You can get a custom steel fork for the same price, built however you like.

 

I live in Europe, but I haven't found anyone that can do this for me. Is there a thread here for vendors (preferably in Europe) building forks on demand?

 

I did the same thing with a salsa steel fork, but the Chinese carbon was not an issue. In particular, the style with the aluminum crown and glue in carbon fork tubes seems like a fairly low risk design.
Make sure to get a 'suspension corrected' fork, that is one with similar sagged AC length.

 

I did the same thing with a salsa steel fork, but the Chinese carbon was not an issue. In particular, the style with the aluminum crown and glue in carbon fork tubes seems like a fairly low risk design.
Make sure to get a 'suspension corrected' fork, that is one with similar sagged AC length.

Have you experimented with a chinese carbon fork? If yes, how long have you been riding one? Any issues so far? It's not my main goal to get a carbon fork on my bike, but I cannot neglect the fact that those forks are extremely lightweight, so there is some benefit there, provided that it won't snap in half.

As for the corrected height, I mostly ride the fork locked at full extend, so maybe I should buy one that is not corrected. My main concern is the fork offset, most forks nowadays are 45mm of offset or more, while mine is at 39.

 

I have a 2005 fuji 26er mtb I turned into a gravel ish bike. Rigid carbon fork from carboncycles.cc, which is a Chinese manufacturer masquerading as a US/UK company. They claim to have a UK warehouse anyway.

I have the version with the aluminum crown, carbon bottoms. It is certainly lighter than the original coil fork. The geo is right after measuring my A2C and added a bit to account for sag. I ordered one from their 'US stock", which took less than a week to arrive to new york.

It's seen 1.5 riding seasons, with approximately 1200 miles on gravel/paved canal trail. So far so good. I'm not rough on it, but I do recall one instance when a distracted pedestrian forced me to hit a curb rather hard. Hard enough to give me a pinch flat and bend my rim but the fork did not explode as everyone suggests Chinese carbon would, and I still have all my teeth.

 

My Tooseek's have gone well.
Out of 3, 1 has been dodgy - not flat where the crown race sits.

 

I have two rigid forks from carboncycles.cc, with different details - fork crown height, steerer diameter - to fit two different older steel mtb frames. Mine said they were made in Taiwan. Carbon legs; aluminum crown, dropouts, and post mount brake fittings; the 1 1/8" steerer is aluminum, while my 1" steerer is steel (and extra long - a custom order). My experience has been 100% positive.

 

I just checked carboncycles, they sell at about 3x the price of the Toseek and other reputable aliexpress forks, and it's not worth it, at least in my case. If I understand correctly, those aliexpress original forks are good enough for the task. As I said, a few years ago people appeared to be very judgmental about those forks, but now they have proven that they are up to the task?

Because if that's the case, then I should buy one of those right away. But as I said, I do not wanna risk with a fork that has a high chance of breaking unexpectedly.

 

I bought my two carboncycles forks for around $175 USD each, and I see they're now slightly more expensive. But I wouldn't hesitate to buy them again.

I can't speak to those other forks, which aren't just priced differently, they're also designed and built differently - including, in some cases, carbon steerer tubes, crowns, and dropouts. For my part, I'd be reluctant to use even expensive forks from reputable brands if they have a carbon steerer. I like that mine have metal steerers, metal crowns, metal dropouts, and round + straight carbon fork blades bonded into the crown and dropouts. That's a design that other brands sell too, including MRP/White Brothers and Carver, and it seems fundamentally similar to the design of Wound Up forks. (I definitely do not know whether or how the carboncycles forks differ in manufacturing or materials etc from other apparently similar forks.)

Anyway, if - or when - it were me, this is not where I would choose to save $100-$150.