Carbon fork for V Brakes, with 50mm rake

[BradL]

I'm in the process of designing a light titanium touring bike, and am looking for a V-Brake compatible fork with 50mm of rake, possibly more to build around. Ideally I'd like a carbon fork, although plenty of internetting reveals that the Ritchey Comp Carbon Cross fork is about as close as I'll get to this. With 45mm of rake it's not exactly what I'd like though. I believe that Wound Up does a fork with 50mm rake, but yeah, I'll need a 4th job to fund that..

On the steel side of things the soma new albion touring fork looks close to what I'm after. Not sure how it will gel aesthetically with the thicker ti tubing, but hey, if it's functional I could live with it.

That being said, has anyone come across any other forks that might fit the bill?

Cheers
Brad

[MattyK]

only 45mm rake, but I've used these on my commuter:
http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product_10 ... 1___204715
Broke one set in a crash with a car - cracked the joint to the steerer but the carbon was intact. Not the fault of the fork.

I assume you're after a straight steerer?

[BradL]

Cheers MattyK - they do look nice and solid. Yes a straight steerer is where I'm at right now, but I'll consider tapered if it opens up the right fork options.

[RonK]

I have done exactly such a project. You can read about it here. Sabbath Silk Route.

Aesthetically, there was no way I was going to build a titanium bike with a steel fork. It took many hours of research on the internet to track down what I wanted.

Why do you want a 50mm fork offset? I think that would be rare.

You will probably want rack mounts too, so that narrows the options even more.

Whatever, you can get a Columbus Tusk Trekking fork from Ceeway.

[BradL]

Thanks for that Ron. I have looked at them and would consider. I understand that it is an odd spec, hence putting it to the brains trust. I'm basing the geometry on an existing bike that works very well for me, compared to what I have previously ridden. Tall frame, long wheelbase/stays, low bb and lowish trail. I'm already tweaking it to an extent, but would like to keep the fork rake similar if possible.

[RonK]

Well, you did say you are building a *light* touring bike. And you have chosen to build it from titanium. So it would be a shame to end up with something that rides like a slug.

Perhaps simply replicating the geometry of another bike (I'm guessing a heavy steel tourer) will not produce a good result.

As mentioned in my blog, I built the Sabbath because I wanted a light touring bike without the lazy sluggish ride quality of the Surly Long Haul Trucker I was riding at the time.

And that is exactly what I got.

[baabaa]

50mm off set on a large frame does sound odd? What axle to crown length are you looking for?
Woundup would be the go, I think Whisky still do non tapered canti forks. Maybe an old NOS Alpha Q CX20 at 47mm would work if you could find one...( I have been looking without luck for a while now)