aside from whatever real or imagined benefits there are to riders, the benefits of carbon and threadless to manufacturers are real and as concrete as concrete. Threadless forks eliminate a HUGE ongoing hassle and storage problem of stocking replacements for different sized frames. The fact that it helps manufacturers is a GOOD thing, but *that* is why they were so wholly instantly adopted. Going to carbon fiber piggybacked on that by offering a perceived cool-factor fork that flaunted its material and saved bike manufacturers from having to stock color-matches for their bikes every year. A third benefit to manufacturers is that forks are a PITA to make. There isn't a frame builder in the world who likes making forks (I have not surveyed them all, I've just never heard of one, and the fact that so many offer carbon forks as standard supports this "theory.") Forks are difficult and intolerant of even slight goofs. If a frame is slightly out of alignment, you'll never know by casual observation (need measuring tools) and it probably won't matter in the ride. (Our frames are aligned during the process of building and checked at the end, and I've watched them do it.) It depends where it's out of alignment, but if you think most of the bikes in the world are perfectly aligned, o my. But when a fork is out of alignment, it's way more visually obvious, because the tire gap is different. Any one of the points I'm trying to make--I'm making them quickly and without any nuance or noting other important details in the discussion--but they're honestly fundamentally true. Our Taiwan frame builders farm out the forks. Artisinal custom builders for the most part prefer to (I know there are exceptions). It's easy-er for me here at RIvendell with our relatively low volume to stock crash replacement forks forks, but even when we order two extra per size per color, as models and colors change, it doesn't take too many years to accumulate 200 forks. At Bstone, we had --- thousands? At least a thousand. We tossed them when we closed. I think one of the guys gathered up some MB forks and maybe a few RBs, but basically, they were vamooshed. There's no market for a Regulus brown fork for a 23-inch frame, or any of the others.
I'm not picking on masmojo. He (or she?) is right--that stuff can work fine. It's when it doesn't that things get scary, and when you consider that carbon doesn't age well, there's still a good reason to avoid it. On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 9:26 AM, masmojo <masm...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > I certainly don't endorse change for the sake of change, but if something > works, it's better or solves a problem; I'll embrace it eventually, maybe > begrudgingly, but I will & my enthusiasm & conviction will grow from there. > I guess about the time I turned 50, I reaffirmed my conviction to keep my > mind open & question any preferences or prejudices I might have. > Didn't like Carbon fiber, but as these things go, most road bikes these > days have Carbon Fiber forks; so it was kind of forced on me. (I also got > carbon fiber cranks & handlebars in the deal🙄) Well, guess what? They work > fine, better than fine really. Will, I make a point of buying CF in the > future? Hmmmmmm, I doubt it, but my resistance has been weakened. > Just sayin, there's a reason for everything. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/ > topic/rbw-owners-bunch/bZskFzjF_I4/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
