Wound Up Fork: Potential Failure?

[MorganColeman]

I don't know whether to be grateful, concerned, or just annoyed.
My new custom built bike has a Wound Up fork for long reach calipers. I love the bike, fork rides great--no complaints. I walked into a local shop yesterday to buy some tubes and the manager comes over to look at my bike. He asks whether I've had any issues with the. fork. I say no, and he then tells me about how notorious Wound Up forks are. He said that he's seen on multiple occasions the dropouts come loose from the carbon legs. Says that they will no longer sell them or spec their in-house brand with them anymore, especially for tandems.

So, now I have this nagging worry. I have no doubt that if something does go wrong, I'll be covered with a warranty, but getting a replacement is the least of my concerns with a fork failure.

My question to the group is whether I have reason to be concerned based on that conversation (I'm not finding much online regarding this issue) and would you be annoyed by it? I'm not sure if he was really providing good customer service with that interaction. FWIW--they sell their own brand of long reach carbon forks, which he steered (no pun intended) me to.

Morgan

[jtakeda]

That's news to me regarding wound ups. I have one and never heard that.


I'm curious if this presents a liability as well.

[christian]

I've never heard that, and Wound Ups tend to be the defacto forks for 203mm disk tandems.

Now, if he'd said, "Hey, that fork looks like a beard on a lady!" I'd totally be in his camp. But I think they're safe, stout, quality forks.

And yeah, I'd be annoyed.

[donevwil]

Wife's commuter has >20k miles on a long reach Wound Up, no issues. Every bike component has failed at least once I'd wager, haven't heard of Wound Ups having issues. Doubt the highly respected builders here and across the hall would be using them if there were issues. Sounds like the shop has their own motivation.

[Tony T]

Try google

[jpw]

I've hammered my cross Wound Up for about three years with no issues.

My only real criticism is that it's a very stiff fork.

[gone]

and he then tells me about how notorious Wound Up forks are. He said that he's seen on multiple occasions the dropouts come loose from the carbon legs.

I'd say total B.S.

I ran a Wound Up for years, no issues. My wife has one on her bike, no issues.

If they're "notorious" it'd be all over the interweb. Not to say there have been zero failures, I suspect there have been, but I'd guess the same is probably true of just about every fork out there.

[christian]

Good enough for Steve Hampsten, good enough for me.

[alancw3]

although the wound up fork was always asthetically ugly (at least imho) they had a reputation as one of the strongest cf forks out there. i would certainly check with the manufacturer if you have concerns with your fork.

[avalonracing]

Many guys in bike shops like to sound like an authority on something when mostly they are authorities on hearsay.

[merlincustom1]

Tom Kellogg is a fan of Wound Up, and just sold a new one to a friend of mine. I'm thinking urban legend.

[AngryScientist]

so wait, let me get this straight, you walked into a shop that sells their own brand of carbon forks, and the conversation went something like this:

"wooooo, you've got a wound up? that thing's a death trap man, ditch it, stat. while you're here, take a look at our forks, which are 137% better!"

ridiculous.

just for kicks sometime go walk into a ford dealer and ask them what they think about your dodge truck...

[Vientomas]

Find a new bike shop.

[MattTuck]

Yeah. I'd ask him which builders are using his brand. Sounds like a sales pitch based on denigrating the competitor and creating fear in the customer. Not a very classy approach, in my opinion.

[hampco]

what the previous 13 posters said - never heard of an issue with these

does the other shop's name rhyme with "ron rhesus"?

uh huh...

[BobbyJones]

Amen to this

Many guys in bike shops like to sound like an authority on something when mostly they are authorities on hearsay.

[tuxbailey]

Maybe the manager saw your custom bike a d figured you can afford to change components on the fly. IOW, a big dollar sign in your head.

[bicycletricycle]

Had a few and had customers with them in the past. No problems

[KidWok]

what the previous 13 posters said - never heard of an issue with these

does the other shop's name rhyme with "ron rhesus"?

uh huh...

Funny you should mention that...I was thinking there is a shop that I've gotten that vibe from before. Didn't know where OP is from so I did some sleuthing and looked back on his posts...he's from the Pacific NW. It all adds up.

Tai

[Peter P.]

Even if a dropout unbonds from the leg, you won't die.

I had a friend's Vitus aluminum fork do just that. He removed the wheel one day and on dropout fell out. Put the dropout back in and rode home.

