Anyone Tried Head Tube Reducers?

[StrippedThread1992]

Hi everyone, hope all's well,

I'm going to be building up a 1&1/8" road bike soon enough and as a guy who prefers steel forks I've been searching for high quality, steel, off the shelf threadless forks (without various eyelets brazed on) to fit. But such a product doesn't seem to exist at the minute-- the best I've been able to come up with is the Surly Steamroller forks at around £130. But they're a full 1kg in weight with an unsuitable 38 degree rake.

So as far as I can tell to get high quality, steel, threadless 1&1/8" forks for racing bikes (no eyelets) I'd probably have to go to a framebuilder which isn't really an option just yet.

However the world (and my garage) is full of great quality 1" steel threaded forks (both new off the shelf and second hand) so my solution is that I'm considering using a set of those cheap Wheels Manufacturing head tube reducers. I believe you just press them into the head tube of your frame and this reduces the head tube internal diameter by a quarter of an inch. Then you press the 1" head set cups in as normal.

It's a funny little situation as when you try to search for information like this you just find tons of people trying to do the opposite and upgrade their old vintage road bikes to threadless forks.


Anyway has anyone ever used the reducers and have you any feedback for me?

 

[StrippedThread1992]

Success, found a suitable fork in the end. No need for reducers.

Thanks anyway.

 

[moonlite]

Hi mate -- I read this with interest yesterday but neglected to respond. Too many distractions.

I have also looked at head tube reducers, for a similar reason -- I bought a Chinese titanium MTB fork on eBay and stupidly selected the 1" unthreaded option. The fork, reducers and a Ritchey 1" headset are sitting in a box waiting for me to have a go at assembling them.

All academic now, though, as you found a fork -- looking forward to updates on the build!

 

[moonlite]

Oh, I did find this thread on reducing 1 1/4 to 1 1/8 which is interesting if quite brief. Again, too late for you but good to know it's been discussed in the past.

 

[Splatter Paint]

Didn’t some Cannondales come shimmed down from the factory? Or is it ‘recollections may vary’?!?

Lefties and the in-headtube shocks looked weird, but ordinary forks in a big head tube looked weirder IMHO.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

Again it's academic now as you're sorted, but this is something I ran across re 1 1/4 to 1 /18" the other day. Not sure if it was on here or perhaps in an old MBI article but either way, I believe Problem Solvers made adaptors. It stuck in my mind because of the thread around drop bar levers/cable discs & another PS gizmo the Travel Agent canti/caliper to V-brake cable pull adaptors was mentioned.

Can't recall what the headset adaptor was called but it was a similarly corny/cool kind of name. I wanna say Head Honcho but that was something else wasn't it?

 

[eri]

What stands out to me… why you want a steel fork?

I’ve been really impressed by the ride of every carbon fork I’ve ridden. Stiff, light and very smooth. I have ridden an enve road on a lynskey, an alpha q cx and cx20 on my cyclocross bike, and an enve disc on the cielo and I think they are a really really huge ride quality improvement. Not so charming to be beat up with a steel fork. At local recyclry the used carbon forks are $20.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

Having experienced failure of a Carbon seatpost, my testes will bear witness to the fact that carbon ain't for everybody!

Saying that, 20 notes... I'd probably give them a look if I was in the market for road forks.

 

[eri]

Having experienced failure of a Carbon seatpost, my testes will bear witness to the fact that carbon ain't for everybody!

Saying that, 20 notes... I'd probably give them a look if I was in the market for road forks.

Yeah really - think of the savings!

And how much could facial / dental reconstruction possibly cost? cant cost that much can it?

I think… im ok with modern name branded carbon. Ive had carbon bars easton/renthal/enve on my mtb for more than a decade. I know early carbon had a terrible rep but the parts i saw break were stupid cnc stuff from the 90s.

Carbon forks give a truly fantastic ride. Goes very well with steel and ti frames-which surprised me.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

Well I'm in the uk so they fix my stupid mistakes on the house haha... but yeah, I'd want to be giving them a thorough inspection before trusting life & limb to them. The seatpost in question was on a bike I test rode so not sure of the brand, but it literally lasted 30 seconds. I'm a big guy but not THAT big!!!!!