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I'm wondering what the purpose of the braze-on pictured below is? It's on the non-drive side of my fork. I thought it could have something to do with racks, but then I figured they would put one on both sides. It could be used for a cable-guide for disc brakes, but my fork doesn't have disc tabs. It seems like it's situated too low to be a cable guide for V-Brakes. The bike is a touring bike, and the fork does have rack mounting holes, if that will give any clues to it's use.

Update

It's the factory fork from a 2011 Devinci Caribou. I think I've seen disk versions, but they are older, all their newer ones have cantilevers, no option for disks. It's not threaded, and there is no split. I may just be a wire-guide for whatever you choose to use it for, like a dynamo or speedometer. However, I think most wired speedometers are hard wired between the sensor and the computer, so I don't know how you would thread the cable through with the hardware on each end.

Picture of Fork

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    It does sorta look like a guide for a disk brake hose. The only other thing I can possibly think of is a guide for a hub generator/motor cable. Commented Aug 31, 2013 at 17:50
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    Is it threaded at all? It doesn't seem to be split like a cable slot. I also think possibly a wire guide for speedometer or even old manual speedometer. It doesn't look strong enough to be anything more than a guide. What age is the fork and what brand is it? Commented Aug 31, 2013 at 19:34
  • Yeah, the thing is just tacked on, so it's not intended to bear any weight. Some sort of a guide. It's possible it's for a brake hose and it got added to (or not removed from) the blueprint for this fork accidentally. Commented Aug 31, 2013 at 23:38
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    If it's a touring bike I'd say that it is most likely a guide for generator hub wiring. Commented Aug 31, 2013 at 23:44
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    Yeah, they used to have disc brakes in earlier models, so it almost makes me think that it might have been there for that reason, and then when they switched to cantilevers, they removed the disc tabs, but forgot to remove the cable guide. Also, it could be for a hub dynamo. Are they usually wired on the non drive side? Do front wheels even have a "drive side" when they don't have disk brakes? Commented Aug 31, 2013 at 23:48

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My thinking is that it is a brazed on guide for dynamo hub wiring. A touring bike like the Devinci Caribou would likely have provisions for things like dynamo lighting (I think that it'd be more likey that this was the case than someone erroneously adding a disc brake cable guide on a non-disc fork.) Typical braze-ons look like this: Dyno Braze On 1 Dyno Braze On 2 Dyno Braze On 3

As you can see there are a few different types. Some look like brake housing guides while others are unmistakably for flexible wires from a hub generator. As per the question of whether dynamo hubs have wires on one side or the other, I searched through Peter White's endless information on dynamo lighting and learned that:

If you have an older SON28 hub with a black painted center section, SONXS, SONXS100, SON20R or SONdelux it makes no difference which way you align the hub in the fork. And with the new SON hubs from 2012, you again have the freedom to place the hub in either orientation. The conectors can be on either side of the bike.

This is just for Schmidt dynamo hubs, but I'd imagine that there are examples elsewhere.

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It is possible that it is for a drum brake front hub, where the cable would normally run on the left side. If you have removable studs for you canti brakes, that is the likely answer. Aside from dynamos, which usually attach on the right, I don't know what else it would be for.

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