On Apr 19, 10:18 am, Mike Rocket J Squirrel
wrote:
On 4/19/2008 6:57 AM wrote:



On Apr 19, 9:48 am, Mike Rocket J Squirrel
wrote:
On 4/19/2008 6:31 AM wrote:

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:58:51 -0800, agcou wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:55:23 -0400, wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:23:53 -0700 (PDT), blackhead
wrote:
Are there any impartial tests that have been done on Auminium, Steel
and Carbon forks? Some people say carbon absorbs vibration better than
steel and Aluminium, others say it makes little difference... etc etc
The differences of design, materials quality and manufacture are greater than
the differences in the materials themselves. Even in weight there is an
intersection between the three. I've got bikes with all three and they've all
got something going for them.
Really depends on what you're doing with the bike and which forks you're
choosing from.
Did you read the OP's question?
Yeah, there are no impartial tests that establish the relative characteristics
of forks made from different materials. Such a test would have to hold all other
variables constant in a way that simply isn't possible.
How come? Not arguing, just curious. Seems (to me, not a mechanical
engineer nor wrench) that one could get three forks with same geometry,
tilt at proper head tube angle, clamp dropouts to shaker table, add mass
loading from above, hang some accelerometers on the stem and let 'er rip.
Just to see, y'know?

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"

That won't tell you much about the materials though. You could do the
same test with three carbon forks with the same geometry and get
vastly different results.

I assume we're not saying that quality control is so poor that three forks
of the same brand/model would not measure the same. More like small
changes in fork shapes, cross-sections, etc., have a bigger influence on
vibration transmission than the the material itself. So the chances of
finding three forks of different materials which are built sufficiently
similar that those other factors will not contribute to the results is
slim to none.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"

Right. Three forks of the same make and model should be exactly the
same (although variance is likely to go up substantially at the bottom
end of the market), but you can't just test one carbon fork next to
one aluminum fork and say that the difference is the material.
Whatever vibration parameter you're measuring is going to have a big
enough range across different models of carbon forks that it's going
to overlap with the range across different models of aluminum forks.