Ti forks...what is the true demand?

[greenstiles]

I 've had a couple a pairs of Global.......2 diff designs. What i think would be great for most people on this site is a Pace style fork with bolt in legs of 2 thickness of Ti ie for short fork / longer fork and bolt in steerer to crown in 1" and 1 1/8

 

[tintin40]

I had two pairs of pace forks.Gave a very hard ride.

 

[Merlin Boy]

I like to see a rigid fork like the McMahon titanium (see pics),
but i would be nice if there were titanium legs for the Pace RC30 forks.

I like the rigid forks with a crown better than the all welded types.

The price is not that inportant to me. Build quality + looks is the key for me.

 

[magicmistertea]

nice ti

i also would be more interested in legs that fit my rc 30 crown, those forks pictured above are well nice!!!
so how much for a set of ti legs to fit a pace crown then rody?

 

[rody]

Pace crowns...

hmmm, this thread has taken a different path than expected, specifically the use of the pace crown.

I'll have to do some research into Pace's crown specs.

I've built dedicated legs for other crowns, and typically, the big issue is finding tubing that fits the ID of the crown as well as a wall thickness/butt profile that is stong enough. Rarely are the diameters standard, requiring some type of compensation. With steel, it is possible to braze on an exterior sleeve and then spin the OD of the fork leg down to the appropriate size in the lathe.

With Ti, this is much more difficult, both in machining the sleeve, and welding it in place with proper purge penetration.

What you think is just as easy as plugging some legs into a crown quickly grows in time and cost.

The big issue for me is that there is no customizing the fork fit. The axel to crown length, rake, and resultant trail are predetermined and fixed by the crown manufacture's specs. Not good for marketability making a very limited product.

Lot's to think about. Check back on the thread, I've got the costs added up and will update in a few days what a project like this would look like money wise.

Keep the good feedback and thoughts coming

cheers,

rody

 

[Dhphat]

i would be all over a ti FTW like Accutraxish fork.

 

[pinguwin]

One issue with a Pace crown is, why would a non-English person care or be impressed with a .5 Groovy/.5 Pace fork? WTF is a Pace? Now I'm just being provocative with that, but lots of people would be unmoved by it. Then their is the availability issue and being subject to the whims of another company. It seems like you're staking your future on someone else as well as your name. I like the clamped forks, have four of them myself, but think I would prefer an all welded one given the circumstances.

'Guin

 

[tintin40]

I would prefer an all welded one given the circumstances.

Me too. Having had pace forks. Some thing like 1993 Klein forks would be great

 

[yo-eddy]

Re: Pace crowns...

hmmm, this thread has taken a different path than expected, specifically the use of the pace crown.

I'll have to do some research into Pace's crown specs.

I've built dedicated legs for other crowns, and typically, the big issue is finding tubing that fits the ID of the crown as well as a wall thickness/butt profile that is stong enough. Rarely are the diameters standard, requiring some type of compensation. With steel, it is possible to braze on an exterior sleeve and then spin the OD of the fork leg down to the appropriate size in the lathe.

With Ti, this is much more difficult, both in machining the sleeve, and welding it in place with proper purge penetration.

What you think is just as easy as plugging some legs into a crown quickly grows in time and cost.

The big issue for me is that there is no customizing the fork fit. The axel to crown length, rake, and resultant trail are predetermined and fixed by the crown manufacture's specs. Not good for marketability making a very limited product.

Lot's to think about. Check back on the thread, I've got the costs added up and will update in a few days what a project like this would look like money wise.

Keep the good feedback and thoughts coming

cheers,

rody

agree with you Rody, just figure out a nice design yourself and make it a real GROOVY fork
I'm not that much into Ti (too much flex) but your designs impressed me alot till sofar.
Lots off confidence that you'll show up with something of true quality and with the "groovy"looks.

 

[messiah]

The rest of the industry moved away from bolted crowns many moons ago, I realise this is RetroBIKE (it does what it says on the tin), but faffing around with an old design of bolted crown is a bit daft; if all those bolted crowns were such a good idea why are there none left?

I prefer the sound of Rody coming up with a Groovy design - I'm sure if you build them people will buy them. The Black Sheep ones are about $475, but they look a little spindly to my uneducated eye... I like the sound of an Accutrax type (but I'd rather the legs didn't bend backwards like they did BITD