Am I the only one massively paranoid about carbon forks?

I have them on 4 road bikes and hate them. Every time I crash them/ drop them/accidently drop a tool on them I literally can’t shed the thought they’ll snap in 2 next time I ride. Even if the damage is minute. Anything behind the front end I’m good with, but the forks fill me with fear

So you can imagine my horror when i Just unpacked my bike today after a holiday to find that somehow the forks are all scuffed at bottom of leg and chipped on the drop out. It looks superficial but clearly something has happened in transit. I absolutely know with 99% certainty they’ll be fine, but I also know I’ll never enjoy another mile on them without wondering…so they’ll need replaced

Grrrr…

Yeah I hear you.

I’ve just procured my first bike with carbon forks. Happy as Larry I was. Blissful – until you put this in my head. You utter bastard! 😉

I have had/ have several sets of carbon forks and I am quite paranoid about them failing.

I only ever think about such things whilst careering 90kph down an alpine descent. That and front tyre blowouts.

Blissful

Apologies! In fairness I’ve ridden thousands and thousands of miles on carbon forks and never had an issue. Once I rode home after a crash, 20 miles with the rear stay pretty much hanging together by a thread of carbon and it never failed

It’s just something about forks…even a scratch and the mind wanders..

I fear Carbon handlebars.

My fork on the gravel bike I mostly don’t think about, until I can feel it flexing underneath my loaded bike riding something that I’d rather take my mountain bike down.

Just you

I won’t tell you about my dads carbon forks that split on one leg whilst riding along. Luckily he heard a weird noise and found it before any more damage was done

My first experience of carbon forks was with a Pace RC31 – the C-type, lightweight variant. They were second hand. You could see them visibly flexing under braking. After a few rides, I never gave them a second thought.

I once reversed into a bike once (don’t ask), the bike was pretty much destroyed. Anyway, there was a big chunk out of the Answer carbon bars. I have a vivid memory of wacking the bars on a paving slab a few days to see how strong they were – even with the ‘chunk’ out of them I couldn’t snap them!

In my incredibly unscientific opinion…Fear not!

All I can usefully add, it that YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

(When and why however, I can’t tell you as I’m no clairvoyant).

Would this also be an inappropriate time to introduce a couple of characteristics of aluminium (eg as used for most bars and syems)…

– no endurance limit- ie it always WILL fail under fatigue loading – the question is only ‘when’, not ‘if’.

– age hardening- aluminium gets harder (= more brittle and faster to fail suddenly once there is any cracking present) over time.

You’re welcome.

Sleep tight.

I broke my carbon bars 3 weeks ago.  I hit a car at 40kph.  Whilst audibly broken, they did get me home. I’m fairly certain an alloy bar would’ve just snapped.   After careful(ish) inspection, the carbon wheel, fork and stem were all fine.

Contrary to the above, I’ve snapped two sets of carbon bars (one road, one gravel) and I think alu bars would have shrugged off both impacts. I am a sucker though so I’m still riding carbon.

I was initially kind of dubious about running carbon forks on a rigid, but after a wee run at Drumlanrig i completely forgot about the fear given to concentrating on the trail*.

Admittedly Im snail slow, but still going over roots and other bumpy bits.

* If you die it’s not my fault.

I’ve got an old set of Pac RC31s on my commuter. Think I aquired them around 2008, I’m the third owner.

They get used everyday, I just don’t knock them around too much! They get bounced off the odd kerb now again that’s about it.

There was a horrible story recently about a guy who ended up paralysed from the waist down ’cause his carbon forks failed 🙁

I worry about the steerer rather than the fork legs tbh, in particular the so-called ‘ring of death’ thing where riding the bike with a loose headset means the steerer can develop a wear ring under the upper race area. I suspect the risks are over-stated in the sense that if it were as bad an issue as some podcasters would have you believe, there would be a lot more steerer failures than there actually seem to be – has anyone here snapped a carbon steerer – but given the likely catastrophic consequences of a steerer breaking, it still concerns me.

In practical terms, it means that while I ride several carbon forks, I’m very careful about keeping the headset properly adjusted. But it still worries me.

For perspective other types of forks can also fail. I would not consider titanium and steel and aluminium have only got to have one dodgy weld.

life comes with Risk, more likely to get taken out by a car, than a carbon bar / fork / pedal / seatpost snap.

go for a well respected brand and avoid the fakes.

I can’t say I worry tbh.

My wheels are carbon, bars carbon – Road, Gravel and MTB. Forks carbon on Road and Gravel.

My concerns are falling off or getting hit by someone else or a front tyre blow out on a long road descent.

I only buy ‘named’ Carbon products as I personally feel more confident.

I’ve been using them for 30 years and had exactly one failure.

An idiot crushed the dropouts together without a wheel in there, then one of the blades fell off when i took the wheel out to put it in the back of the car. That was a 5 year old fork that had done tens of thousands of km and been crashed several times.

Nothing else even creaks, loads of chips and scrapes on most of them. Only unmarked one i have is the one on my newest bike.

Even have one in a 1″ steerer size that’s absolutely fine!

I stopped worrying after I shortened carbon steerer tube for the first time – it took a good while to get it cut on a fresh blade.

I always find it strange how a new carbon bike will come out and it’ll get questioned no end about lay up, flex etc …. blah blah but take my Sonder camino that was a £350 frame at the time with a carbon fork, nobody bats an eyelid at the quality.

