New Carbon Cyclocross Fork from TRP

We spotted these at the Milton Keynes round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup, quietly sitting in the Upgrade tent, now we have our hands on a pair.

TRP are the performance arm of brake giant Tektro and when it comes to cyclo-cross their cantilever brakes where the go-to stoppers if you were in any way competitive and their Spyre and Hy/Rd disc calipers have found a lot of friends amongst those that have embraced discs on ‘cross and road bikes.

With more and more brake systems becoming integrated with the frame and forks TRP decided it was time to make a fork that matched their brakes and this carbon fork is their answer. The fork is designed by Nick Riddle, who used to work for Easton, and they know their way around carbon and forks.

The TRP Carbon Cyclocross Fork is full carbon, comes with a plentiful 350mm length tapered steerer out the box and post mounts designed for a 160mm disc. It has a catalogue weight of 450g, but we’re guessing they’ve taken the thru-axle out to get that, the one we have here is 492g, that’s with the thru-axle in, no ahead bung and 250mm of steerer.

The fork has a 397mm axle to crown measurement and 47mm offset which makes it a cyclo-cross inclined fork, although a road version is in the pipeline, and there’s clearance in there for a 40mm tyre, so perfect for your gravel racing tyre, and with a 32-ish width cyclo-cross tyre there should be loads of mud clearance.

The wheel is held in via a 15mm DT thru-axle, there will be no standard quick-release version available, it’s a feature common on mountainbikes and something that’s becoming more and more frequent on cyclo-cross bikes. A thru-axle copes better with the different forces a disc brake puts on a fork and wheel as opposed to a rim-brake, and it also stiffens up the front end a good deal.

It’s a very tidy looking fork, with black on black graphics and routing for the brake cable/hose directed internally through the left tine.

Pricing is yet to be finalized but Upgrade say it’s going to be about $450, or £300 to you and me. As soon as the thru-axle conversion bits turn up for our wheels these are going in a bike and we’ll get back to you.

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