These apparently senseless straight front fork blades.

[mickle]

Burrows, whose word I accept without question in matters of cycle engineering, will tell you that the teensy weensy amount of flex which might occur in a steel fork is so very tiny as to be immeasurable. Tyre pressure plays a part, the composition of your handlebar tape plays a part. How much weight you exert on the bars plays a part.

If your aluniman handlebars are providing any amount of tangible flex get rid of them right now and buy some which don't. because as we all know: aluniman + flex = failure.

 

[Kestevan]

Great she may be, but unless I'm much mistaken, Fenella Fielding is not yet "late".

 

[dellzeqq]

Great she may be, but unless I'm much mistaken, Fenella Fielding is not yet "late".

I apologise. And I'm very glad of it.

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

I've ridden both curved steel and straight carbon. There's no comparison. Carbon is by far the most comfortable. When you go over cobbles on steel forks they go shiver and quiver and quake. When you go over cobbles on carbon forks they just say 'thankyou Master' in the style of the late, great Fenella Fielding. There is no resonance. Just the most delightful damping effect.

Hi dellzegg. That is an interesting observation and comment. I have carbon forks with a mild forward flick on my Claud Butler Levante and put the slightly more comfortable feedback down to the flat bars and grips. I have had the bars shortened by 2" (50mm) each side,they are now 480mm wide. The reduction in width has made the steering less twitchy,this is because the leverage is reduced slightly. The forks on my Bianchi are CroMo double butted. The bars are thinly padded (1.5mm) and cork taped. I prefer the feel of a thicker bar than in the days of Herringbone Cotton Tapes. Even in those days I would cover the bars with a layer of Flannelette 1" wide and wound on before the tape that then covered it to provide a thicker and softer bar.
In my younger days I rode Asp rims on my 1937 Hetchins Curly. My bars were a French Style Track Bar,albeit I had it set up as a regular road bike on Campagnolo and all of the good gear of the day.

 

[gavintc]

Don't knock it till you have tried them. Just because you do not like the idea does not make them unsuitable. My 3T forks are straight and superbly comfortable.

 

[gbb]

I always found my Raleigh Clubman, with what looks like a huge rake, very very smooth over the rough stuff (granted i have oversize bars and gel tape)...my cheap Raleigh Chimera with straighter cro-mo forks were terrible over rough tarmac, almost shook you to bits. The Bianchi with full carbon forks is almost as smooth as the Clubman...i say almost, it may be as good.
Does a good deal of rake affect turning ? Thats where i notice it more than anything. The Clubmans terrible for tight turns and jinking in and out of traffic, the bianchi, with much straighter forks is of course brilliant and responsive. i know they're completely different animals geometry wise, but does fork rake affect turning ?

 

[MacB]

I always found my Raleigh Clubman, with what looks like a huge rake, very very smooth over the rough stuff (granted i have oversize bars and gel tape)...my cheap Raleigh Chimera with straighter cro-mo forks were terrible over rough tarmac, almost shook you to bits. The Bianchi with full carbon forks is almost as smooth as the Clubman...i say almost, it may be as good.
Does a good deal of rake affect turning ? Thats where i notice it more than anything. The Clubmans terrible for tight turns and jinking in and out of traffic, the bianchi, with much straighter forks is of course brilliant and responsive. i know they're completely different animals geometry wise, but does fork rake affect turning ?

more trail is slower handling less trail is twitchier(or more responsive) but just looking at the shape of the forks won't tell you how much trail you have, it's a combination of HT angle, fork offset/rake and tyre size, for example:-

increasing the HT angle will decrease trail and vice versa
increasing fork offset/rake will decrease trail and vice versa
decreasing tyre size will decrease trail and vice versa

So if you change from 23 to 32mm tyres you will increase the trail and the steering will be slower.

 

[MacB]

If curvy steel forks flexed in the way some seem to think then the failure rate would have taken them off the market years ago.

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

I always found my Raleigh Clubman, with what looks like a huge rake, very very smooth over the rough stuff (granted i have oversize bars and gel tape)...my cheap Raleigh Chimera with straighter cro-mo forks were terrible over rough tarmac, almost shook you to bits. The Bianchi with full carbon forks is almost as smooth as the Clubman...i say almost, it may be as good.
Does a good deal of rake affect turning ? Thats where i notice it more than anything. The Clubmans terrible for tight turns and jinking in and out of traffic, the bianchi, with much straighter forks is of course brilliant and responsive. i know they're completely different animals geometry wise, but does fork rake affect turning ?

Hi gbb. Yes I believe it does. The effect is that of 'Castor Action' but in reverse. A tea trolley with the wheels directly below the centre pin will wobble and flutter all over the place and be very difficult to control. The same wheels set up as a trailing wheel to the centre pin will be very smooth.
The rake on the fork blades combined with the angle of the head-tube would also aid the practice of 'riding with no hands'. The more practice one got the easier it became. I find that my Bianchi is not as accommodating,indeed it is scary. Could it be me, having lost my nerve at 65yrs old?.

 

[tyred]

If curvy steel forks flexed in the way some seem to think then the failure rate would have taken them off the market years ago.

The beauty of steel for this purpose is because it is more elastic than other materials. Take a look underneath your car and you will find the springs are made from steel, they flex all the time while driving and don't (usually) break. I can see the forks flex on my Peugeot when riding at speed on a poorly surfaced road. The fact that the bike is almost 40 years old and the forks are almost certainly original proves the point.

In fact, if they didn't flex at all, they probably would fracture.

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

If curvy steel forks flexed in the way some seem to think then the failure rate would have taken them off the market years ago.

Hi MacB. I am inclined to agree with you,100%. The same most surely apply to Aluminium usage in forks as well as dropped bars. Albeit,bar & stem failures have been reported I believe. If anyone was a human test bed for bars & stems it has to be The Manx Missile,albeit that spectacular pile-up will be remembered like the Michael Fish weather reporting incident. The bars did not appear to be damaged at all,more than could be said for the collapsed wheel.

 

[GrasB]

The beauty of steel for this purpose is because it is more elastic than other materials. Take a look underneath your car and you will find the springs are made from steel, they flex all the time while driving and don't (usually) break. I can see the forks flex on my Peugeot when riding at speed on a poorly surfaced road. The fact that the bike is almost 40 years old and the forks are almost certainly original proves the point.

On the rear cam footage from my Exige you can see the rear spoiler flexing about 3" in the middle when hitting a bump. It also changes shape the faster you go (lots of interesting aerodynamic things happen because of this shape change), it's very disconcerting at first but once you get used to it there's not a problem. The whole spoiler is designed to be flexible laterally but it's tremendously stiff in it's aerofoil profile.

 

[snailracer]

I ride an old bike with curvy steel forks. I can't tell if the fork bends at the curve, if it does it accounts for much less wheel movement than that due to the variation of head tube angle as the wheel rides over bumps.