[CR]Calculating fork rake?

(Example: Bike Shops)

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:15:45 -0400
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "ADP" <aphillips9@mindspring.com>
Subject: [CR]Calculating fork rake?

The only problem about being Ann's Home for Wayward Bicycles and working in a bike shop is that all of my neighbors in my condo complex have clued in on this and are either giving me "presents," (no! not another "Next!") or coming to me with problems.

I'm helping my neighbor, Jenna, put together a nice little steel 1980 Rossin she got. We are totally unable to insert any stem, - and I had a lot of stems to try - in the steerer tube. I had my local frame repair resource check it out and Tamara is convinced that the tube is either slightly bent or deformed in some way and it would be best to replace the entire fork.

Now I can get a pretty inexpensive chrome fork from QBP, thats just fine. Question is, this is a very small frame, like a 48 cm and I want to measure the fork rake on the existing fork. It looks like it has a lot of rake, to avoid some portion of toe clip overlap. Obviously I'd want to compare the original fork to the one in the QBP catalog.

Is this something I can do without engaging a mechanical engineer? With you know, tools at home, like a tape measure and a calculator?

Ann Phillips
Decatur GA