The joint's under compression so you're unlikely to lose your front wheel. Just give the dropouts a tug whenever you remove the wheel-periodic inspection is cheap, quick, and easy.

[MorganColeman]

Hey Everyone,
Thanks for your advice. Feeling better about it now.
Steve - you got it right!

Morgan

[Sheldon4209]

I have put 25,000 miles on a Wound Up on a Co-Motion tandem with no problems. If Wound Up is good enough for Co-Motion they are good enough for me.

[bobswire]

Morgan here's what Tom Kellogg has to say about Wound Up
http://www.spectrum-cycles.com/forks.php

Wound Up for WoundUp

It took me a few hundred meters into my first ride on a WoundUp many years ago to figure out that we had something special here. It took a couple hundred miles to fully appreciate the fork though. Of course my first reaction to the fork was, UGLY! In any case, it was pretty odd looking at. However, once on the bike it didn't look too bad.

Now to what the fork does. Ultimately, the single biggest advance made by WoundUp over other forks was the torsional rigidity of the blades and fork as a whole. Most people assume that fork stiffness is most important in resistance to lateral forces. Actually, this is not the case. Torsional rigidity is considerably more important because sufficient lateral stiffness is very easily built into a fork while torsional rigidity is not. Try to picture what lateral forces do to a fork in the real world. There, you have a front hub clamped onto the front drops keeping them parallel. With the hub in there as a structural member, lateral deflections will, by definition, force the blades to deflect in a "S" shape curve, not a "C" shape curve. What this means is that forks (in the real world) are about twice as laterally stiff as you feel when you squeeze the dropouts together. Torsional stiffness is tougher to accomplish though. The front hub, as a part of the fork structure only helps by forcing the two blades to work in tandem as they resist torsional stresses.

You might ask "what torsional stresses?" Actually, torsional stresses are not all that great, but they can really cause a fork to feel vague if not addressed. Take the Time Club fork as an example. Although it is very light and eminently comfortable, it is torsionally quite flexible. It is a great fork for putting on the miles. The problems develop when you put it in stressful situations. For example; hairy descents and hard criterium cornering can really stress the Club. Under these conditions, the Club fork will make you feel as though you are not connected to the front wheel. Indeed, it seems as though there is actually a lag time between handlebar input and bike reaction. You lose the immediacy if input.

With a good competition fork like the ENVE or Serotta fork, this is not the case. The WoundUp is the next step. While the Serotta and ENVE forks are great forks and I would not have expected anything more from a fork, the WoundUp is clearly a great choice for a fork when the going gets seriously twisty. You just have to get used to the way that they look.

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[oldpotatoe]

I don't know whether to be grateful, concerned, or just annoyed.
My new custom built bike has a Wound Up fork for long reach calipers. I love the bike, fork rides great--no complaints. I walked into a local shop yesterday to buy some tubes and the manager comes over to look at my bike. He asks whether I've had any issues with the. fork. I say no, and he then tells me about how notorious Wound Up forks are. He said that he's seen on multiple occasions the dropouts come loose from the carbon legs. Says that they will no longer sell them or spec their in-house brand with them anymore, especially for tandems.

So, now I have this nagging worry. I have no doubt that if something does go wrong, I'll be covered with a warranty, but getting a replacement is the least of my concerns with a fork failure.

My question to the group is whether I have reason to be concerned based on that conversation (I'm not finding much online regarding this issue) and would you be annoyed by it? I'm not sure if he was really providing good customer service with that interaction. FWIW--they sell their own brand of long reach carbon forks, which he steered (no pun intended) me to.

Morgan

Sold many, had on a fixie with canti brakes for a long time. Sold a lot when there were few cross/toruing forks out there. Put a couple on tandems and have never seen any issue with them ever.

I'd be annoyed the LBS guy said this w/o anything but anecdotal information.

Do a interweb search, if there are problems, you will find info.

[Ahneida Ride]

I never seen or heard any negative reports about Wound up.

[d_douglas]

Hi Morgan:

I echo the rest of the folks: if Mike recommended it (he also recommended the disc version for my bike) then you can be confident that they are safe. I chose ENVE simply bc I wanted an OS HT (gasp) - otherwise it would've been the Woundup.

Any product has incidences of failure, so you can't go by that - eg. Thomson has a sterling reputation, but you can be sure there are plenty of broken Thomson posts out there - it is more a function of people putting the products to good use.

Ride without worry, that's what I say!