Forks - damped or not

[wingdiver]

Hi
My Tricross came as standard with a set of carbon forks with inserts to provide 'damping'. The previous owner has replaces these with a lighter undamped set.
Will the inserts make a lot of difference? In other words, is it worth the hassle of swapping back to the original forks (which I have)?

 

[GizmoGremlin]

I've had friends use the specialised damping thingies and they seem pretty happy with them - but that's on 22mm skinny tyres riding 180km in the alps. If you've got fatter rubber on the tricross I'm not sure how much difference you'd notice. Most carbon forks are quite comfortable anyhow - compared to say aluminimum - and I've not ridden steel rigid forks for a long time now. Since I'm interested in buying your kinesis forks, I'm happy for you to have changed them anyway (or did you want to sell the specialized forks instead?)

Some people seem to have complained about the tricross forks on larger frames being prone to judder under braking - that seems quite common though on cyclocross bikes with carbon forks, and is due to the steerer flexing under braking that kinda puts the brakes on more while it flexes (this assumes you have cantilever brakes).

Specialised seem to have a part to prevent the judder (http://cdn.specialized.com/OA_MEDIA/pdf/manuals/IG0226_Tricross_Guide.pdf) which works by suspending the brake cable outer lower down so it isn't affected by the steerer flexing. Also - later tricross seem to have switched to V brakes (mini-V?) which would be unaffected. Seems a common cyclocross choice anyway.

If you don't get the judder, it's not a problem.

If you do and it bothers you - you can adjust the straddle wire height to reduce the effect (I think making it higher helps?), or get the widget from specialised, or switch to V brakes, which are about 12 quid upwards.

 

[2Loose]

I think the Zertz inserts on carbon forks will be a bit of a gimmick.

I can see the point on Ali forks, as they really do hum with vibration on rougher surfaces, but carbon forks always seem pretty good at damping the buzz. A good steel fork is also just as smooth in my opinion. Fatter tyres will definitely improve that side of things, no matter what fork you have.

Perhaps one of the tricross owning peeps have changed their forks from standard and can give a definite opinion?

 

[RedBike]

All the insert were was a rubber band around each leg. Although I've had a tri-cross and used these forks on a different cyclox bike I still couldn't tell you if the inserts worked or not. They never seemed any better than a good 'normal' set of carbon forks.

The forks were very heavy and I had major judder problems on both the bikes I used them on. So if someones changed them over to another good set of forks then I certainly wouldn't be in a rush to switch back!

 

[RedBike]

All the insert were was a rubber band around each leg. Although I've had a tri-cross and used these forks on a different cyclox bike I still couldn't tell you if the inserts worked or not. They never seemed any better than a good 'normal' set of carbon forks.

The forks were very heavy and I had major judder problems on both the bikes I used them on. So if someones changed them over to another good set of forks then I certainly wouldn't be in a rush to switch back!

 

[Rollon]

All the insert were was a rubber band around each leg. Although I've had a tri-cross and used these forks on a different cyclox bike I still couldn't tell you if the inserts worked or not. They never seemed any better than a good 'normal' set of carbon forks.

The forks were very heavy and I had major judder problems on both the bikes I used them on. So if someones changed them over to another good set of forks then I certainly wouldn't be in a rush to switch back!

Ive got a Tricross and never experienced brake judder. Mine has V brakes. I called into our local shop yesterday and noticed that the latest Tricross bikes have gone back to Cantilevers.
Dave.

 

[palinurus]

Mine don't judder either, they look ugly though!

Not that I care overmuch, commute bike.