Looking for a low trail fork, and haven’t found much other than the Soma touring one.
It’s pretty close to what I’m after, but I’m wondering if there are any others out there. I gather with the various BQ/Rando/#racklyfe interest lately there might be more options than before.
The back story: I crashed my Singular Kite pretty hard last year in a MTB race. (Seemed fun at the time.) It’s still straight and perfectly rideable, but has gained some toe overlap thanks to a slight curve in the top tube and downtube. The fork may have been slightly de-raked too. The headtube is definitely steeper now.
I want to turn it into my new commuter, and I’ve got a nice chunky Minoura Gamoh King to go on the front. Possibly with Jones swept bars. 38c tyres, cantis, possibly even mudguards etc. This is the bike now: http://www.fixed.org.au/forums/showthread.php?t=28318
To fix the overlap, and suit a front load, Spirito suggested a low trail fork, which makes a lot of sense to me. It’s will be a bit of an experiment, but I’m keen to test it out at least. Any other advice/suggestions would be great.
I have that fork (65mm rake). I replaced an enve CX fork (47mm rake) which replaced the original fork (also ~47mm?). I ran the numbers with it on the frame, and the difference in A-C and rake meant that the resulting geo was what I was chasing (to use a lowrider rack on my CX bike for an international trip).
At the time it was the only one the importer had in the country. They may have brought more in since. Another option is to take a long A-C fork like the crosscheck and rerake it to more offset (and decrease the a-c at the same time so your HT angle doesn’t slacken out).
If the frame is ok (just a little bent), measure the HT angle and see how much it’s changed. A little steeper isn’t the end of the world for what you’re aiming for. If it doesn’t work out, you can always put the fork on another frame and cut up the singular and make a stool and a noisemaker.
I realise it’s not the most sensible idea, but I feel like an experiment. I’ve got other bikes to ride while I mess around with this one.
The bend is so slight that I’m not concerned about anything breaking. It’s barely perceptible until you put a straight edge against it. No sign of any cracks.
And 39mm of trail would be ok, right? Traditional randonneur territory?
I haven’t measured the new HT angle (haven’t found an accurate way to do this) but those are basically the numbers I’m looking at. The frame was originally 72° and 45mm rake, and I think it’s gained about 1°. At most it would have gained 2°, i.e. a 74° HT, meaning around 33mm of trail with the Soma fork. That sounds ok in theory. I’ve seen modern rando bikes with trail as low as 29mm, and presumably they’re still rideable unloaded.