Hi

Has anybody here got any experience of fitting a standard 1 1/8″ fork to a cannondale with a 1.5″ headset? I want to change my headshock for a more conventional fork, so any advice of what bits I need would be great.

Yes. You can buy a reducer headset, which will allow a standard fork to be fitted. FSA and Cane Creek do them.

Cheers RudeBoy. DO you know if that just fits directly in – no need for further spaces?

You have to knock the Si cups out of the frame, then the headset just fits in like a standard one.

something like this will do the job.

You’ll only need as many spacers as you would with a standard system; depends on how long your steerer tube is.

Are you really Dave’s mum?

There are 2 options,

1. Fit reducers cups and a normal headet, cups cost £20-25, can be had from CRC or SJS.

2. Fit a reducer headset, easilly available now with the uptake of the 1.5″ standard of headset. Most 1.5″ reducer headset should work, just be aware that you cant fit one with deep cups and if you get a low stack/internal one your fork adjusters might be too close to the frame.

Ive just gone this way myself, waiting for my hope reducer headset to arrive any day now. One other point, Headshock forks are quite long so you might need a longer fork than you think to keep the angles the same.

Cool, cheers for the info.

Looks like the FSA reducer headset may well be the way to go to get me sorted, I would prefer to use one product that does both instead of having reducers and a new headset. I believe the headshok on my F600 has 80mm of travel, the axle to the bottom of the headset measuring roughly 480mm – this is about the same as a 100mm rock shox fork that I measured so the geometry of the bike should stay roughly constant.

RudeBoy – not really daves mum, just liked the name!

Funnily enough, I have an F600, and I’ve replaced the Headshok with a Lefty, but I have also used a reducer headset, as well as using reducer cups and a standard headset. Using a 100mm fork will be perfect.

daves mum, where are you based? I have a reducer headset in my spares box that could be swapped for beer.

Just checking how you got on with this? I’ve got a CAAD5 hardtail with the reducer cups, they don’t fit very well and there is a lot of play felt through the steering. I’ve bought a FSA reducer headset but it doesn’t fit. I have the alloy cups still fitted to the frame, the SI cups? do i definately have to knock these out? i don’t want to ruin my frame?

You need to remove the Si cups that are in the frame, and replace them with either the reducer cups or (better) a reducer headset. If you’re not confident with doing this, then maybe best to take it to a Cannondale dealer/servicer, who can swap everything over for you.

It’s no more complicated than replacing a headset on a standard frame.

Thanks RB, i’ll get a bit of wood and a mallet!

Go easy then! Tappity-tap, not WHACK!

I’ve removed Si cups and installed reducers/reducer headset meself, this way. Just go easy, and don’t **** it all up!

Ha ha, all done now. Length of copper pipe is quite handy for gently tapping something out, it’s soft and deforms.

Rude Boy, and any others, what headset did you fit. I goy a FSA one from CRC but now that it’s fitted i’ve removed about 2cm of cups/ruducers/headset between the forks and the bottom of the head tube. I’m thinking that this will have altered the head angle by a degree or so.

The FSA i installed in basically internal and has about 2mm of stack height, think i might want something with a bit more stack height to it. What’s everyone running?

Thanks

I used the FSA ‘internal’ one, as I needed something to work with a short fork steerer. Worked ok with a 100mm fork, which was longer than the 80mm Headshock it replaced. The head angle seemed about the same, and the distance from the bars to the ground was about the same as well. Using the non-internal headset would raise the whole thing up by a couple of cm, but woon’t noticably change things much. A low-rise stem/bar combo would put your bars where they were. Might slacken things up by a tiny bit, but I doubt it would make an enormous difference to the handling of the bike.

Sounds like we’ve got similar ones then. It’s my GFs bike and she needs all the help she can get on the downhill sections so we’ll just see how she finds it.
Cheers