Seido BANJO: a carbon fork to turn a road bike into a tourer

Seido is the components arm of Bombtrack, the Cologne brand whose Audax and Cale AL we've reviewed, and its forks are the part of the range worth knowing about. The BANJO is the road one: a full carbon fork with the lowrider mounts moulded into the layup, where most carbon forks have theirs drilled and bonded in afterwards. That is how Seido arrives at a 20kg rack rating on a fork that weighs 455g. It has been in the range since January and costs £440.

The pitch is a fast tourer or an audax bike. If you've got a road frame you like and the fork is the thing stopping you from fitting a dynamo, a rack or a tyre wider than 28mm, the BANJO is aimed squarely at you. We haven't had one in our hands; what follows comes from Seido's release and its product page, with the numbers checked against the latter.

Seido (pronounced 'Sido', the brand says, from the Japanese word for precision) has been going since 2021 by its own account and went public in spring 2022 with the MGV, a 530g carbon fork with triple cage mounts and room for a 29 x 2.25in tyre. Handlebars, saddles, pedals, wheels and bar tape have followed, though the forks are the part the brand itself says it is best known for. The MGV sits on Bombtrack's own Hook EXT and Beyond, and Seido says it has turned up on custom builds from Firefly, Drust, Medusa and Manzanita. The BANJO, in the brand's words, "includes the same features as our successful MGV fork, but in a slimmed down package made for long distance road bikes."

A cutaway Seido fork on a show stand, with the bosses sitting inside the layup. Photo: Seido

Mounts moulded into the carbon

The usual way to put a rack mount on a carbon fork is to drill the finished leg and bond a threaded insert into the hole. Seido lays the bosses into the carbon as the fork is made, so they are part of the structure. That is what lets the brand rate the BANJO at 20kg on a lowrider rack (15kg on a front rack, according to the product page) while, in its words, it "maintains the nimbleness of a modern road fork." Bombtrack has done this on its own bikes for a while: the 2021 Audax models came with a carbon fork carrying mudguard and leg mounts. The BANJO brings it to a frame that didn't.

The geometry is a road fork's. Axle to crown is 385mm with a 53mm offset, 25mm shorter than the MGV, so it should drop into a frame designed around a road fork without lifting the front end. Tyre clearance is 700 x 36c or 650b x 47c: tight by gravel standards but a lot more than the 28s most road frames were drawn around. In practice the frame will decide what you can run, and Seido doesn't say what is left once mudguards are on, so ask before you build around 36s.

The rest is as you'd want for a bike that gets ridden through the night. The dynamo cable runs inside the leg, and the brake hose can go fully internal or semi-internal, your choice. There are mounts for mudguards, a lowrider rack and a crown-mounted light, and flat mount brakes take a 160 or 180mm rotor. The steerer is tapered, 1 1/8 to 1 1/2in, and 300mm long. A 12 x 100mm thru-axle comes in the box with the port plugs and a compression plug. Seido puts the maximum system weight, that's you, the bike and the luggage, at 130kg.

Two lowrider bosses a side, and the axle is included. Photo: Seido

Pricing and UK availability

The BANJO costs £440 (€479.99) in matt black or gloss black. Seido's own site prices in pounds, ships UK orders from UK stock with no import duty to pay and posts anything over £150 for free. The UK trade distributor is Traffic Distribution, the same house that handles Bombtrack, so a Bombtrack dealer is the place to ask. The MGV, if you need the bigger tyre and the cage mounts, is £330.

Full spec and the fitting instructions are on Seido's BANJO fork page.