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Is there much advantage to full carbon as opposed to carbon legs/ally steerer apart from less weight?
I swapped stock alloy steerer carbon blades for monocoque carbon on a CAAD8. There was little difference in handling, but a LOT of difference in weight (about 250g I think). You need to buy some expensive forks to get that weight loss - mine were [url= http://www.starbike.com/en/ritchey-wcs-carbon-fork-road/?currency=GBP&gclid=CLr_nfy7tsgCFUUUwwodPt0HBw ]Ritchey WCS[/url]. My other road bikes are all full carbon.
Having had a fairly entry level set of full carbon forks out of the bike, they are impressively light compared with steel and full aluminium forks and from what I can remember alloy steerered carbon ones- I've only picked the latter up to have a look at in shops though.
Oh and not much difference except weight- any flex/damping if non imagined would be in the blades anyway.
As above, weight. I swapped some beautifully made Fuji carbon/alloy forks for some cheap PX full carbon ones on my first road bike and saved about 300g off them.
From a manufacturing point of view bonding aluminium to CF is well tried and tested, very rarely however the two can separate in time. For that reason I prefer full carbon
I've got some alu/carbon forks in my Madone which are light, but they're old, and were expensive at the time. These days they tend to be heavy because it's the cheap way to do things, rather than an inherent 'feature' of having an alu steerer.
I always think you get a better crown race seat on an ally steerer, but I've never had a carbon on come loose so maybe it's just the look of the thing. You can't argue with the weight saving though, almost as much as a good shit.