For sure. Probably the gauge of the steel is far more important than the looks of the bend. I don't know those bikes in particular but in Heine's tests he used a fork from his custom, made with some ultra thin premium steel, and anther from a hybrid, made from thicker high tensile. The latter was by far the worst off in the tests. And that really makes me wonder about gravel bikes, disc forks, and big tires. If you have a rigid fork made for rough roads and cargo on the blades and a disc and an American sized rider, it just requires more material to survive, you probably need that 43 tire to get a comfortable ride. This is not the same as a roadie bike, at all.
Short travel forks only briefly existed on mountain bikes because at first they were retrofit for no-suspension frames where it was swiftly obvious they weren't enough. Added on edit: upon which they didn't throw up their hands, they went bigger and made the frames to use them.
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Genesis 49:16-17
Last edited by Darth Lefty; 08-17-21 at 07:52 AM.