After the recent thread about mono bladed road forks I dug a little and got the following two images of the mono bladed aero fork by Albert Bold of boldprecision.com in Pennsylvania. Track ace Shaun Wallace used to have one that actually inspired this titanium one.
Without a brake, that would not be legal would it? I wonder how much faster this would be over a standard fork? Enough to make it worth pursuing?
Hugh Blake
It is ready for a brake. See here.
thanks for digging this up. I was looking around on the net for a pic but didn’t find anything. In particular i was wondering how the wheel would attach onto the fork as a standard skewer obviously wouldn’t work.
I don’t see why a carbon designed version wouldn’t do very well.
I’ve often wondered why this hasn’t caught on in the TT world as the Cannondale ‘lefty’ has been around for awhile:
.
Carbon designed ones did very well indeed. Google Lotus superbike and look for Chris Boardman’s original track bike. Single sided fork and rear. Has to use a special hub on the wheel.
Styrrell
Without a brake, that would not be legal would it? I wonder how much faster this would be over a standard fork? Enough to make it worth pursuing?
Hugh Blake
Looks like a solution in search of a problem.
JJ
YAK!
I hate hate HATE lefty forks. Symmetry is a good thing. Why would one fork leg be better than two?
I’m not pro/con as this is hardly my area of expertise. My thoughts were that if they could produce an equivalent fork (strength perspective), reducing a significant part of the frontal area, a significant improvement in aerodynamics would go along w/ it.
*Note: I am FAR from an aerodynamic expert.
Not that I am an expert either, but it could make aerodynamics worse. Because air is being ‘spun’ off the front wheel. The fork may channel air back straight creating less drag? Weight vs drag? Again no expert here. I could only see this catch on in track cycling, not even outdoor TT.
My thoughts were that if they could produce an equivalent fork (strength perspective), reducing a significant part of the frontal area, a significant improvement in aerodynamics would go along w/ it.
here’s the catch:
if one could produce a strong and aero monoblade fork, you could get an even bigger reduction in frontal area if you used the monoblade fork technology to produce a strong and aero dual-bladed fork. Because nearly any structural technology that could produce a super strong monoblade fork could also be used to produce a dual bladed fork with easily less than 1/2 the frontal area of an equivalent monobladed fork, all other things being equal. so, in the end, you don’t really get much.
Albert Bold did that project more than 15 years ago and has not much done updating since. I think my inquiry got him curious again.
H
When Trek was designing a TT bike around Lance, one of their original designs incorporated a monoblade fork, and maybe a monostay rear. They tabled the idea when the UCI deemed it illegal.
Brakes. Lefty has a disk brake. Although I have to admit, when hands free the steering pulls to heft but other than that I loved the fast front tire change! you don’t have to remove the rim.
the purpose of an aero fork is to direct the airflow around the wheel and bike. a mono fork cannot do that on one side terefor less efficient