@DanW

Keep Pedalling in Manchester are Bombtrack stockists.

https://keeppedalling.co.uk/bikes/bombtrack/

Has anybody broken a mountain bike specific carbon fork? I hear lots of people taking sharp intakes of breath, but is that because older generations of carbon road forks were poor?

I remember about 10 years ago someone broke a Niner fork. Had one myself at the time. Gave me no cause for concern because it felt reassuringly much less flimsy than a steel one, and also rode quite smoothly.

Keep Pedalling in Manchester are Bombtrack stockists.

The LBS are a Bombtrack dealer too and they said they can’t get hold of anything from them at the moment.

I’m looking in to Kinesis/ Niner/ ENVE availability with them and if there is no joy will go eXotic

Has anybody broken a mountain bike specific carbon fork? I hear lots of people taking sharp intakes of breath, but is that because older generations of carbon road forks were poor?

If you look hard enough you can find failures of most things on the web and there will always be some things that fail. What happened to cause the failure is always debatable of course and you would hope to spot a crack or something before it gets catastrophic. It is mostly in the mind I think- an inherent distrust of 600g of a very important component! All that said, I am jaded by a local legend having a really nasty crash and a heck of a lot of time of the bike with a MTB fork failure at speed.

I tend to agree with this write up…
https://www.yellowjersey.co.uk/the-draft/carbon-bicycle-weak/

I’ve got not doubts as to CF as a material and its properties. It is just a bit less resistant to constant knocks and anyone working with CF parts would acknowledge that. Lots of money get invested in impact resistance in applications far more critical that a pesky hobby 🙂 As another example, not many (any?) CF bars snap out of the blue with normal use but (anecdotally) there do seem to be many more crash related total failures. I’ve had 2 or 3, one really annoying one was a crack several cm long under the grips from clipping a tree. Not many people may have checked with such an innocuous feeling knock to the end of the bar but I whipped the grip off to be extra cautious and I’m glad I did. More useless internet anecdotal nonsense 🙂

… but this is getting OT 😀

I bought the Kinesis Max light.
It’s nice and has a bit of flex for a carbon rigid fork.
Routed the brake cable with an old M-part guide externally and blanked off the exposed holes.
Looks neat and works well.
I swap forks around a lot so couldn’t stick to full internal!
I have seen various similar forks on eBay which could be the same.
I put my trust with the Kinesis as I would hope it would not snap with Kinesis on it!
I think Shand use the same fork on their mtbs.
Thanks,
Max.

Does the fork have to be 490mm? 480 or 475 would replace a 100mm 29er fork well enough unless you wanted the front a bit higher up and laid back.

I tend to agree with this write up…
https://www.yellowjersey.co.uk/the-draft/carbon-bicycle-weak/

I wouldn’t.. I’d agree that most broken carbon stuff probably has had prior damage but not always. There’s a lot that gets put down to prior damage but when the resulting break is a mass of splinters, who knows. Voids causing delaminations after some use are another cause. The article hints at carbon not having the fatigue issues that metal has yet it does fatigue in a way, just through different causes, and it mentions how good carbon is in aerospace – majority of bike industry carbon is so far from aerospace processes though.
Mode of failure and lack of warning sign visibility is what causes legitimate concerns about carbon.

100mm fork with a 505mm AC height running 15-20% sag, so yes 470-490 would be fine.

510mm like the Trek 1120 or 500mm like the Whisky Boost is pushing things because although you can drop the stem down to compensate, the Procaliber has quite a slack STA and I already struggle to get the saddle forwards enough.

Similarly 470mm would be ok with some extra spacers under the stem and probably isn’t that far off the actual ride height but 460mm like the Kona is a step to far for a steeper HTA like the Procaliber.

480-490mm is what I reckon would give me a bit more descending fun without messing things up too much. 490mm is what I have had in the past so feel it works but am flexible 470-490mm

Travers. Work of art. Super strong, super light.
Sonder. Heavy but cheap in aly.

I asked before but didn’t get a reply…

@nowad how is the axle to live with. It looks very similar to a DT Swiss RWS and that was a finicky nightmare. Or at least more of a faff than needed

Absolutely no issue at all. Not once has it ever broken lose or needed nipping up. I share the fork in two bikes also so its literally used permanently.
I have the XC prong with triple mounts as pack with it but use it more for fast trail use as so light.
Big investment which is reduced over 2 bikes but possibly the best one item I have ever purchased over the years.
The ride quality also is plush.
Also the guy is a joy to deal with it.

I have a Travers Prong

Have not even given the axle a second thought tbh, I just sort of put the wheel on and ride away. Can’t quite see what the issue could be tbh?

I prefer the hand winding type axle rather than the Allan key type. Slots in 1st time every time.

Oh, I also had a very similar if not identical fork to ScotRoutes. The only issue I had with that was it required a bit of PTFE tape to stop coming loose. Aside from that it was a good fork.

I just wanted something shinier, and with cage mounts, and a warranty.

How about Soma?

https://southerndistributors.co.uk/product/mtb-fork-29er-for-sale/

Little update if anyone else is after a similar rigid fork.

Niner seems PITA to get hold of in the UK
ENVE available May all being well
Kinesis fork should also be available in May
Whisky available to order but not delivery dates given
Bombtrack availability a mystery to the LBS and they don’t have any hope of anything coming soon
Trek 1120 available for delivery now if a 510mm AC height works for you
Haven’t checked the Orbea Spirit availability
Travers may or may not have something different coming
eXotic… two available so still plenty of time to fanny around with all of this 😀

I weighed the tange prestige forks on my charge filter, which was a sort of cx/tourer type of thing.
905 grams.
I doubt that steel forks for an mtb are 680grams, maybe for a pre cen road bike, butnot an mtb.
I haven’t weighed those though, so I could be wrong.
The surly forks on my karate monkey are sort of twangy, in a good way.
Personally, I wouldn’t get too hung up on which ones, just buy from a reputable source, and they’ll probably be fine.

I went for the Whisky non Boost forks in the end.

Pricey, but incredible I have to say!

Mine are 615g cut which was a pleasant surprise after reports they were closer to 800g. I replaced the DT Swiss axle that I had so many hang ups about, with a Whisky bolt thru that was very hard to find and I had to source from the States (38g).

The supplied expander is also a really nice design (quite unique I would say) and doesn’t budge around like so many light expanders can do.

I completely disagree with people who feel all rigid forks are the same. These are head and shoulders above the steel, Exotic and Kinesis forks I had previously in terms of comfort, damping and handling. Same bike, same tyres, same pressures… they are genuinely hard to tell apart from my SIDS (set up with 15% sag) on all but the very roughest, fastest descents (of which there are not too many and are short lived around me). That sounds like a bold claim, but for for the type of riding I have locally then are incredible an no where near as jarring or harsh as other rigid forks I have had. I can see what all the hype is about now 🙂

Just putting that out there in case anyone else was fannying around with over thinking rigid forks like I did 😀

👍👍

Hiya @DanW,

Yep nice fork – here is mine (boost) with custom paint- few experiments..:

That looks awesome!

Don’t start me on fannying around with custom paint jobs now 😀

@rootes1 those matched forks make the bike look brilliant!