I’ve searched high and low and high again to find a rigid fork of the right length with disc mounts and proper low-rider bosses.

At the moment I have Thorn forks similar to these on one bike:

And these on another:

Yes, yes, mock the gopping extended steerer all you want… 😆

Both of them are ‘perfect’ forks at 430-440mm axle-crown but one lacks disc mounts (when will Thorn realise that steel forks with disc mounts CAN work!) and one lacks rack mounts.

So my question to you wise lot is: does anyone know of an available compromise?

Summary:
– 430-440mm
– disc mounts AND canti mounts (for emergencies…)
– low-rider bosses
– steel
– any colour!

How about get some mounts brazed on the second option?

That’s not actually a bad plan! I suspect getting that done and then the forks painted might come to the price of a set of forks. I’ll certainly think about it if no other options pop up. Cheers!

Is it the case that your low riders ONLY need bosses or you could get a nice rack that works without them?

http://www.oldmanmountain.com/Pages/RackPages/FrontRacks.html

range of OMM stuff available from Carradice
http://www.carradice.co.uk/index.php?page_id=product&under=other&product_id=74

disc mounts AND canti mounts (for emergencies…)

Overkill alert!

FWIW there’s been a few threads on disc/road forks lately, try ken shields’ one for starters.

Surly do quite a range, I believe

Overkill FTW!

Thanks for the tip, but it’s 26″ wheeled goodness with off-road capability that I’m looking for, none of this mincing around with drop-bars on 28mm-deep tyres 😉

And Surly, you’d think, would be the perfect place to look, but they don’t do a fork that matches all those criteria or, indeed, even with just the two main needs of low-rider/disc-brakes. Thanks for the tip though.

you can get new kona p2s on merlin with canti bosses and disc mounts – you’d need to make a call to ensure they have the lowrider mounts as the pic suggests, and also to check the a2c length…

So when you toured with canti’s…did you have a spare set of canti braze ons on your forks…or rim-brake mounts?

Seriously, no need.

The Surly TROLL fork meets your criteria but whether you can get one or not in UK yet I don’t know. Might be worth a call to Sideways Cycles?

I used some of these:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=16925

… on the tandem, as getting a tandem-rated fork with lowrider bosses seemed to be impossible – or rather thorn wanted £££ for some. You’d still need a fork with a mudguard eye on the dropout though, depending on the design of your lowriders.

Eek, dunno how I missed those Troll forks – I think it’s cos I was only looking at the Ison website – but they seem to be exactly what I’m after. Bit long, but that’s no bother: slack is good… I shall get in touch with ID and the wonderful Brixton Cycles. Thanks for the suggestion, psling!

Those mounts are good, hero, but they only really work with the Blackburn lowrider rack which, in turn, don’t work too well with Ortlieb panniers and others that need to clip around a horizontal bar (that big plate of metal gets in the way…) but thanks for the hint – those clips have a multitude of uses.

The idea of having both canti and disc mounts is that if something should happen to the disc caliper/rotor/whatever the tour can be continued by fitting an easier-to-source rim brake. I read of a couple of chaps touring with disc brakes who carried a spare HS33 rim brake with them for just that eventuality – that’s what inspired me.

Any more suggestions always welcome!

and the OMM racks?

Do you carry spare mechs? shifters? cranks, seatpost, stem etc?

eh?

Works just fine with our ortlieb panniers …

Interesting… I’m talking about these racks:

which definitely aren’t very friendly with Ortliebs. Let’s see your rack! 😉

OMM racks are indeed very nice, but I have some lovely Tubus front racks that work very well and just need a decent fork to bolt them properly to.

And yes, I do carry spare shifters, mechs, cranks, stems and legs, not to mention a spare Rohloff hub and, just for giggles, a 11-speed Alfine too. These are all, you see, things that rate just as highly as brakes on the likelihood-of-going-wrong:criticalness ratio scale.

OMM racks are indeed very nice

cheaper than a descent fork too it would seem 😉

Possibly cheaper – depends where you work and who you get trade with… 😉

Mmm. After a quick google I can’t find anything that looks remotely like my lowrider racks. The mounting holes are completely seperate from the tubing that the pannier clips to, hence why those plates don’t get in the way.