First look: 595g full-carbon mountain bike fork from PRO

Composite legs, crown and steerer

PRO XCR fork

James Costley-White/BikeRadar

James Costley-White

Published: September 26, 2009 at 7:00 am

Designers at Shimano componentry offshoot PRO have come up with a superlight new rigid mountain bike fork.

Unlike many 'carbon' cross-country forks which have alloy crowns or steerers, the XCR is made entirely of unidirectional carbon fibre.

It has Post Mount disc brake tabs, a 350mm steerer tube and weighs in at a claimed 595g (1.3lb). RRP is £299.99 and it should be available in mid-November 2009.

Shimano make an XCR carbon bar, alloy stem and alloy bar-ends to match. For full details see pro-bikegear.com. The full steering setup is claimed to weigh a featherlight 850g, but it'll cost you around £550.

James Costley-White

Editor, Mountain Biking UK magazine

James Costley-White is the editor of Mountain Biking UK (MBUK), the UK's best-selling mountain biking magazine, founded in 1988. James, aka JCW, has been an avid mountain biker since 1992, during which time he's amassed a huge amount of knowledge about the sport and tons of riding experience. He can regularly be found riding the trails around Bristol and South Wales. As well as editing MBUK, JCW contributes regular product reviews and other articles to the magazine. He's a fully-qualified professional journalist, certified as a senior reporter by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), and holds a postgraduate diploma in journalism from Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture. As well as heading up MBUK, he's worked for other cycling titles including BikeRadar.com, ChopMTB.com and Triathlon Plus magazine, along with the Bristol Post, Western Daily Press, Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen newspapers, in print and online.