Mark Bulgier wrote:
> Champion forks are strong enough for any but the heaviest riders, and
> stronger is not necessarily a good thing here. For instance on a
> classic lightweight frame, having a fork too strong could make the
> frame buckle and be ruined, in many real-world collisions where the
> frame would not have buckled if the fork had taken the impact by
> bending. I really like to see a bent fork after a crash, it shows
> the fork did its job. That's one reason I like steel forks over CF,
> which can't absorb crash energy by bending.
The first couple runs of 753 frames we did at Trek used what we called the "frame saver" crown -- an Ishiwata SCM crown with material milled out between the steer tube and blades. Before modification, the SCM looked sort of like the Cinelli MC:
http://www.velobase.com/
After modification it looked like this:
http://www.os2.dhs.org/
It was much easier and cheaper to replace a customer's 753 fork than to replace the frame.
Later runs were changed to a Tange crown that wasn't as malleable:
http://www.vintage-trek.com/
I'm not sure why the change was made.
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA