My poprad came with one, but I havent ridden enough bikes to know the difference. Just curious
I dunno, I had a weird aero tt giant fork that was aluminum and it didn’t seem so bad either.
mine sucks on my road bike, shakes the frame coz small inperfection
Steel has an infinite fatigue life if you don’t exceed the yield strength. Within the useful life of the composite, carbon also has an infinite fatigue life. Aluminum has a finite fatigue life. If the part moves, it’s going to eventually fail. A fork acts as spring and cycles back and forth quite a bit under use. The failure mode of aluminum is also not very graceful. Finally, to get the necessary strength, the diameter of the tubes has to be pretty large, which makes the fork unnecessarily stiff, and quite likely uncomfortable.
While heaths explanation is far better I always just imagine stepping on a soda can and flicking the side and having it crumble instantly.
Doesn’t absorb road vibration nearly as well as carbon or steel. Same as frames in general, hence many frames being aluminum, with carbon forks to soften the ride.
(This is theoretical and sales pitch, no personal experience.)
aluminum is murder
In my experience, aluminum forks are noticeably less comfortable than steel or carbon for any more than short rides. I had an aluminum fork on my IRO and had pretty significant wrist/hand pain after about 20 miles, even with gloves (though fit was likely a factor). I switched to a nashbar carbon fork and the pain went away entirely. My carbon Allez (my “nice” road bike) has an aluminum fork and I have problems with my hands going numb after about 30 miles. Rather than dumping money into a new fork I’m saving up to build a better bike.
Wait, you have a carbon bike with an aluminum fork?
That’s right. Aluminum “lugs”, too.
Try some of the tektro/cane creek brake levers instead of the shimano slr levers. It made a huge difference for my hand numbness/pain.
Yeah, I have those on another bike and the hoods are quite comfortable.
Also, for the record, the bars on that bike are now at least an inch higher than shown.