Friday, June 19, 2015

Fat fork finished

For anyone that hasn't ridden a fatbike: It is much like riding a suspended bike. At 7-10 PSI, the tires soak up roots as well as any FS bike, and they float on top of sand, mud and snow. They don't accelerate as quickly, and taking quick/last second turns is tougher than on smaller tires. But the ability to ride up and down sandy/muddy banks and through swamp trails is a huge benefit.

these Origin8 4" tires float pretty well, and have 120 TPI (the best thread count available) but I am curious about the larger ones. I might try some 4.8"s in the future.

'spension corrected 24ork





Wednesday, June 17, 2015

dunes

When the beaches on the creek haven't had foot traffic they are hard packed enough to get rad. There are usually natural berms, banks and step downs. I need to make some tougher forks because there was a 15 foot gap step down and I couldn't trust the light weight supertherm fork that I built. They are more than strong for normal riding but the possibility of hitting a soft spot of sand after a big gap attempt had me a bit cautious... Anyway, a good excuse to make a fatbike dirtjump fork.
 This is the first fork that I've made with offset legs (I would usually just adjust the dropout offset on jumper forks). They are 1.5* offset from the steerer and have clearance for a bigger tire than the last fork. 




Saturday, June 13, 2015

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Kishmar's 400 ATC fork


I spent some time making an insert that fits snug in this one. My one piece steerers are 3mm thick where this one is 2mm (plus the 1.2mm thick insert). This may sound overkill, but this is a fork that can fit a 26" wheel, so it needs to be tougher than a 20" BMX steerer. A mistake that I have seen on other's fork designs is to use a thin steerer with a short insert that ends about halfway in the steerer. The problem with this is that the actual bending force occurs over the entire midsection of the steerer, not just that lower 1/4 section. Case in point, a 1.5mm thick steerer plus a 3" insert: