The world's lightest road fork is the Alpha-Q Sub-3. Built with aerospace grade, bladder molded carbon. It utilizes a carbon rooting system that optimizes its stiffness-to-weight ratio, its vibration damping characteristics, and its fatigue durability.
Strengths: Stability in cornering and descending. Good fork for climbing as well. Decent vertical compliance but not the best. Build quality is very good. Steerer/fork crown/fork blades are stiff vertically as a unit. Using the supplied aluminum insert with proper bonding is critical.
Weaknesses: Aluminum steerer sleeve insert is just one more thing to mess. One should have a fairly good idea how long they need their steerer to be before expoxying the insert in place. The steerer can be cut with the insert already bonded but there are restrictions on the minimum depth of sleeve you need to maintain.
Bottom Line:
This fork replaced the Look HSC-2 on my Litespeed Vortex. Look and Vortex since sold and it's currently on my Corrado custom steel.
Nice fork. It offers reasonable comfort, solid in out of the saddle work and descending/cornering, well constructed with a fairly stiff steerer considering it's a 1" model.
Does anyone know what the max height of spacers allowed on an Alpha Q Sub-3 fork is? To get a 8.5cm bar-to-saddle drop, I have to run 3.5cm of spacers (if I am using a flat stem). Read More »
