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Hands On: 3T Luteus Disc Brake Cyclocross Fork

Written by Tyler Benedict
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real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork

We ran into James, 3T’s head of sales, walking around NAHBS. As luck would have it, he had a pre-production version of their forthcoming Luteus disc brake cyclocross fork stuffed into his pack. Here are some of the first hands-on photos of the fork anywhere!

The original posts and technical discussions on the fork are here, here and here. We’re guessing the holes for the hose ties will be a bit more polished and smooth by the time this fork reaches full production, and paint will fill in some of the coarse edges, too.

Jump past the break for lots more…

real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork

Two hose tie tunnels will help keep the brake hose in line, and we’re guessing the OCD types might use a little double stick tape to keep it super tight along the fork legs. And by OCD, we mean us, too.

real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork

In person, the crown is massive. This photo shows it in relation to the 1.5″ (!) tapered steerer bottom. This should be one stiff fork.

real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork

real world photos of the 3T Luteus carbon fiber disc brake cyclocross fork
Tyler Benedict
11,282 articles

Tyler Benedict is the Founder of Bikerumor.com, where he’s been writing about the latest bikes, components, and cycling technology for almost two decades. Prior to that, Tyler launched and built multiple sports nutrition brands and consumer goods companies, mostly as an excuse to travel and ride in new places.

Based in North Carolina, Tyler also loves the Vanlife & family adventure travel and is always on the lookout for the next shiny new part and off-grid adventure.

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Chris Jensen
Chris Jensen
13 years ago

hold up, is that a thru-axle i see?

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Gillis
Gillis
13 years ago

@chris
No. The dropouts are forward facing to counter the potential for the disc brake to pull the wheel out with a standard more vertical dropout. You can see the ‘foot’ of the block in the last photo more clearly.

Still not into the cable routing and don’t find it at all necessary to go that way. If you saw any of the disc brake equipped road/cx bikes at the nahbs you would see they all ran the cable up the back of the fork leg. Why? common sense. Not sure if any ran it to the inside though, like you would on a mtb sus. fork.

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Tom
Tom
13 years ago

It is still ugly and their reasons for doing so as described in past posts still don’t check out to me. Why make it ugly and have to complicate things with “tie tunnels” when a much better looking solution would be far simpler with it down the backside. Epic fail if you need to resort to double sided tape to keep the hose/housing tight.

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Ben
Ben
13 years ago

I can definitely see some benefits to routing the cable in along the outside. The problem with routing cable on the back side of the fork is that it rubs paint off of your head tube. This seems like a fairly elegant way of moving the housing to a location where it won’t wear on your frame’s finish.

Yes there are cheap stickers and rubber housing covers that can be purchased to prevent damage to your frame. But for the price of a carbon fork, I really don’t want to add a bunch of half-assed stickers to make the system work regardless of how cheap they are.

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Matthew
Matthew
13 years ago

That’s not a through axle, that’s the plastic support that ships with the fork so that it doesn’t deflect the blades inward while shipping. Most carbon forks come with them… go to your LBS and ask to see a new fork – you’ll see one of those supports.

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Ernie
Ernie
13 years ago

CX disc brake fans can only hope that Chris Sugai and Steve Domahidy of Niner saw this
fork and are now forging ahead with a CX version of their sucessful MTB 29er fork.

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