Forks

Forks connect your front wheel to your bars and stem, letting you direct the bike safely. The most important innovation in forks is the availability of carbon fibre, which gives you a rigid front end, but also soaks up a large amount of road vibration, giving you comfortable long distance riding with no sacrifice to performance. That's not to say that steel forks are a thing of the past, many high end steel bikes have steel forks that are comparable in ride-quality to modern carbon. The most important factors in buying a fork are the steerer diameter (usually 1 inch or 1 and 1\8th of an inch) and whether the steerer is threaded for old style quill stems or threadless for modern A head systems.