Description

The Crust Clydesdale Fork gets you on a cargo bike easily and cheaply, because it is made to replace the standard fork on most touring, cross, and old-school non-suspension-corrected rigid mountain bikes. It may look weird, but the basic plan behind it is that with a smaller wheel you can load up more payload. The lower center-of-gravity, along with properly designed rake makes it handle a whole lot better with a load than any standard fork with a porteur rack.

This design pre-dates Crust. The first version, hacked together with a borrowed torch and some worn-out files, worked surprisingly well. Since then it’s gone through a few evolutions including a leap toward disc brakes. ( But there are V brake post mounts also, just incase disk is not your thing.) It has a plethora of braze-ons so you can easily attach a solid deck, some lights, and some tie-downs and it even has fenders mounts now.

You’ll need a 20” wheel with a 9mm axle. (2.2″ wide tire is what I like.) In our experience 32 spoke wheels, with cheap double wall box section rims, have been super sturdy. More spokes can’t hurt, less then 28 probably isn’t a good idea.

Lets talk numbers – There are two main measurements which will determine if this is going to work for you: The Head Tube Angle, and the Axle-Crown Length. To be most versatile, The Cargo Fork was designed to replace a fork with an axle-crown measurement of 400mm or 15 ¾”, which is really common measurement, which you’ll find on a lot of touring, cyclocross, and stout steel old-school rigid mountain bike frames… that’s basically most of the sturdy frames you would be thinking about converting into a cargo truck. LHT’s, Cross Checks, old Stump Jumpers… even our own Evasion mates well with the Cargo Conversion Fork.

The Cargo Fork was designed with a 72 degree head tube angle in mind. If your frame has a 72 degree head tube angle, and a standard fork axle-crown measurement of 400mm or 15 ¾”, then your bike, with The Cargo fork will still have a 72 degree head tube angle and the platform will be level.

If you have the prescribed fork length but your head tube angle is different? Then your head tube angle will remain as before, but the platform will be out of level by whatever that difference in those angles is. Not a big deal.

Ok, so what if your axle-crown measurement is much different from 400mm or 15 ¾”? Then your head tube angle, seat tube angle, and bottom bracket height are going to change. Generally, frame angles will all change by about 1 degree per 10mm of axle-crown length difference, and your bottom bracket height will change by about half of that difference. If your original fork is longer than 400mm, then the resultant angles with The Cargo Fork installed will be steeper and the bottom bracket will be lower. If your original fork is shorter than 400mm, then the resultant angles with The Cargo Fork installed will be slacker and the bottom bracket will be higher.

All 1″ forks come with a cane creek 40 headset and a shim so you can run a 1,1/8th stem if need be. Keep in mind if you have an old one inch threaded bike, this fork will work great! That is why we have included the headset threadless headset, as it makes it nice and easy to go from 1″ threaded to threadless.

Clears a 2.2 tire no problem, some people have gone bigger, but that is on you to figure out.

160mm rotor is good for stoping if you plan on going the disc route.

Steer tube length is 340mm.