I was looking at my forks today and wandering why the two lower bits are not connected like they are on push bikes? instead it just the mudguard that acts like a bridge?
whould it make the forks stiffer against flex if they were - and if so why have they not made them like that?
or is there an upgrade that you can get to do the job?
cheers

They dont have a fork brace because they dont really need one. A steering damper never hurt though lol.

While the forks on some of the earlier bikes are known to flex under heavy loads (braking on race tracks), you won't generally experience it on the road. Although it is why upside down forks were introduced.

Also you have to remember that you need to keep the fork slider area free so the forks can fully compress. Which generally means either the brace is so high it is effectively the lower triple clamp, or so low it goes where the mudguard does, and becomes problematic to fix a problem you would have to be really pushing the bike to experience.

If you look at some historic racers, such as early CB's etc, it's not uncommon to find them fitted with a fork brace. Effectively just a clamp (like a triple clamp) that went across the forks to reduce the effect. Heres a couple of nice examples; http://www.rswracing.com/

I guess Honda didn't think it was warranted on the road.

wig wrote:I was looking at my forks today and wandering why the two lower bits are not connected like they are on push bikes? instead it just the mudguard that acts like a bridge?
whould it make the forks stiffer against flex if they were - and if so why have they not made them like that?
or is there an upgrade that you can get to do the job?
cheers

You have one hell of a mudguard!

MTB forks don't feature triple clamps, unless you're talking about serious downhill bikes. The average NC features an upper fork clamp, lower fork clamp and a bloody great front axle which is a mite tougher than a QR skewer. All of these keep the forks very well located. Meaningful fork flex is something from the days of hopeless chassis design 30 years ago ... or Yuri Geller. Something else will happen before the forks flex enough for you to notice - you'll run out of traction, bottom out the forks or stoppie yourself over the front.

However, for eking out maximum placebo effect you CAN buy a fork brace, and mighty cool it looks too. Just search on e-bay...

all mtb forks have each stanction bridged together, I know they dont have tripple clamps apart from the downhil forks.
its the bridge that I wandered why my cbr doesnt have one.
if you lean hard on a corner not going fast, i can hear the brakes sound like they are a tiny bit rubbing, I work in a push bike shop, so when i mentioned it to another guy in the workshop, he asked the question initially.
anyhow my fornt mudguard brackets broke so i repaird them with fibre glass, now i have a bridge if i wanted it or not!