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A modern gravel fork for your existing bike? The 1 1/8″ Wayfinder from Wilde Bicycle Co. does it all!

Wilde Bikes Wayfinder carbon adventure fork and flowersPhoto c. Wilde Bikes
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Hey kids, remember back in March of this year when I shared the news about Wilde Bikes’ new waxed canvas bag, the Rack Buddy.

Well, Wilde Bikes are at it again, but this time they’re introducing a new “do-it-all” carbon adventure fork, The Wayfinder! More importantly, the Wayfinder is designed to work with your current bike–even if it doesn’t have a tapered headtube.

Wilde's new Wayfinder carbon adventure fork
Photo c. Wilde Bikes

The new Wayfinder is a welcomed addition to the other aftermarket carbon forks that are available currently, for a few reasons.

The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that the fork appears to be super versatile. It looks to fit a bunch of existing bikes with its pretty standard axle to crown measurement of 398mm and an offset of 49mm.

Add those two features to the fact that it has a straight 1 1/8″ steer tube which gives this fork the awesome ability to retrofit to a bike with the “old” standard 34/34 headtube as well as fit (with the right headset) to newer bikes with tapered 44mm headtubes.

To borrow from the software industry, it’s that kind of “backward compatibility” that makes this fork unique in offering cyclists something the other carbon aftermarket forks, with tapered steer tubes, can’t offer.

Nice moves Wilde!

Wilde Bikes Wayfinder carbon adventure fork
Nice lines.

This fork will give a unique opportunity to cyclists that ride older gravel frames or frames from the likes of Surly and All-City, to add both lighter forks and add features to their bikes.

In fact, that was kinda the goal that Jeff Frane, the founder of Wilde Bicycle Co. set out to achieve.

Jeff says on his blog, that with the Wayfinder Carbon Fork, it’s easy to “pair with some of our favorite do-it-all platforms such as the All-City Space Horse, Surly Straggler, All-City Gorilla Monsoon, or Surly Midnight Special. (Having worked at QBP for 13 years and created and managed All-City for 10, I have a bias towards those beauties and designed this with them in mind)”

Wilde Wayfinder fork Internal brake routing
Clean internal routing.

The new Wayfinder Fork carries with it a few features that Wilde Bicycles thinks are essential for gravel riding, exploration, or bikepacking.

  1. Three pack mounts
  2. Internal dynamo routing (I totes agree)
  3. Internal brake cable routing
  4. “Real deal” fender mounts
  5. Massive tire clearance (Yatzee!)
Wilde Wayfinder Carbon Fork Internal dynamo routing
More clean internal routing, this time: for the dynamo. Plus fork crown fender mount.

The Wayfinder fork has a weight of 470g with the uncut steerer. Wilde says that’s “among the lightest forks on the market”. They also state the Wayfinder was actually designed to be robust, strong and durable while still being engineered to “soak up bumps and isolate riders from road chatter allowing you to go longer and in greater comfort without sacrificing strength and durability.”

The Wilde Bicycle company’s website states the Wayfinder has a max rider weight of 240lbs, which is respectable!

Wilde Wayfinder carbon adventure fork

Retail & Specs

Retail: $499

Specs

  • Fork Weight: 470g with uncut steerer
  • Tire Clearance: 700c X 2.1″ or 27.5″ X 2.3″
  • Axle to Crown – 398mm
  • Rake – 49mm
  • Steerer Length – 350mm
  • Axle – 130mm length 12 x 1.5

Features

  • Three Pack Mounts
  • Flat Mount Brake
  • Thru Axle – 12x100mm
  • Internal Brake Routing
  • Internal Dynamo Routing
  • Fender Mounts
  • Fully Threaded Center Mount

Capacity

  • Three Pack Mount – 6 lbs per side
  • Rack – 20 lbs

Go check out more from Wilde Bicycle Co. at the link below.

wildebikes.com 

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dr_lha
dr_lha
2 years ago

Looks like a great fork, but I don’t really understand why $500 is the price point for these items. I recently bought a steel frame that had a carbon fork almost identical to this one (except for dynamo routing), with similar weight and specs, and the price for the entire set was $919 with shipping and tax. Am I really supposed to believe the majority of the cost of the frameset is the fork?

Dave
Dave
2 years ago
Reply to  dr_lha

Thats exactly the fact… Steel is a relatively cheap and easy to process material with a houndred of years in mass production. Besides carbon is relatively new, hard to handle with almost no standarisation and no way to recycle …

whatever
whatever
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave

I don’t know for certain, but I think the OP is saying a steel frame bike with carbon fork. I bought one like that a couple years ago, and the combo was about $700 delivered. $500 for just the fork is absolutely over priced.

mackd
mackd
2 years ago

This looks awesome and kudos to Wilde for backwards compatible-izing it! The crown ration looks good too (too many out there are way too tall which can really mess with geometry)
Any idea on stress testing they’ve done on it? With all the chinese carbon forks out there this seems like something you could trust.

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