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Aimed ideally at anyone who's ridden at least two significantly different steel road forks...
Basically, current frameset (Surly Pacer) has a traditional (curved, tapered, low-profile) steel fork. It suffers significant shimmy at speed (as have all of my steel road bikes with similar forks) and has a bit of a mind of its own when pushed hard into corners. (I'm 14st on 62-63cm frames, BTW, so the frame may be flexing as well - of course, my aluminium bike with carbon fork is rock solid.)
I'm wondering whether a straight-legged fork of some description would be any stiffer. The obvious choice looks like the [url= http://salsacycles.com/components/casseroll_fork/ ]Salsa Casseroll fork[/url] (only slight downside being that it's 1/2" longer than my current fork, but I doubt that's the end of the world).
The questions, then, are:
1. to those who've ridden different types of steel fork, will a tapered straight leg like the Salsa corner more positively and/or reduce shimmy?
2. any other thoughts for a stiff steel road fork with caliper mount and mudguard eyelets?
Is it realy the forks at fault???
I had a friend with this sort of issue years ago on a cannondale and it turned out he had his seat as far back as possable because his stem was too short in an attempt to correct his position
longer stem and seat moved forward issue sorted by having more weight on his front wheel
hope this helps SD
The Pacer's a really nice bike, but it's on the light and skinny / a tad whippy side of things. On a big frame, at 14st, I think a stiffer fork will help although some of the cornering vagueness will be front-end of the frame twisting and a stiffer fork will highlight that. A 1/2" longer fork will feel weird too, I notice 10mm or so on a road fork far more than on an MTB, rigid or sus.
Embrace the springy steel bike for what it is, or go for something with bigger diameter tubes?
"[i]Is it realy the forks at fault???[/i]"
Having had both steel and aluminium/carbon bikes with different geometries and riding positions, and currently having one of each with near-enough identical geometry and position, it's definitely a stiffness issue and definitely not a geometry issue.
"[i]Embrace the springy steel bike for what it is, or go for something with bigger diameter tubes?[/i]"
Nearly did - but being on the tall side, the main problem I have is that I could only find two off-the-peg framesets with acceptable geometry and mudguard compatibility. One day I'll have a custom frame which will solve all known problems, of course 😉
"[i]A 1/2" longer fork will feel weird too, I notice 10mm or so on a road fork far more than on an MTB, rigid or sus.[/i]"
Yeah, I'd expect it to be more noticeable than on an MTB, but with its current fork the Pacer is 0.5deg steeper than my CAAD9 at both ends, so 12mm on the fork should actually make them near enough identical.
Sounds like the new fork might work ok then - I'm suprised it's that steep actually.
I have a Kona Jake 62cm frame and Kona Project 2 straight leg steel fork for sale. £65 for the lot posted. You can then play around with frames and forks and see for yourself 🙂
It is a bit too big for me, hence selling. I now have a PX Kaffenback, with tapered PX steel fork.
The Kona frame and fork are definitely both stiffer than the PX.