Ti forks...what is the true demand?

[greenstiles]

Don't know about the other people, but i refered to a pace style fork. Or similar in design. Just goes to show though how much we think something is simple and yet costs more and is more hassle. I still think it would be nice to have that style of fork they look so good and suit most set ups. You could always have quality steel leg options as well, perhaps there would be better profit on these to compensate for the hassle of the Ti ones ordered.

 

[magicmistertea]

bolted crown

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

yea legs to fit the pace crown is popular because this is retrobike and loads of us are running pace forks, there are no bolted crowns about now because the world is a throw away kind of place, it used to be about the engineering now its mass produced and throw away.
The forks on my 2004 stumpjumper are worth about £25 they are manitou black magnum elites (they are shit and expensive to service) ! the forks on my klein are 1" rc 35 ab they are still worth £75 to £110ish. they are fully interchangable with 1 1/8" headsets by simply changing the crown.
my point is the re-sale value (the true value) of any forks would be much higher if they are compatible with existing products (pace crowns) and able to adapt to diffrent steerer lengths and headtube diameters. you could still make your own crown and steerers as an upgrade, just make them so they are compatible with each other.
cheers

 

[sunchaser]

For a ti PII style fork I'd pay £200 - £220 ish. Now the crunch, I've got a '94 price list from Second Level Sport: ti PII £799 !! :shock:

Looking forward to what Rody can come up with

 

[tintin40]

A P2 ti type would be great

 

[Crell]

I'd like something Accutrax style...even fatter if possible.

 

[tangent]

Retrofittable Ti blades 4 RC30s

Awesome idea, would love some that looked like IF no travel forks or whatever shape suited the ride best.

The idea of some properly engineered blades that could plug into the RC30 crown (with disc tab too!) would be awesome. I've been running various PACE forks since the early 90s and love the versitility of the bolt together crown.

Given the likely high cost of ti forks, this would be a great option as you can switch steerer size etc.

A question for the PACE experts aorund, I think this was actually done around '92-93 when Merlin made thier full-suss e-stay bike, although the tubes might have been MMC rather than ti?...

 

[24pouces]

Actually 24pounces, the unicrown design for Ti is structurally more sound from an engineering standpoint utilizing round blades than the segmented style.

The issue with the 90's Ti and many of the Chi-Ti products is that they are utilizing a wall thickness that is not sufficient for the forces placed on the piece by a large range of rider weights and impact variations.

cheers,

rody

My friend had an accident with a titanium kona Project 2. It was not a Chi-ti fork. On other hand, a lot of these first titanium fork had the reputation for twisting. Perhaps, it was the begining, and today technology is better…

 

[rody]

Thanks everybody for their input.

Gotta track down a new source for my 1.125 steerer material, the last piece for all the sizes, and then I'll start mocking up a little something to play with.

cheers,

rody

 

[Panza]

A P2 ti type would be great

+10

At $400

 

[sunchaser]

I've been wondering what happened to this thread...

Rody, you any further on with this project?