TBH though I’m more likely to think “I hope my quick release is tight” when flying down a hill

I suspect the risks are over-stated in the sense that if it were as bad an issue as some podcasters would have you believe

Escape collective listener by any chance?

Nothing to worry about, I mean, what’s the chances of both sides breaking at the same time?

I own a lambert death fork*

Carbon is the soft option.

*A genuine thing. I don’t ride it because it genuinely is a deathrap but my goodness its pretty.

Luckily he heard a weird noise..

I’m so confident in my Tripster’s fork (9 years old and counting) that I nearly always have music in my ears when riding. 🙂

I still have the carbon fork from my Rocky Mountain Solo (when that model was a road bike) – was hit by a van and the frame has cracks, wheels were trashed, but the fork is still fine. Weighs about as much as a sheet of A3 paper! (Won’t be fitting to a bike though, wrong shade of blue )

Doesn’t worry me. I had a fixed gear commuter, alloy from and carbon forks (alloy steerer). Crashed a fair amount, including into cars, and they were absolutely fine.

Current CX bike is carbon fork and steerer, but it overbuilt and happens to be Colnago – the top cap uses a bung expander so not at all worried. Recently did bike packing with it, although nothing attached to the forks as this is a race bike, so even the rear rack was bodged.

Like with everything, keep an eye on them. Same goes for any material.

My mate crashed his steel CX bike into a tree with carbon forks – the frame folded, the forks were fine.

My mate crashed his steel CX bike into a tree with carbon forks – the frame folded, the forks were fine.

The forks (and steerer) survived a crash much better than my Condor Fratello.

Might be worth checking for recall notices on that brand, as it does sometimes happen.

I have never had a problem but if you are worried get a nice steel fork with chrome polished legs from someone who knows how to weld.

Meh, have you ever really thought about the materials/construction of a pair of modern suspension forks:

A cast aluminium lower leg that is inherently more brittle than a drawn or forged equivalent.
Thin-walled aluminium stanchions that you then slide a pair of bushes up and down praying fine grit doesn’t get past the wiper seals to potentially wear that thin tube wall away?
Cryofit steerer and stanchions into the crown? Literally relying on an interference fit and temperature differential on assembly to clamp some key components together? described that way it sounds terrifying given the application…
Aluminium is a pretty ductile material, once it yields it will fold fast, and we still rely an awful lot on it in relatively thin sections to keep the front wheel of most MTBs connected and in place…
And then you go battering across roots, rocks and off drops…

If you think too hard about any of this you’d probably never ride any sort of bike, or we’d all be on robustly over-designed steel frames and forks.

Composites aren’t actually that bad in the grand scheme of things, surface dinks and chips aren’t really much of a problem so long as the bulk of the laminate remains intact, the major issue is that a critical bit of damage can look identical to a non-critical bit of surface damage, or indeed not show on the surface at all, plus epoxies age with UV, moisture and thermal cycling. 😉

At the same time the strength to weight comparison for Carbon composites is very much in their favour, and it actually takes quite a whack to compromise them, it’s just a newer and therefore less well understood technology for bikes. ultimately is the extra piece of mind worth 1kg weight penalty on your road or Gravel bike?

It’s the carbon steerer that frightens me. Did I over tighten the plug?

Escape collective listener by any chance?

Yep, that’s the one. As per my earlier post, I’m more aware than afraid and, in honesty, I’d hope that half-decent carbon forks would have steerers that are robust enough to cope.

There is, of course, the point, that there’s variation between different brands and frames. Anyone who’s watched various Team Sky Pinarello frames break in race crashes would maybe be asking whether that brand’s frame is a good choice for general road riding, but who knows.

They’ll be fine, people even make submarines out of carbon!

I hate Al forks… can just imagine the constant flexing cracking them at the base of the head tube… carbon I’m ok with.

A cast aluminium lower leg that is inherently more brittle than a drawn or forged equivalent.

Most are magnesium IIRC, which is even worse.

I hate Al forks… can just imagine the constant flexing cracking them at the base of the head tube… carbon I’m ok with.

I had a vitus 787 futural, aluminium everything and glued together, the whole thing was terrifying, couldn’t tell you what was the worst feature.

I suspect that it’s all superstition – i reckon maufacturers build them to not break, cos otherwise they’d get sued to heck and back.

An LBS told me that carbon forks are overbuilt that they’re unlikely to fail….peace of mind

My mate crashed his steel CX bike into a tree with carbon forks – the frame folded, the forks were fine.
The forks (and steerer) survived a crash much better than my Condor Fratello.

I was riding my 20 year old Spesh Allez w Columbus tubes and the original carbon fork when i got taken out pretty much head-on by a Next Tuesday in a mini coming the other way (in 2022). Closing speed 40 at least, frame bent, wheels bent, my knee and thumbs bent. Didn’t ride for 6 months. The fork has a couple of places where the top layer is delaminating, but is still in one piece.

I don’t fret about forks, I fret about Next Tuesdays in cars. Thinking about putting the bent frame and forks on the pain cave wall.

It’s the carbon steerer that frightens me. Did I over tighten the plug?

no – cos you bought that torque wrench didn’t you………didn’t you?

Niner carbon fork and hammer demonstration from 10 years ago: