I'm sort of confused. Are you suggesting I actually decreased my trail by moving the axle back? I've attached a snap of the instructions straight out of the Canyon manual. And if there is one thing I know for certain, it's that German's don't screw up their instruction manuals.

I don't know what the actual number of mm of trail the bike has currently. But before I felt like the bike was "twitchy" especially at high speeds in the aerobars (such as on fast false flats).

I'm pretty sure I increased my trail. I feel like the bike is more stable at high speeds. In fact on my ride yesterday, winds picked up as a little storm moved in and I was getting tossed around much less than usual. The downside is the bike handles worse at slow speeds, and it seems like there is more "wheel flop" especially on tight turns.

Most of this could be in my head (as a rather neurotic person), but it seems to have helped at least with my bike and my fit.

i believe you're getting ready to pounce ;-)[/quote]
Maybe ;) I thought he might have confused rake and trail, but it sounds like he did in fact increase trail by moving the axle rearward in the fork, so greater high speed stability would be expected. That's a nice feature to have on a fork.

no. you increase your trail by moving it back. you have it right. when i wrote my post i didn't know which direction you moved your axle.

that said, if you start with a tri bike that handles well, with a trail of (say) 62mm, and you increase its trail to 67mm or longer, it's hard to self-correct. cycling is an exercise in continual self-correction. when you begin to fall over, you steer the bike in the direction you're falling, to get your CG in between the line your bike is taking and the line you want to reacquire. you're constantly steering when you ride your bike, even if you're riding in a straight line. if your bike has too much trail, your bike resists that steering.

if you have too little trail, then the bike steers to quickly. therefore, when you lengthen the trail, you either make a twitchy bike good, or you make a good bike less capable.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Maybe ;) I thought he might have confused rake and trail, but it sounds like he did in fact increase trail by moving the axle rearward in the fork, so greater high speed stability would be expected. That's a nice feature to have on a fork.[/quote]
when i first heard about that feature, a couple of years ago, i thought that was pretty shrewd thinking.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

My wife is 5'1.5" (she always counts that last half inch) and went from an older Cervelo P2C with 650's to a newer P2 with 700's. She thinks the handling is day and night better on the newer bike with bigger wheels. But then we also got her a much better fit on the P2.

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I'm closer to the feathered end of the spear than the point.

You should check out the Ventum One. Not inexpensive, but definitely very stable (handles almost like a road bike!). My wife is 5"2 and rides an XS. Fits her like a glove!

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"Suddenly the thought struck me. My floor is someone elses ceiling"-Nils Ferlin

BTW, I'm still riding that DA you sold me. Rode a 2:25 HIM on 160 watts with it

Slowman,

Disagree as in the points I listed out have no relevance on stability of bike? or disagree as in the points I made are in opposite of what makes a bike more stable?

i don't think stem length is relevant on a tri bike. head angle is not determinative in handling. it informs trail and weight displacement, but it's simply 1 metric dependent on many. it's not more nor less determinative than, say, fork offset. longer trail can make a bad handling bike good, or a good handling bike bad. if trail is so long that you can't use your body weight to easily self-correct when in the aero position, then it makes the bike less stable. the only thing trail does is cause a wheel to want to self-center. but you need to steer the bike, even just to remain traveling in a straight line. if the bike resists this too much, then that's a bad thing.

so, more is not better; more is not more stable; for any of those first 3 elements you mention.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman