The Minnesota Noices

Bike Build, Day 3

The fork arrived today but, because I’m home sick and really am convalescing, I didn’t get the crown race installed. It’s an IRD steel fork, and it seems fine, it did come in a newspaper with chinese all over it, so there’s not a lot of obfuscation of country of origin … 😉 It did have some minor blemishes in the finish, but nothing I can’t overlook in a $130 fork. The big (and I do mean BIG) surprise came when I tried to mount the front wheel. Remember that absurdly large 203mm disc rotor on the front? Well, it actually rubbed slightly on the fork leg – it extended far enough up the leg that it passed the little molded-in relief for the disc. SO, that settles it – the front disc is going back to be replaced with a 185 or a 160. I think I’m going to try the 185. As I mentioned, no crown race today, so I didn’t install the fork on the frame. But I did start to dink around with the Woodchipper bar and the Cane Creek brake levers. The distance between the first bend and the second bend on these bars is SHORT, ergo, there’s not a lot of play room with where the levers go, and there’s not a lot of runway from the first bend to the lever hoods. I’m going to try it out, but I may end-up with a mid-season switch back to regular drops. So, not a lot of progress today, in fact, some REgress. In any case, here’s a couple of pics of the fork and the bar setup. And, yes, as seen in the bottom pic, the steerer tube on the fork is hung like a donkey.

IMG_3760

IMG_3761


Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.