"the world's first gravel fork"
 

"The world's first gravel fork"

https://canecreek.com/introducing-in...t-gravel-fork/


Okay gang, what do you think?

Enter Lauf:

“Hold my beer…”

Outside of the marketing, it looks like an interesting fork and I would be interested to try it on a gravel bike. But really now, that marketing is over the top.

Suspension for gravel is cool and all but I'm not sure another 4-figure short travel fork is going to do much for the niche.

I'll wait for the Dylan Johnson video.

Didn't Hincapie use a straight bladed rock shock? Or is this all about marketing

Yet again...LeMond....long ahead of the curve.

I'll guess some of the designers weren't even born when LeMond was racing cobbles with a modified Rock Shox fork.

What's old is new. :cool:

40mm of damped air sprung travel is just not enough to be useful. There are physical limits here. All of this has been learned decades ago.

Go to 100mm and we’d have something to talk about, but geometrically that’s a hardtail and I guess you can’t market that to the “road” audience?

The weight is excellent plus inverted forks look cool. While Cane Creek is a competent suspension mfg I have my doubts based on this recent review where a modified RS-1 couldn't cut it on a gravel bike designed around the longer A-C. The RS-1 weighs 50% more *and* uses a proprietary hub to increase stiffness.

Like half the field at Paris-Roubaix was on Rockshoxs after Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle won in 1992 but they were falling out of favor by the mid-1990s. Rockshox had a good run, 3 wins, several podiums, hundreds of forks used by the peloton before time marched on.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQSFyYwXoAIYrLw.jpg

Hincapie's relationship with Paris-Roubaix is one of the small tradgedies of modern cycling. So close but never there. I believe this is his first race there, in 1994 when Andrei Tchmil won, also using a rockshox.
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/77/8d/20/7...fe8d2035aa.jpg

What gravel suspension forks have you ridden? 30-40mm in a modern fork is so much different than it was decades ago. We learned a lot back then that has been overtaken by events, or in many cases was untrue.

I don't think suspension is a good fit for every course but it definitely has a place for some courses.

The issue isn't how well it works - it's how much it costs, how much it costs to service within the warranty period, how much service it requires, and the aero penalty.

The actual functional aspect is a huge improvement on rougher gravel there's not really any argument there.

I really like seeing brands continue to innovate and offer changes to products. If those changes reach the intended audience in a meaningful way(cost, weight, features, etc), then those things maybe latch on and get adopted by others in the market.

And with gravel bike front ends being so wide ranging(suspension fork and slacked HTA <-> small suspension fork <-> headset or stem suspension <-> fully rigid), it seems like there is room to try something out like this and see if it takes off.
- The carbon upper half looks nice and the inverted suspension is both unique and less obtrusive looking compared to traditional suspension forks.
- The crown especially looks nice, when considering it has suspension stanchions.
- The hidden thru axle look is not something I immediately saw, but now that I see it, I keep looking at it. And the way the flatmounts are designed is neat.



But for me personally? Hard pass.
I dont want to pay $1200 for a fork that weighs 1113g when a year's worth of gravel bike roads equals 50% gravel road miles, 45% paved road miles, and 5% tame twisty river bottom singletrack miles.
The gravel roads I ride just arent wild enough for me to wish for a suspension fork to smooth the bumps or provide more steering control.
And with a lot of my rides being 40-60' of climb/mile where the climb is a bunch of punchy out of creek and river valleys, I constantly stand to climb and dont want a fork bouncing under me or a fork I need to continually engage then disengage the lockout.

"Keeeeegan NOOOOOO! 40mm of damped air sprung travel is just not enough to be useful! Stop before you win another bike race!"

https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net...AA&oe=6622EACE

If your gravel looks like this, a suspension fork probably isn't going to be for you:
https://i.imgur.com/25h76Zz.png

If there's miles and miles of this (and rougher), a suspension fork might be something to consider:
https://i.imgur.com/oRmi13u.png

Well, if we ignore the various springer forks found on previous generations of balloon tire and stingray bikes, the RockShox Ruby (as used in Paris-Roubaix) could probably be considered the prototype for a gravel fork. The direct descendent of the RS Ruby is the current RockShox Rudy fork, explicitly designed to be a gravel bike fork. In addition to other gravel forks like the Lauf fork, the Cane Creek for is far from the "the world's first gravel fork".

As far as an inverted fork: There are clearly some advantages to inverted forks, but because they can't use braces like non-inverted forks, they rely on using very stiff hub axles. Does the typical gravel wheel (usually used with rigid forks) have a stiff enough axle to guarantee proper performance of an inverted fork?

Has anyone seen a maximum air pressure/weight limit for the fork?

Ignore - found it - 250PSI/250lbs