Sub 300 gram fork

personally im not a fan of mixed materials on a frame, this idea has been around for a long time but never seemed to make it into mainstream products neither into the pro ranks, (im not referring to dropouts, or derailleur hangers, or other marginal, but equally important, parts of the frame)

vspa said:

personally im not a fan of mixed materials on a frame, this idea has been around for a long time but never seemed to make it into mainstream products neither into the pro ranks, (im not referring to dropouts, or derailleur hangers, or other marginal, but equally important, parts of the frame)

I'm pretty sure the CAAD frames that the Saeco team raced had CF forks, and it's likely the Ti frames used had CF forks. A great number of the aluminum frames sold today have CF forks as do the Ti frames and a lot of steel frames. To the OP, check out the AX Lightness website. Their a German company that makes über light weight components. They have a Helios fork that weighs 275g with an uncut 300mm steerer, but it's all UD carbon, no weave. I used to have an AX Lightness Daedalus seatpost (370mm long, 145g) that was on my weight weenie bike (which was also my only bike and thus my daily ride). I had zero complaints about that seat post. It even stood up to my 17 mile commute to school each day with me wearing my backpack full of books and a laptop LIkewise check out another German company called THM Carbones. Their Scapula fork is the classic light weight fork and weighs a scant 235g, AND the top layer of CF is a weave. The German bike magazine Tour ranks the fork very highly, and so do the users, several of whom I know. I used to have a set of THM Clavicula cranks which were the lightest cranks in existence at the time (CF cranks with an oversized CF BB axle). They were an excellent set of cranks, as good as my current Campy Record cranks. Don't let the weight of their forks scare you. THM does excellent work and stands solidly behind its work. Note that AX Lightness and THM-Carbones stuff isn't cheap. If you can't swallow their prices, I think you should then consider with the Enve 1.0 fork or the Ritchey fork. The Ritchey WCS UD fork is one hell of a fork, and it happens to come with a very decent price. Lastly, if you need more help on your weight weenie build or want more opinions about a fork, you should register at the Weight Weenies forum. There are a lot of knowledgeable folks over there, including some in the industry and at least one ProTour rider, Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol) who has won the Crocodile Trophy race in Aussieland a couple of times and won a stage of this years Giro. He's a serious weight weenie........which you likely will have guessed if you've seen the CF cycling shoes that he made for himself and is using.

I tend to agree with you. I got the frame on closeout so the price was definitely right and no red flags went up when I checked the reviews for this item. Oddly enough I was just perusing a different forum where there was a thread about ribble gran fondos with cracks showing up in the paint where the aluminum dropouts are joined with the carbon chainstays. Apparently a cosmetic problem but it just goes to show you how dissimiliar materials joined behave differently. FYI Ribble acknowledges the problem and are either replacing the frames or sending them out to be repainted.

alienator said:

I'm pretty sure the CAAD frames that the Saeco team raced had CF forks, and it's likely the Ti frames used had CF forks. A great number of the aluminum frames sold today have CF forks as do the Ti frames and a lot of steel frames. .

thats why I wrote frame and not frameset (frame + fork) i do have a frame of one material and the fork of another material