DAMN Riders - No rules, Just ride!

When I recently replaced the fork seals on Stacey's FrankenBeta 80 I saw that the little Paioli 32MM fork tubes are bent at the lower triple clamp. My guess is this if from some Old FAT Guy riding it??? DUH!

SO I need to straighten then - which I think takes a press and some skill and patience.

Does anyone have access to a press or can you recommend a shop to do it?

ALSO - Do they have to be disassembled - OR could one do it with the lowers still attached (since there is more of the tube showing below the bend than above anyway?

THANKS!

You wanted to add rake to the front, now you have extra rake and not happy. Just no pleasing you.
I say just spin 180 degrees in the clamp and keep riding it.

I actually thought about that (for a couple of seconds until I woke up) - - But as I'm sure you know, what I now have (with bent back forks) adds quite a bit of trail which makes the bike more stable (more like an enduro/mx bike) I imagine it would be SCARY with them turned around and having much less trail than even the original trials geometry.

For those that are not deep into suspension geometry - adding rake to get more trail only works if done at the steering stem (by changing the angle there OR by dropping the rear which does the same thing).

I have a spare set of 950. Forks if you want more ground clearance. LOL

I was going to say spinning the forks around would be a bad idea for the reasons you gave. :)

I just had forks straightened a couple weeks ago, but I can't recommend the shop that I used. They charged $85 (one hour shop rate) and didn't even use a wooden block in the press so I can see little hash marks on my forks from where the press pushed down on it.

You need to remove the tubes from the lowers. They'll get in the way while trying to straighten the tubes. This is work you can do yourself, but it requires a strong press, heat, and a lot of patience.

I did find a shop in southern maryland that looked like they would probably do a good job, but they were about $100 for the pair and far from you.


Thanks,

~Patrick

Sam,
I have no skill but I do have a press. If you want to try your hand.