Fork Fitting

The day had arrived and I was almost fully equipped with a borrowed hacksaw, and a friend who is not scared of giving things a good hit in order to get them to work. I was ready to fit the new forks to my bike. Ready, that is, apart from the still-missing crownrace.

As I lay in bed I hoped that the post I’d heard dropping through the door would turn out to be it, but it wouldn’t and so the job ended up being added to with a new headset.

With a headset bought from the local shop, screwdrivers and a mallet were employed effectively to get the old cups out and the new ones in. This was the first big scary moment as fitting them in any way not-straight could damage the entire frame. It went surprisingly well. As a testament to hitting stuff firmly but gently it will stand the test of time. Moving on to the forks the next job was the new crownrace. This was harder, but once again a screwdriver, an old tee-shirt to protect the race, and a mallet was the answer. Things were going well and we’d hit the point I was most scared of.

Measuring up the fork’s steerer tube against the headtube, stem and spacers was fine, the thought of cutting it was not. Luckily the friend I had involved was of the opinion that I should just “man up” and do it, and while I was doing my best to do this he was half way through the steerer with the saw.

One more bashing-things moment with the star-nut fitting and we were left to bolt it all together and hope for the best.

Look out for my opinions on the difference a new fork can make to a seven year old bike in the coming weeks.

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