Why don't we take advantage of fork geometry?

Triathlon Forum
1

Apparently Zdenek Stybar changes forks to have different fork rake for different conditions:

“One other custom tune is available to Stybar: the ability to swap between two fork rakes for different course conditions; he has both 49mm and 51mm options available. We’d expect him to be on the longer rake for the sand at Koksijde this weekend, but Delaney said he’d make the final call after training on Saturday.”

Here is the article:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/pro-bike-specialized-crux-for-zdenek-stybar

Why don’t more people do this? Seems like people pick different bikes and/or wheels for different conditions/courses. Seems like you could probably make a bigger difference in your handling by matching the fork for the conditions. Might be cheaper, too.

Thoughts?

Andy

2

Conditions in CX can vary widely, conditions for a road or tri bike, not much at all.

3

perhaps a more concrete example, then

A windy day. So windy in fact that a racer is going to use his zipp 303 instead of his zipp 808 front wheel to improve the stability of his bike in the crosswinds. Why not switch to a more stable, longer rake, fork instead (assuming the course isn’t terribly technical)?

Andy

4

“Why not switch to a more stable, longer rake, fork instead (assuming the course isn’t terribly technical)?”

Seems to me to be an odd choice. Longer rake will shorten the trail and make the handling more twitchy.

5

I thought that a shorter rake increased the trail which made a bike more stable?

jaretj

Edit: Pooks beat me to it :frowning:

6

I think that you can only vary fork rake within a certain range for a specific headtube angle before other factors such as wheel flop etc. get too wacky.