Fork suggestions for Cervelo P3

Well, whatever you put on there, rember that you will negate any aero advantage that may or may not exist by tying your computer sensor to the fork! Look for ways to get that sensor to the back wheel where the air is already dirty and keep your front end as clean as possible.

That said, I’d probably go with Wolf fork over the original spec only because of the weight issue.

First of all, why knock the Chord? It weighs the same as an Oval Airstream and it’s more aero (according to VeloNews the latter is only as aero as a standard Reynolds Ouzo, not even the Ouzo Aero).

But more importantly in this case, stick with the right rake and crown height. In general it is not much of a problem to swap forks, but you have to take into account that both the exact length of the fork (from the dropout to the crown race) and the rake affect the handling. While it works beautifully with the Chord, the Wolf and most of the Profile forks, we have received complaints from people who have spec’d for example an Ouzo Aero on their P3. I am not sure if it is a rake or length issue (and I believe the Ouzos come in two rakes so who knows). There are also plenty of people who do not have a problem with their Ouzo (aero) forks on their P3, but it is something to be aware of. In general you can be off a few mm in either dimension but you don’t want to stray too far. While it may work, you are not exactly increasing your chances.

FYI: The Ouzo Aero fork is available only in a 40mm rake. The Chord and Wolf fork commonly included with the P3 has a 43mm rake. I beleive the Profile Areo fork is also a 43mm.

The article is confusing, the Reynolds is called Ouzo Pro everywhere, not Ouzo Pro Aero. I can find one mention that Reynolds does not claim its aero forks are UCI legal, but that could mean many things, it doesn’t necessarily relate to the tested fork, and maybe Reynolds doesn’t make that claim about any fork, legal or not. Who knows. But Kraig must be lurking somewhere, maybe he can clarify.

Regardless, I think there is one flaw in the assumption that if the Oval is almost as aero as the Ouzo Aero, it would be near the top of the UCI-legal forks. I think there are quite a few UCI-legal forks that will test in the Ouzo Pro Aero range, if not better, and I base that on the knowledge that we alone tested three legal forks more aero than the Ouzo Pro Aero so there are bound to be others. I think the Reynolds forks are really nice forks and well-made, but aerodynamically I was not impressed.

Another issue to consider is the integration of fork crown and headtube. We found a rather large effect of this (up to 0.1 lb - not directly comparable to the forces in the VN test) but it is an effect that is potentially bigger than any difference between the three aero forks tested in VN. This is why in our test we used a P3 headtube, and then a PVC pipe on top of that to create the same “steerer” for each fork. of course the flipside of this is that:
a) It shows how important the integration is
b) It means that test data may not be that valuable for the consumer unless it was tested with his/her headtube shape (at least the bottom part).

I apologize in advance if this posting pushes the thread into the direction of “independent test data” again. It’s probably inevitable and an issue that won’t be solved until somebody does independent tunnel tests. Since that has never happened in the history of bike design, I doubt it will happen anytime soon. But maybe Kraig is, I don’t know his background so I have no idea how independent he is.

My Soloist came with a Columbus Muscle fork, how does this compare aero wise to the new Wolf fork or the fork that originally came the the 2002 Soloist? Thanks

My Soloist came with a Columbus Muscle fork, how does this compare aero wise to the new Wolf fork or the fork that originally came the the 2002 Soloist? Thanks

Good question. I haven’t tested the Muscle in the tunnel, but there is no reason to assume it excels in that department. Same goes for the original fork, both are fairly standard forks when it comes to aerodynamics, i.e. little attention was paid to it. But the Muscle is a very light, and nice riding fork, it’s also the fork CSC uses on their training bikes, simply because we didn’t have Wolfs in December. But lately, a lot of the riders have asked for Wolf forks for their training bikes as well.

Neither of those two forks are going to be even close to the Wolf for aerodynamics, weight-wise the Muscle is in the same ballpark as the Wolf.

Since I’m in the market for a fork, can you name the three UCI-legal designs you mention above?

“Another issue to consider is the integration of fork crown and headtube.”

All the more reason to stick with the fork that comes with a bike, as you suggested earlier.

“But maybe Kraig is, I don’t know his background so I have no idea how independent he is.”

Mr. Willet’s testing was essentially funded out of his own pocket, so it about as independent as it can get.

  1. The three UCI legal forks we had were not on the market, they were three different Wolf designs. We didn’t do an exhaustive test of all other legal forks on the market, we set our goals higher and so we took down the forks that we either knew or suspected would be very good, regardless of if they were legal or not. So we had a Hotta, Chord, Hooker, Ouzo Aero, illegal forks but we figured it would make more sense to find out how we did compared to those. Our initial idea was we would probably score a bit below that, and then we would later make an illegal Wolf-style fork for even better performance. But as it stands, there is little reason to do that with the current performance of the Wolf.

  2. Integration. I don’t know of any manufacturer who has tested the integration of fork and headtube, let alone that they would test all their models in order to optimize this. So your guess is as good as theirs. All I’m saying is, there is no reason not to consider a fork change because of this issue.

  3. I fund the tests out of my own pocket as well, that does not make me independent. I’m not saying Kraig is or isn’t, in his case I have no idea, but in general the independence depends on all the ties the testers have with the product tested. This is also the frustrating thing for people in the know, we often know of ties that make certain tests very suspect, yet the general public knows nothing about them. And it’s not something that one easily exposes, since it usually hurts the exposer worse than the exposed.

The Reynolds Ouzo Pro Aero is available in both 40 mm. and 43 mm. rake.

http://www.reynoldscomposites.com/OuzoProAero.html


  1. I fund the tests out of my own pocket as well, that does not make me independent. I’m not saying Kraig is or isn’t, in his case I have no idea, but in general the independence depends on all the ties the testers have with the product tested. This is also the frustrating thing for people in the know, we often know of ties that make certain tests very suspect, yet the general public knows nothing about them. And it’s not something that one easily exposes, since it usually hurts the exposer worse than the exposed.

Late last summer, IIRC, Mr. Willet was soliciting wheels for his wind tunnel testing from various cycling forums. In other words, my intepretation of the intent was to test wheels that were donated for testing by riders/owners, and not from the manufacturer. I had offered a set of composite spoke wheels (a company that others have had questions about) for testing, but Mr. Willet did not choose my wheels to test.

Of course, I can’t read minds. Mr. Willet did offer payment for those whose wheels he tested, in the form of access to the results of the wind tunnel testing. Of course, he does post occasionally on this forum, so maybe he can clarify the procedure a bit.

Dave

What are the Weights of the Chord and Wolf forks?

The website is wrong…I spoke with Rynolds…and the 43mm was never produced.

Wolf: 365-385g
Chord: 500-520g

That’s with uncut steerer and there is a little bit of variation between 650c and 700c of course, although very little.

I spoke with Reynolds as well, and a more accurate statement is that the 43 hasn’t been produced yet. All the stuff in the field is 40 mm. I guess the 43 mm is in the plans.