Needed: Recommendations for Folding Bicycles

[GaryMayo]

The smile on this guy's face is not from riding one, it is for selling 5,000 of them at a 40% wholesale markup, all before lunch, to some internet site like Amazon or Sharper Image, who in turn, sells the contraption to us.

Pass. Best advice is the lightweight trek that comes apart to stow.

[Dockhead]

I'm surprised people are still posting on this old thread. Cool.

I did end up buying that Dahon Jetstream EX, plus one classic (i.e. clunky) Dahon foldup.

The Jetstream is brilliant. I had no idea that it is possible to design a fold-up bike which rides like a good road bike, but here you are. This bike has a full suspension which more than makes up for the small (20") wheels, in terms of ride comfort. The ergonomics are fantastic -- actually better than my full sized non-folding bike (a gradually bastardized, that is, road bike-ized MBX which I keep at my country house). It has a Shimano seven speed hub in the rear wheel which eliminates the rear derailleur, plus a three speed derailleur on the front chainwheel, for 21 gears. The gear range is not quite right for me -- two or three uselessly big gears (considering the high speed instability), and lacking two or three really granny gears which would be especially useful when pulling a trailer, so I might play with the chainwheels.

It does not have the disk brakes and the brakes are not that great, but that's not all that important -- because the one really big difference from a regular full size bike is that it is not stable at speeds over about 20mph.

I knocked off about 50 miles riding all around the Isle of Wight from Yarmouth the first day I tried it out without really breaking a sweat. Without cleats. Now I have my cleats on board and am looking forward to trying the bike with them. I might even get in a little better shape, if I have more time to spend on this thing

So I think this is a terrific thing for exploring on land while cruising, getting groceries (need a trailer for that). I can't really express how amazed I was at the way this thing rides -- stiff, light, responsive, like a really good road bike from the 1980's. I road all over Germany and Yugoslavia on a $3000 road bike in 1980-81 which I built myself; I swear this little foldup bike is every bit as good and actually has better ergonomics.


The only problem is storage

At the moment, the bikes are taking up one of my sleeping cabins, which obviously is not a long term solution. Everything of course becomes 3x bulkier when you bring it on board

I guess I'm going to have to go through the lazarette again, throw some more things out, and make some room for them there. Or maybe hang them in the engine room somehow -- I think I have the volume, just nothing to stand them on. Argh

Besides storage on board, you have the problem of getting them on and off shore. Even with my large (3.4 meter) dinghy, I think I would have to make two trips, to take both bikes on shore.

[ranger58sb]

I chose ours -- with no rear suspension -- specifically because the "luggage" rack could be load-bearing. So we just tie-wrap a milk crate to each, decent storage possible. I've used one of the boat back-packs for additional stuff, and I suspect we could add soft panniers over the crate...

I do like the front suspension on one of the bikes, though.

I'm not a power biker, and ours are more for nearby sightseeing and restocking... so I've come to appreciate the enclosed multi-speed hub, would be happy with no front derailleur... and I'm more and more interested in good stainless parts. Both of our folders are a mixture of good... and rust. The main parts -- frames, hubs, chains, gears, etc. -- seem to be OK, but many of the fasteners are going "red." One project I have in mind is to simply "rebuild" each bike with better hardware, assuming I could find workable replacement parts.

The idea of a full-size bike with quick-remove wheels sounds good, but my current Trek frame would still be larger (in two dimensions) than either of our folders... so it'd depend on the overall comparison (weight, size, ease, available storage space dimensions, etc.).

-Chris