Nova Restocking
 

Just a FYI to all that Nova is currently restocking a fresh shipment. This does include their disk fork blades that many have been waiting for.

Anxiously refreshing the site every 5 minutes.

Okay, ever since I saw the announcement I have checked stock on those blades 5 times.

It would be nice if Paragon would do a run of their DR2060 front dropouts.

I pinged them on instagram if they were getting those blades and got this response. "Once we post - check out #202941"

202941 is what I have been checking
"sold out" so not updated yet

Yup, not yet but they are in the order. Just save some for me when they pop up.

I don't think I'll be causing a shortage :)
I want to try bending some, but I wasn't going to do it while they were irreplaceable and I'm pretty sure I only have one pair. And you can't get the Reynolds blades right now either.
I finally got my bending die ready to go and all of a sudden there was no stock anywhere.

They are now showing as in stock. Go crazy!

I saw that. Holding off for a bit so I can think of other things to order.
They even sent me a notification that the blades were in stock, so their notification system works. Good to see.

I didn't order yet from Nova, but I probably will soon. Monday, I got an email from Andy Newlands saying he finally had pre-bent Reynolds 631 disc specific blades in stock. They are amazingly stout. Got them in 2 days all the way across the U.S. from Portland.

I didn't realize that disc brake forks need to be stiffer than a typical rim brake fork due to the braking loads. This forum is great for educational purposes regarding matters like this.

So, for guys that aren't racing or packing heavy loads on their bikes, and don't need a stiff fork, is running a disc creating a compromise in terms of ride comfort?

tl;dr: it all depends on how much risk you want to take.

It's not too hard to find pics on the internet where a blade has folded because of a disc brake. The solution a lot of people use is to put a big, long Willits-style mount on the disc side. And thus achieve the same thing as an overbuilt blade does only with less safety margin. There are other approaches that, by their reports, work for some people. Personally, I ride my bike for distances and in places where a fork blade folding would be extremely inconvenient. I am a little skeptical about the advantages of fork blade compliance anyway. The times when I have been aware my fork flexed appreciably, my hands still got a beating. And my rim brake bikes with smaller tires but more compliant forks do just about nothing for hand comfort. Tire compliance is where it's at, IMO.

I'm unconvinced that people are doing the engineering on steel forks needed to really answer the safety question. I'd rather just overbuild and not worry about it.

To add to that, any bike of mine with disks will have at least a 40mm tire. I really doubt that I would gain any comfort from a more compliant blade with a tire of that size.

I just placed a Nova order including these blades. Now I should be set for a few years given my rate of building with disks:) Andy

Has Nova closed yet again?

They cleared everything out and shut down some time ago.

Hum. I thought they reorganized about a year ago. Apparently, that didn't go so well?

It didn't last long. Pretty sad.
They didn't have a lot of stock of things that people wanted.

I heard they got bought by a new owner, burned, then bought it back, but could never get rolling again.

The interim period before the final revival was a bit murky. I would have loved to support them, but I never needed anything in the short revival period.
It's a tough business

Hank and Monika (Henry James Bicycles) worked out of their home. So did Joe Bringhelli. This keeps operating costs down. I think Nova had a storefront, which means they had a much higher overhead.

They were out of a small industrial area and had no real storefront. Just an office and materials. You had to call to pick up in person.