Author Topic: How far can you ride your folder?  (Read 8151 times)

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #25 on: 24 August, 2016, 05:34:55 pm »
....So my question is - does anyone have a folder they would be happy to ride 16 miles on, including some very bad road surfaces and one big hill? I've thought bigger wheels might be the way to go, or different bars so I'm not sitting so upright? But open to any suggestions!

I've used my 2013 Brompton S6L-X on my 17 mile commute for 2 years; I have since moved and just walk to my job now.
My route has some(?!) potholes(New York City, you know?) and a few hills. 16 inch wheels/349 ETRO. This S type has flat
bars and put me in a slightly leaned posture. Brompton also sells a P type handle bar with a lower(sporty) and higher(cruising)
positions.

100 mile/160 km. charity ride:
100 Miles(160 Km.) on a Brompton by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

One of the hills on my route; more than half of the cyclists that go this way end up walking their bike.
The person I'm passing at the 13 minute mark is actually pushing her bike; hard to see with the light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AT6wI_J2MI&index=21&list=UUHyRS8bRu6zPoymgKaIoDLA

Here I'm passing a few riders on roadbikes on another steep hill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROYHoXiJNOM&list=UUHyRS8bRu6zPoymgKaIoDLA&index=14
 

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #26 on: 27 August, 2016, 05:51:22 pm »
I have seen a Teman Urban dropped-bar folder around Kings Cross a couple of times. It's not a brand I know anything about, and the examples I can find are straight-bar ones on Gumtree, so maybe it's an owner adaptation.

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #27 on: 30 August, 2016, 03:51:24 pm »
My Dahon is pretty comfortable (Speed 7), but I do have problems with riding flat bars for any distance, especially with small wheels.  I don't like to do more than 10 miles on the folder.

I find the ride on the 20" wheels of the Dahon a lot better than the Brompton, but the Brommie does fold smaller.  That said, however, I commute on busy London trains, and find the best method for getting it out of the way is to put it in the bike space, and fold the bars down, so it's pretty much flat against the wall.

On the subject of drop bars, I agree that they would be preferable, but spoil the fold.  However, bullhorns could be folded to point in line with the stem and not interfere with the fold.  I believe this is the case with the Speed TR.

Most comfortable folder IME is an Airnimal Chameleon, but it is an awkward fold.  Smallest usable one is the Brompton.  Best compromise (I think) is the Dahon.
Getting there...

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #28 on: 30 August, 2016, 06:59:57 pm »
I'd pretty-much agree with that. The Dahon Vitesse 7 (same as a Speed 7 but with a French-sounding name, as far as I know) is good compromise for a folder, but I too have found its straight bars hard on the wrists. Hence the second folder for days when I can plan to ride home.

Morrisette

  • Still Suffolkating
    • Now Suffolkating on the internet:
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #29 on: 31 August, 2016, 01:42:22 pm »
All this is very interesting. I had a Dahon Speed D7, and it rode like an absolute pig, would never stay in gear properly and squeaked and rattled so much I barely used it. In the end I sold it to someone on here (sorry!) as I think the only cure for the gearing issues was going to be to covert it to a single speed.

But maybe it was a real Friday afternoon bike and I should give them another try? I couldn't have imagined riding 10 miles on my old D7. The Dahon Curve is a good bike but not for a long commute. It's ideal fro a bike-train commute though and does ride well on flat roads with no wind.

Bullhorns for flat bars are a good thought, I like that idea.

Think I need to go and look at some actual bikes!
Not overly audacious
@suffolkncynical

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #30 on: 31 August, 2016, 01:55:35 pm »
Bullhorns for flat bars are a good thought, I like that idea.

Or even just stubby bar-ends greatly improve the experience without compromising the fold.  I have Ergon GP2s on my Brompton.

zigzag

  • unfuckwithable
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #31 on: 31 August, 2016, 03:12:06 pm »
i've set up my folding bike the same way as the full-sized bike, so the distance is not an issue, only a little less efficient and slower. drop bars make the bike comfy, but less compact (which is not an issue in my case).

CrazyEnglishTriathlete

  • Miles eaten don't satisfy hunger
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Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #32 on: 31 August, 2016, 03:41:14 pm »
Not good. They kind of stick out :D

Curiously, none of the official Tern pictures emphasise that ;), but the shot from above of the folded bike in this review shows you.

Happily, on our line, staff and passengers are pretty tolerant, to the point that some people get standard road bikes on with wheels removed for transit. I think that's pushing it. I use my Dahon Vitesse for regular commuting, and the Tern on days when I feel like riding home.

For air flight or whatever, in a (large) suitcase, I think I'd remove the bars. Anyone know a good source of cheap, very big, strong suitcases?

