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Poseidon Redwood Fork?

Old 05-13-22, 05:40 PM
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Camilo
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Poseidon Redwood Fork?

Does anyone know what the A/C length of the fork on the Redwood is? I'm thinking of getting one in XXS for my wife and am considering changing the fork if I do. They publish the offset - 45mm, but not the leg length.

That's what I'm looking for, but will tell the whole long story in case anyone has alternatives for me to consider.

I need an inexpensive all road bike for my very small wife. The Redwood, compared to others in the modest price range I'm looking for** has the smallest frame - in terms of standover - I can find, helped by the 650B wheels. It's not stack and reach that is usually the problem, she's mainly limited by a comfortable standover being not only short, but proportionally short-legged. Believe me, she has made do in the past with slightly tall bikes she can't straddle, and just doesn't like it. A lot of these kind of bikes have a high bottom bracket, which usually makes the standover just an inch or so out of her comfort zone.

I was thinking of doing 26" rigid MTB conversion, but with time and $ considered, the Redwood is almost exactly what I'm looking for price and spec-wise. The Poseidon X is better suited to the riding she will use it for (road, moderate gravel, smooth, easy single track) and is quite a bit lighter, but it doesn't go small enough. I've even done some calculations to see what a 650B wheel with a 35-40mm tire would do, and it's not quite enough.

I think the Redwood w/650B will work really well especially if I put on some much lighter 650B wheels (I already have), and some less aggressive, smaller, lighter tires suited to her riding. I'm thinking if I could replace the fork with a CF fork to shed more weight and maybe make the ride a bit more comfortable, it would compete the picture for her. More like a smaller version of what the X is.

Yeah, I know, you may say, why not just up the price-point and get a bike so-equipped. I would if I could. Again, it's very difficult to find a bike to fit her, with the very low gearing she needs, and this will do very nicely on both accounts. I've looked a lot. I look at the smallest sizes offered in used cross bikes, new gravel and cross bikes, and the dimensions, especially standover, I need is very rare.

So if anyone knows or can measure the A/C of a Redwood, I'd appreciate it! I could get started finding a fork or deciding it's not worth the $$ to upgrade that part.

**For what it's worth she has a great fitting CF road bike and a retirement "grail" bike: Litespeed Watia gravel bike with AXS Etap. The new bike will be relegated to permanent out of state RV/travel duty so we (1) don't have to schlepp bikes back and forth on the plane to where we store our RV, (2) is not so expensive it would be a tragedy if it gets stolen and (3) I really prefer the simplicity of mechanical brakes and shifting for traveling hither and yon. Although we love the ETap, I really wouldn't look forward to finding parts or fixing it if something goes haywire in rural US or Canada. A conventional 1X system with mechanical discs would be fixable or replaceable almost anywhere.

Every one of our 6 Road and gravel bikes in the garage I built up from the frame so buying a complete bike is a serious departure for me! You can tell- I can hardly resist modifying it.

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by Camilo; 05-13-22 at 05:48 PM.
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Old 05-13-22, 06:51 PM
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tangerineowl
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I'm thinking of a couple carbon fork alternatives, but I'll hold off until you get that a-t-c.

Noting your comment on her relatively short legs; same with frame options.
What is her cycling inseam?
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Old 05-13-22, 11:40 PM
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Originally Posted by tangerineowl
I'm thinking of a couple carbon fork alternatives, but I'll hold off until you get that a-t-c.

Noting your comment on her relatively short legs; same with frame options.
What is her cycling inseam?
We measured it at some point, but now I just go by the standover of the bikes she now rides. Her "XS" Jamis road bike (my measurement) road bike is 27.3", Her Watia XS is about 28, maybe a little more, which she's happy with with her riding shorts and shoes on. 29-30, which is common in the smallest size cyclocross type of bike - which she used to use for gravel (at 29.5"), is too tall and she really was uncomfortable dismounting. The ones with a greater BB drop can get there, or the ones with more slanting TT (like the Redwood). It was fairly easy to find a 700c road bike that was sub-28 because of the lower BB. aside: Kind of wish I'd gone with 650c, but she likes the bike as-is. One of the reasons the Litespeed Watia works is that it has a decent BB drop which gets it a cm or more lower than bikes that are designed around a cross frame. I think a lot of "gravel" bike frames think they're MTB-lite (i.e. high bb) vs Road+ (lower BB), if that makes sense. It plays out in the reviews of gravel bike handling and tires that I read too.

