Firstly I guess that I’d better lay out my credentials; I have none! I can’t manual, wheelie, bunny hop or do anything remotely fast and clever on my bike. I pootle about on country roads and bridleways (quite a bit) and am probably also very over biked on a Singular Swift which breaks the 28lb barrier (although in fairness it’s about the same as an off the peg Vagabond); I ride alone and don’t chase people, so I’m fine (and I keep telling myself that I’d like to do some more off-road).
Geometry’s a bit of a mystery and I’ve tended to buy large frames and tweak the bars, stem and seatpost until it feels about right – it’s kind of worked.
I’ve been riding a MRP Rock Solid carbon/aluminium fork (465mm a-c) and have just swapped them out to try a set of steel Singular Swift forks (470mm a-c).
My first ride out (a regular loop) felt a bit of a slog and sluggish. To be fair there are loads of variables, it was windy, I might not of been on form, I’m not in the best place mentally and I was having issues with my brakes which drew my attention; the Swift forks will add 200-300g of weight over the Rock Solids but whether that would be noticable I don’t know (my rucksack contains a D-lock, inner tube, assorted tools, mobile phone, bottle of drink and assorted bobbins and probably weight more on its own than some people’s bikes so it’s not a massive increase overall).
I decided that I need to drop the bars slightly but something that might be worthy of note is the rake. The Rock Solid has a rake of 44mm whilst the Swifts are 55mm giving them 11mm more rack; I’ve not idea if this is significant but wondered whether it might be (folk tend to talk about a few mm here and a degree of two there as being important).
As a luddite, would I notice 11mm extra rake and, if so, in what way? If I don’t get on with the Swift forks I can always swap back, but they do look lovely and deserve a good deal more of a try out before I make a decision.