I have a feeling that there’s going to be some discussion about math on the internets very soon so I’m going to start with something fun and maybe useful for a lot of people in the current era.
I was on a ride yesterday where so many of my ideas come from. I was thinking that folks have been looking at fork swaps a bit and tuning their ride with the fork offset. I’ve said in the past that they are largely tuning flop rather than trail but that isn’t the point here today.
Let’s say you were a bit particular about the changes you make to your bike. You want to change your fork with one of a different offset. You want to keep your head tube angle and height unchanged after making the swap. What length should the fork be? How much will this change the front center?
Well, here we go, yo.
For those that are looking to do real math for solving problems, I highly recommend that they acquire the greatest calculator ever devised, the TI-89. Not a TI-84, not a TI-83. Those are terrible calculators.
This is a very different calculator that does what others don’t. The TI-89 is really the finest desktop tool I’ve ever used that isn’t a full blown computer. I use it to confirm and improve my equations that I use in spreadsheets and in SolidWorks. I use it when designing, in the shop, even at the kitchen table. I own five or six of these.
Getting this tool will make you more powerful. They can be had on ebay for pretty cheap.
The TI-89 has been on the market since 1998 and has been the benchmark since.
