First of all, I am without a scratch.
My Trek came with the slightly infamous Ishiwata death fork, which I was told not to worry about but maybe keep an eye on. It looks like I did not keep good enough eye.
Cracked on both sides. Looking at the cracks, there's some rust in there on the crack surfaces, so it's probably been there all along. That's good - it means it's not my fault for brazing cantilevers onto it or whatever! I mean, hek, it's nowhere near anything I brazed.
I've put some hard miles on this Trek in the past year since I built it. One thing kept rearing its ugly head, however: violent brake judder! It almost seemed like the brakes had a servo effect, like the fork was flexing enough on braking to cause the brakes to be applied all the more. I changed pads, which made it go away for a little while, but then it came back, worse than before! Another 200 or 300 miles after that, I was riding on a damn sidewalk after a bbq with friends, and testing out the brakes (just for fun, y'know, at low speeds, to try and figure out the judder), and it did a surprise front-wheelie. I thought it was the beer! I put the rear wheel back down, kept riding, but the bike felt funny. This crack is what I found.
@
gugie , got any tips on building my first fork? I'm thinking to make it wide, for 48s, because 48s are the new 42s.