A little off original topic - but from time to time I travel on business and I have an Airnimal Chameleon that I use when I can in parts foreign.  Last week I was in Basel and used it for a trip up the Hochblauen in the Black Forest - 76km round trip with a feature hill 7.6km at 8.7% in pretty much the same time as I would do on a standard road bike.  I bought with a custom designed Delsey suitcase which travels as a hold bag and the weight (even for my large frame) with a helmet, shoes, mini track pump, other accesories and one set of kit comes to 20.5kg which just meets the Easyjet criteria for avoiding excess baggage.  Last year I did a couple of North American perms on this set up, so 300 miles over two days, with a large bum bag to carry rations/etc.  I would highly recommend it for other people in my situation.  But I wouldn't carry the suitcase as a spare for a commuting bike.  My Swiss trip invovled trains from Basingstoke - Solihull, Zurich to Basel, and then Gatwick - Chichester to fit in with my other commitments, which was a lot of lugging.  However, the view of the Alps 200km south of the Hochblauen made up for it.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=hochblauen+images&view=detailv2&id=A7B6613E872D81C4BCF484658ED929B103FD9911&selectedindex=17&ccid=MrnTaNVE&simid=608039539150685180&thid=OIP.M32b9d368d5445e96e1d83fa20e569994o0&mode=overlay&first=1

Eddington Numbers 130 (imperial), 182 (metric) 571 (furlongs)  114 (nautical miles)

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #33 on: 31 August, 2016, 09:40:53 pm »
All this is very interesting. I had a Dahon Speed D7, and it rode like an absolute pig, would never stay in gear properly and squeaked and rattled so much I barely used it. In the end I sold it to someone on here (sorry!) as I think the only cure for the gearing issues was going to be to covert it to a single speed.

But maybe it was a real Friday afternoon bike and I should give them another try? I couldn't have imagined riding 10 miles on my old D7. The Dahon Curve is a good bike but not for a long commute. It's ideal fro a bike-train commute though and does ride well on flat roads with no wind.

Bullhorns for flat bars are a good thought, I like that idea.

Think I need to go and look at some actual bikes!
As above, my Dahon Vitesse 7 rides well. I have added normal MTB-type bar extensions for the reasons above.

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #34 on: 31 August, 2016, 09:53:28 pm »
Brompton. c.30 miles quite happily altho' it doesn't fit me, needs to be a bit bigger.  It's not what I would call a hill climber, too bouncy for one thing.

I did used to commute on it but not as far. 
Move Faster and Bake Things

Si

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #35 on: 01 September, 2016, 04:51:37 pm »
Quote
A little off original topic - but from time to time I travel on business and I have an Airnimal Chameleon that I use when I can in parts foreign.  Last week I was in Basel and used it for a trip up the Hochblauen in the Black Forest - 76km round trip with a feature hill 7.6km at 8.7% in pretty much the same time as I would do on a standard road bike.

Yep, once I put 28mm tyres on mine if was pretty much like my 653 race bike. In fact on longer rides I think the Airnimal was faster as the suspension at the rear took a lot of road road buzz away so felt comfortabler at the end of the day.  And when I turned it into a single speed it was very sweet.

In terms of climbing it got me around old style AAA audaxes fine.

Fold ain't as fast or small as a Brommie (well, it's not meant to be is it), but I did use to fold it twice a week on the railway platform to get home on busy trains - it was perfectly liveable with.  Might consider having another but the price puts me off, plus I got through four of the old style frames which put me off a bit!

Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #36 on: 01 September, 2016, 09:23:03 pm »
Fold ain't as fast or small as a Brommie (well, it's not meant to be is it), but I did use to fold it twice a week on the railway platform to get home on busy trains - it was perfectly liveable with.  Might consider having another but the price puts me off, plus I got through four of the old style frames which put me off a bit!

You're a braver man than me - I gave up after the third frame breakage.
Won't somebody think of the hamsters!

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #37 on: 01 September, 2016, 11:37:18 pm »

The airnimal chameleon is new to me, but watching a couple of their youtube videos, it appears that the folding needed to make it fit in a hard case is pretty much the same as disassembly. Given this, and the compromises that come from a frame design like that wouldn't it just be simpler to use an S&S coupled full size bike?

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Si

Re: How far can you ride your folder?
« Reply #38 on: 02 September, 2016, 08:39:22 am »
The fold I used for the train just required the front wheel be removed, then the bars were turned, the rear triangle folded under and the seat thing folded forward.  The front wheel was then toe-strapped to the rest of it.  Sounds like a faff but wasn't really that bad.  The finished article was about the same length/width as my folded Tern, but was a tad taller IIRC.  But as it required handling the front wheel, it paid to keep the bike clean.