chubb has very kindly said he will put it all together for me tonight.

I picked up a fork yesterday!

So after a lot of dead ends, I wrote direct to Avanti and said 'what gives?' for a company of your size not to be selling bike parts. A nice lady wrote back to say that that is the first she has heard of it seeing as you can! You just need to speak to the Avanti salesperson as they are not sold direct on the website.

I recontacted Burwood Cycleworld who contacted the Avanti salesperson and Voila! A fork!!

Alex Chubb has very kindly said he will put it all together for me tonight.

Alex deserves to be your date then for that launch you scored......friendly date of course as I guess out are taken.