Now, I do think the Redwood is on the MTB-esque side of the market, but I think that (a) they have a genuine XXS size and (b) they design around lots of standover / frame size like MTB. They do have a high BB though. That doesn't bother me too much because I plan to swap out the large MTB-like tires it comes with to some ~35MM tamer tires which will lower the bike a bit, but it will still be OK
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Old 05-14-22, 09:11 AM
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If you can't get measurements from a Redwood owner, I have an 'X'.
Given both bikes can use 700c & 650B, and the other frame dims are what make the differences in Dims (Head tube angle is same on both bikes) - I would be surprised if they're NOT using the same fork on both bikes. visually it looks the same.
here are the dims on my 'X' fork
A/C : 375mm
other dims to consider..
measuring 50mm down from Crown (roughly where the widest of tire width is on my bike) the clearance is 62mm +- 1mm
I have a Conti Speed ride 42mm 700c on the front.
Clearance from top of tire to crown is roughly 28mm +- 1mm.
...if this helps...
not that this impacts for your wife, but I'm certain I could easily put a 50mm-700c gravel tire in this fork.
Ride On Yuri
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Old 05-14-22, 03:27 PM
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Camilo
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Originally Posted by cyclezen
If you can't get measurements from a Redwood owner, I have an 'X'.
Given both bikes can use 700c & 650B, and the other frame dims are what make the differences in Dims (Head tube angle is same on both bikes) - I would be surprised if they're NOT using the same fork on both bikes. visually it looks the same.
here are the dims on my 'X' fork
A/C : 375mm
other dims to consider..
measuring 50mm down from Crown (roughly where the widest of tire width is on my bike) the clearance is 62mm +- 1mm
I have a Conti Speed ride 42mm 700c on the front.
Clearance from top of tire to crown is roughly 28mm +- 1mm.
...if this helps...
not that this impacts for your wife, but I'm certain I could easily put a 50mm-700c gravel tire in this fork.
Ride On Yuri
Thanks it helps a lot. I was thinking the same thing - why wouldn't they be at least similar in height, if not rake and tire clearance? For what I'm thinking of doing, the tire clearance is not paramount because she probably won't be running tires at the extremes of clearance anyway. Poseidon sells a "thru axle conversion kit" for the X. The full kit includes a CF fork with thru axle (they say it's 400mm A/C though), rear conversion hardware and two Redwood 650B wheels. I saw that the other day and thought the fork only option would be a good option. I contacted Poseidon, but they said it's intended for the X and is "not compatible" with the Redwood. I am impressed with their quick responses for the info I'm looking for But I'm not totally convinced that statement is true. I know they have the same tapered steerer so, to me, that would be the major hard "not compatible" factor. I've changed forks and/or replaced forks over the years and have a good idea of which deviations from original will be noticeable or significant or even if they're significant, whether it would be good or bad. So, if I knew what the OEM Redwood fork is in terms of AC and rake (I believe a fairly standard 45mm), I can make my own decision about whether It's so far off to be meaningful.

After what you've posted, the only info I'm missing is the AC of the Poseidon fork to compare. Thanks again.
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Old 05-14-22, 04:41 PM
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I'm going to throw out a left-of-center option for the moment and consider you look at the [UK] Hupp Evo cx frameset from KidsRacingUK, and their gravel build option.
$1300 usd including shipping, for their self-build-bundle minus wheels (noting your comment about already having 27.5 wheels).

Hupp Evo cx alu frame weighs 1295gm in the 38cm size. Standard full-carbon fork is 410gm and takes a 27.5x46, or 700c x ????
Thru-axles. Threaded bb. 69deg hta.

38cm frame -in stock colours- is standover 630mm, frame reach 353mm, frame stack 505mm.

That $1300 price was for a 1x Microshift Advent 9sp? build with the 46t cassette, and the JuinTech dual-piston semi-hydro caliper upgrade.
Note JuinTechs give the best lever feel if you install compressionless brake housing.

In the self-build-bundle options you can select from a number of component lengths like, stem, bar width, crank arm length. Chainring size.

You may need the rotary-head seatpost option, to get a correct saddle fore-aft position when fitting the bike.

Self-build bundles [38cm frameset] are currently in stock and look to send in 2weeks or so.

Seems the standard (heaviest) builds with their wheels are around 8.3kg.

I couldn't find a bbdrop number on the frame; would need to contact to find out.

Last edited by tangerineowl; 05-14-22 at 04:47 PM. Reason: txt
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Old 05-14-22, 05:52 PM
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Originally Posted by tangerineowl
I'm going to throw out a left-of-center option for the moment and consider you look at the [UK] Hupp Evo cx frameset from KidsRacingUK, and their gravel build option.
$1300 usd including shipping, for their self-build-bundle minus wheels (noting your comment about already having 27.5 wheels)....
Interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks.
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Old 05-16-22, 12:16 AM
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XS road bikes with full size wheels are always just kind of awkward. Salsa makes a 24 inch wheel drop bar Journeyman. Surly has some of their XS road bikes with small wheel options.

I know you have a gravel bike in mind. You might consider a premium kids hybrid bike like a Woom 5 or 6. They are very light, not junky and use gravel-ish tire width.

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Old 07-16-22, 08:58 PM
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I know that the Redwood A-to-C dimension is published somewhere- just can't find it now. Mine is in the basement- I'll try to remember to measure and post tomorrow.
Stand by.
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Old 07-20-22, 08:10 PM
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Originally Posted by aeshultz
I know that the Redwood A-to-C dimension is published somewhere- just can't find it now. Mine is in the basement- I'll try to remember to measure and post tomorrow.
Stand by.
My stock fork appears to be 415mm - just an eyeball measurement w/o removing it.
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