There has been a lot of discussion about low-trail forks for touring bikes a'la' French rando and porteur bikes. I've had bikes with low trail, notably Raleigh International, Super Course and Grand Prix, that had trail numbers below 40mm. Made them feel light, but they also had a tendency to get squirrely on high speed descents. Anyway, read Bicycle Quarterly and you'll get the whole story.

I just gotback from 4 1/2 weeks in Italy riding the mezzogiorno I took one of my "breakaway" bikes and carried at least 50 pounds split between front and rear racks.

The bike you can see on my website. It has 72.5 degree steering angle, 44 cm chainstays and a slightly lower bottom bracket than most road bikes. I put together a fork with Nova's heavier blade and a Pacenti Paris Brest crown, giving it about 52 mm trail. I did find that the bike tends to wander at very low speeds but was steady as a rock at higher speed. I have been crawling up those endless Italian grades, then flying down at motorcycle speeds. Whoopee!

I am ready to think about low-trail forks now. When I get back mid-June I think I'll see what 40 degrees will do. Will I still have the high-speed stability I need for those Fast descents? One way to find out!

I've got to say, the VO "Constructeur" front rack looks great on a show bike but it is kind of marginal for what I'm doing. It's upper attachment is a via a steel strap to a single 5mm bolt at the fork crown. It wiggles and will cAUSE YOU grief on a fast descent. My solution would be to brAZe a couple of struts to the rack and then attach them at the fork crown for a 4-point mount.

PS the food was great and the Italians were really nice. It was cheap and fun and it didn't rain hardly at all! I'm gonna do it again next year.

jn

Thursday"