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  • ahh it was the v1 rather than the v2, but I'm still a bit guilty of exaggeration; according to this -- http://brooklynmachineworks.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/clusterfork.html -- it should have been 1360g, but by the time I weighed it I am sure it came it at more - maybe I am remembering the total packaged weight by the time I had it parcelled up for posting.

    Anyway, Ed, funny you're here, because I was going to try to begin to discuss the relationship between rake, trail and head angle to try to explain to Kallzer a bit about why the relationship between 'nimble' and fork rake is confusing, but I was a bit worried to try because I am sure more people on this forum know it better than me... on that note, you posted a diagram a while ago that was the first time I'd come across some of the subtleties. Plus, Kallzer, no doubt further confusion arises from subjective opinions of what people mean by "easy" steering!

    My take on it:

    The key measurement has to be "trail", which is the distance between where the steering axis intercepts the ground and where the front wheel is actually on the ground.

    Bigger trail -> "less nimble" steering -> bike is more likely to want to go in a straight line -> "easier" steering

    Smaller trail -> "more nimble" steering -> bike is less likely to want to go straight line -> "harder" steering

    (deliberate quotes around less/more easier/harder - I think that is where it gets subjective)

    The odd thing is, increasing the rake of a fork, which you'd think would make a bike more stable/less nimble will often decrease trail and so make your bike more nimble! but sometimes depending on the design of the fork relative to the headtube angle, increasing rake might conversely increase trail, so so make your bike less nimble.

    The diagrams Ed posted made this really obvious and helped me get my head around it.

    Otherwise maybe this will help (linked from Sheldon) (and from where I quoted the definition of trail, above) -

    http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/trail.html

    It could well be possible that the stock Steamroller fork (versus the Guess fork I used) has more rake (reduces trail) but is longer, so creates a slacker head tube angle (increases trail) ... so overall perhaps the two forks end up pretty similar...

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