Low Trail Hilsen?

[Brian Campbell]

I was curious if anyone on the list had ever replaced the stock AHH fork with a lower trail fork to change the handling? If you have, what was your experience?  I have a 61cm AHH and love it as is, no changes planned. Having read lots about trail/handling etc, I was wondering what the effect, if any, it would have on the AHH frame? Inquiring minds want to know and all that....

[hsmitham]

+1 on the curious side.

[Kieran J]

I believe listmember Chris Chen had his damaged Hilsen rebuilt with a custom low-trail fork.

Not sure if he has since reported on its resulting riding characteristics.

KJ

[Hugh Smitham]

Kieran,

I didn't even consider that Chris's AHH had a new LT fork. Calling Chris!! 

~Hugh

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” ― Albert Einstein

http://velocipeedemusings.com/

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[Justin August]

Rene had low trail/neutral forks made for her Atlantis and Hunkypillar. As far as I know it was nothing but love for the experience. I've been curious about this for my Saluki as well.

-J

On Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 6:44:24 AM UTC-8, Brian Campbell wrote:

[Mike Schiller]

I saw that after Bob built the new fork that it was lower trail.    I've seen and heard of Atlantis's, Hunqa,  and Rams with replacement low trail forks too.

The 700C model is a  better option than the 650B model because of the steeper fork rake IMO.   But  YMMV.  

~mike

[Lungimsam]

Since the frame isn't made as a 650b bike though, wouldn't it never really handle like a true 650b AHH bike, if there were to be such a thing?

I know the top tube is going to lose some tilt as the front end drops due to the LT fork, as I think I read about this happening in the BQ mag once when a friend of Jan's had his fork re-raked, to good effect though.

Not really sure, just curious about this. Or does it not matter whether any given frame goes with a LT, MT, or HT fork?

[Tony DeFilippo]

I looked into this when I wrecked my Saluki fork... I discussed it with Rob at OAC and Chris Bishop of Bishop Bikes... They both felt like the HT/ST angles weren't ideal for a LT fork. Not sure if it was more of an excess of caution or an understanding that it wasn't a good call. My frame is a 60cm 650b.

Anyway I went with a Riv/Waterford oem replacement... Which has been fine. The bike handles as well as ever.

I'm still low trail curious but not upset i didn't experiment with the Saluki.

Tony

[Patrick D Kelly]

I don't really know anything about bike geometry, but I used http://yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/trailcalc.php to do some calculations of trail for some bikes. For comparison, I used a tire width of 45mm. These are all 700c wheel bikes.

56 surly lht (700c): 70mm

19 marin muirwoods 29er: 66mm

54 hunqapillar: 64mm

56 sam hillborne: 62mm

55 joe appaloosa: 57mm

As I said, I really don't know what I'm doing here, but this still seems interesting to me. I'm wondering if the joe appaloosa having lower trail than the others is in anyway related to it having longer chainstays. Or is this just a general move in the direction of lower trail? Another variable here would be expected tire size. I've done all my calculations with the same tire size, but clearly these bikes are designed with different size tires in mind.