Hi! I have a GT Quatrefoil Tandem frame (700d wheels lol) that is in need of a fork. I want to build one, but I have some questions about tube/blade choice. I’m looking to build a QR fork with canti studs cause that is what was on the bike originally. It is a little odd in terms of tandems because it has a straight 1 1/8" headtube and non-tandem spacing in the rear. I’m gonna add a disc tab in the rear for a drag brake.
Main question: Would something like the Columbus Life disc 25.4 fork blade be enough? Wall thickness is 1.2/.9. Fork Blade
I’m tempted by this because the fork is already tapered, which would make it easier to do a QR dropout. I plan to do a segmented fork and was originally going to get some straight gauge tubing from Wicks (probably .065?).
Can I get away with the tapered Columbus blades? if not, does anyone have tips for attaching QR dropouts to a non-tapered 1" fork blade? I maaaybe could make my own.
I don’t really have any advice other than checkout this fork Mone bikes made for a tandem that did the tour divide. Seems like he used WaltWorks fork blades. Might be worth asking or digging deeper on that fork.
We build a few performance tandems every year. Due to the lack of good off-the-shelf carbon forks, I have designed and bought the tooling with a well known TW fork manufacturer last year. They do also the Tout Terrain / Colab forks.
We are now in the (hopefully) last iterations with the layup. A few samples have been already destroyed at EFBE in Germany with all the mechanical testing. There is also a lack of DIN ISO testing standards for tandem forks. We followed the recommendation of EFBE and testing now with the Cargo bike testing standards, and those are pretty hard.
Very cool to see someone is working toward a carbon tandem fork. Will the head tube on that fork be tapered or straight 1-1/8"?
As far as finding steel tandem forks with disk tabs. I went down this rabbit hole and wasn’t able to find anything available as far as fork blades. It looks like tandem specific blades are no longer made.
Shops like Rodriguez and Santana will make a fork for you but it is spendy.
I am really interested in doing the same thing on my own Burley tandem, add a disk tab to rear and then get a disk fork to go full disk front and rear. The braking forces on tandems are just so much greater it is worrying for me to just “wing it” with a fork on my own tandem.
