Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

Fealress because it'll take a tapered fork as there seem to be less and less carbon 1 1/8 forks should you ever want to upgrade

Probably get the Brother with the carbon fork upgrade.. what with the frame being 20% off at the moment.

Disclaimer. I know nothing about steel tubes or which is better Vs the Fearless Vulture.

Or the arkose then

I think the Carradice Sqr slim is specifically designed for laptops/files.

Oh shit I definitely have a 2011 setup !

@bdw thanks, good to know. Yeah @birofunk my pal has one of them but I'm not so keen on the look of it

Agree, I prefer the look of the version Phil has. I ended up going for the SQR version in the end though.

I'd just pass on the carbon fork. Alloy steerer and weights a tonne

Pretty much. Only 300 or so grams off a straggler or similar fork. Frustrating, I really want a snazzy 500g full carbon glam fork but in a straight steerer it's basically impossible

Or super expensive

Only 300 or so grams off a straggler or similar fork

It would still ride better though.

My only experience of steel -> carbon upgrade was on an old steel track frame, so the difference was night and day.

I'm intrigued to try one of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOSEEK-26-27-5-29-MTB-Mountain-Bike-Carbon-Fiber-Disc-Brake-Rigid-Fork-1-1-8/263742550085?hash=item3d6847f045:m:mJ1qatz3LcB0ffiJ96M7ijg

On my cross-check. Have been pondering how it would change handling.

• 25mm a-c
  
• 5mm rake
  
  

So I think this would give around 1.5 degree slacker headtube. This combined with the smaller rake, would be a fairly big increase in trail.
I'd guess most like a downhill-ish mtb? Stable at high speed but fairly twitchy and manouvreable at slow speed. I haven't got a clue, clearly.

I'm currently waiting to get an Arkose on the Rode to Work scheme but I'm tempted by the Sonder Camino AL Apex 1 for under £600 with the current 15% discount code at Alpkit. Does anyone own one or have ridden one?

Agreed. I took off practically half the weight (700g off) in replacing the fork on my Croix de Fer & the difference was huge. I'd imagine half of that weight difference would still be very noticeable.

No but having been to the shop last week was very impressed when I saw it in the flesh. Same with a lot of the alpkit stuff. Looks a bit pony on the website but in the flesh was nice.

It's going to be perfectly rideable, but I would still look around for a 400mm a-c. There's bound to be a happy customer on the Orient Express thread for such a thing, no?

I guess this is real life now?

Look at what you cunts have done^!

Twats.

There are a few unhappy searchers, but no success stories yet - I do regular browses of aliexpress and ebay
Straight steerers are seemingly gone from that world, can still be found for road/mtb but not cross/gravel, tapered rules the roost.

Gearing is a bit high. Needs 30t chainring. And 10-50 cassette.

I’d stick a long -17* stem on and ride this.

https://www.brothercycles.com/shop/accessories/kepler-disc-carbon-fork/

best price/value/warranty/non-teeth-smashing option I've come across. Weighty lad though

ah you already discussed this. My stupid fault for not reading properly

What do you know about adventure riding? Some people ride through the unexplored wilderness of, like, Bushy Park and shit.

Not your best photoshop

My research so far:

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/radon-carbonfork-1-1-8-for-disc-83031
https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/ritchey-wcs-carbon-cross-fork-1-1-8-disc-421218
https://www.bikenashbar.com/cycling/parts/forks/nashbar-carbon-cyclocross-fork-ns-cyf
http://carverbikes.com/parts/forks/carbon-cx-disc/
http://omniumbikes.tictail.com/product/cxc-carbon-fork
https://spotbrand.com/products/temp-component
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BBP-Fork-CycloCross-EH400-Carbon-DISC-only-1-1-8-3K-finish-IS2000/391614855757?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3Df06ed6e3d38840ddae364329cd024dd5%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D173325916519%26itm%3D391614855757&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3A9491646e-73a3-11e8-8237-74dbd180877b%7Cparentrq%3A1762bd881640aa47cd879a6affec2ee2%7Ciid%3A1
https://www.merida.se/gaffel-cyclo-cross-3-disc-m13-6070006150767?nosto=nosto-page-product1

None are particularly nice, or are more than I'd like to pay. The spot is cool, but alloy steerer still and expensive. Actually, the omnium is one I'll look more into - pics are sparse