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3T Explains Design of Luteus Disc Cyclocross Fork

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2011 3t cycling luteus full carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross forkWhen we posted the first ever look at 3T’s new Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork, there were a flood of comments and questions about the design, particularly regarding the outside placement of the hydraulic hose. Naturally, we were curious, too, so we inquired. Here’s 3T’s response:

“The fork is part of the FUNDA family: this road fork is the most aero dynamic fork in the market. The LUTEUS fork has been developed keeping that in mind, i.e. keeping the legs as small as possible, while giving enough tyre clearance. Having the cable on the inside, would mean we had to make the legs wider, and hence they would be significantly less aero.

Secondly: by putting the cable on the inside, where all the mud gathers, this would result in a heavy mud build up on one side of the inner leg, and hence reduced performance.

That’s the reasoning.”

There you go. We’re waiting on some info from several other manufacturers about forthcoming and existing disc brake ‘cross forks and will post as soon as we get it.

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lqdedison
lqdedison
13 years ago

Their reasoning may be correct in their minds but if consumers don’t like it and think it’s a bad idea nobody’s going to buy it. That’s something to think about.

Why didn’t they run the cable down the back side of the left leg? That would in a way hide the cable and meet their “aerodynamic design” criteria. They could probably even mold a groove for the cable so that the cable itself would form the back edge of the fork. Now that would be slick.

Gillis
Gillis
13 years ago

wow, that sounds like some skewed logic.
1. the fork may already be “aero” but aerodynamics have little significance in a cyclocross.
2. “by putting the cable on the inside, where all the mud gathers”–um, I’ve never had mud gather on the inside of a fork leg. mtb, or cx. (at the crown yes, but not anywhere between the axle and rim)
3.Claiming the legs need to be wider to accommodate the cable sounds lazy. There is no reason this is necessary. It would just need to have a fixing point at the front of the leg to avoid the tire (like every suspension fork).

I understand the need to work with what you’ve got, but I’d like to see something designed specific to cx rather than just modded for it. If this is the direction they’re taking I’ll be looking at others to see what they do,

uglyyeti
uglyyeti
13 years ago

Sounds like a tooling issue/excuse. Don’t want to break the mold (or build a new one).

Tom
Tom
13 years ago

I don’t think consumers will be that satisfied with the routing. It’s ugly. Even if it is more aero, I don’t think it will be perceived by consumers as that.

To clarify one thing that these photos do a bad job of showing, is that the cable is inside a groove so that the housing runs more-or-less flush with the surface of the fork:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23446849@N03/5296937194/sizes/z/in/photostream/

I don’t see why they couldn’t have done the same thing on the side of the leg, or the back of the leg…They still would satisfied all of their design requirements without it looking fugly.

lesscost
lesscost
13 years ago

Same mold, but higger final price for this fork

All the brands works like this

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