It has been a few months and a few folding bikes tested, purchased and ridden. Though the initial posts were hinting at helping a friend decide on a foldie, it also was an exercise for me to figure out what I need (see, I walk the talk too).

As I mentioned elsewhere, a flurry of purchases were made, by me and people who are close to me that included:

1. A Novara Flyby Buzz (Rebranded Dahon Mu).
2. A Bike Friday Tikit. No, make that 2.
3. A Brompton M6.
4. A custom New World Tourist.

Each bike was bought for a specific reason and till now, everyone is extremely happy with their choice. There goes the debate on which ‘brand’ is better. All these are cool bikes with very unique features and equally unique quirks. I guess I should start with my bike, the New world tourist and continue on to other bikes in future essays.

Note: Most of the following is grabbed from my response to a comment from Al. so you might find duplicated info, but I suppose most of you are not reading comments…

Firstly, I decided I needed a custom sized bike as I could not get a comfortable fit on the Dahons / Bromptons. Of course, I could have obtained a decent fit from either one, but I had planned for a long term upgrade plan for the foldie and decided to go with Bike Friday.

Off the bat I decided to base the bike on a NWT and not the tikit, that made the decisions simpler. Nothing against the Tikit, I am just holding it out for a future purchase 

I was considering between the Sport / companion / expedition. I guess a large portion of the decision was factoring in the cost for a custom build. BF does some awesome custom specs but I did not want to decide up front (Didn’t have much lead time either, the bike was delivered in 2 weeks flat… Awesome).

I wanted to build the components on my own schedule. So I decided on the bike that gives me enough options. Sport has a narrower fork and I believe it can take up to 38mm tires without fenders. I wanted fenders and so that was easily eliminated. The expedition, it seems, is built with a more robust tubing and a wider fork. I was looking at the clearances for the fork and figured that I could do up to 2″ tires on the Companion without fenders and 1.75 with fenders. That was plenty good for me. Regards the overall strength of the tubing, I believe there is not much separating the NWT Companion / Sport / Expedition, people tour in all of them. So it essentially boiled down to the cost of a custom spec.

I was in discussion with BF and figured that I can get a custom spec NWT for as low as $948. Now that is a really good price point and I decided to upgrade to a Chris King headset with the savings. It is well worth it. Note I got a 8 Speed version that is plenty good for city riding. I am sure it is fine for loaded touring too but a wider gear range never hurt anyone (except pride when riding granny).

My idea currently is to make a slow and steady upgrade. The following are in the pipeline:
1. SON equipped front wheel.
2. Dual drive equipped rear wheel.
3. Rear D with a shorter cage. Stock rear D is too long (spec’d for Triple front) I like the idea of a dual drive heaps, especially for a 20″ wheel.
4. Handle Bar upgrade (midge or Moustache, still on the wall)
5. Bar end shifters (and a twist shifter for the Dual drive)
6. Front rack. I hear the bike handles extremely well with load up front, I got to try that some time 

Since I did not want to go the whole hog upfront, I went in for the cheapest custom. Turned out to be the NWT 

I was helping my brother on deciding on his folding bike (that is the 4th Foldie in 2 months, someone stop me) and we went through the iterations of Dahon vs Brompton vs Bike Friday. Finally we decided on a custom Tikit for the specific set of needs. In the process of brain storming, we realized that these companies have strong similarities to computer operating systems. If you are aware of OS’s and folding bikes, you will appreciate the similarity.

• Brompton <-> Apple OSX. Fully proprietary and focussed heavily on industrial Design. Works extremely well out of the box but hardware upgrades are a pain in the ass if not extremely expensive  Accessories cost a bomb too.
• Dahon <-> Microsoft Windows. A product that works. Lots of proprietary components but is well supported due to large distributor base. They try to be pretty but stop short of exemplary. They probably have the best bang for buck setups. You can find extremely high end hardware too but at the heart the design is a compromise. he hee.
• Bike Friday <-> Linux. Customize everything. Very robust core design and allows for customizing to do literally anything one wants. You can get a pre-specified flavor of the bike or geek out totally on setting it up in your own unique way.

The lesson is that all three options are viable, it is a question of what you really want

Foldinitis is a cheerful infection, though it has been around for a while, I attribute the naming to Oldy.

I have written about getting folding bikes for a while, to supplement my stable, it is like getting a pony to supplement the stable of thorough bred’s and donkeys. Well once you get the imagery out, I was in two minds for a long while. It is easy to rationalize the need for a bike but having an unused bike is far worse than not having a bike. So I have been putting off my purchase for a long while now.

But lust never disappears fully and now and then, I would be tempted to ‘research’ the updates at the usual haunts and hold back just in time by rational thought. that was until hell broke loose when REI decided to offer a rebranded dahon Mu (downgraded Sport) for an attractive price. That along with the fact that REI sweetened the deal with its annual 20% sale and made it an offer too good to pass.

So, I ordered my Novarra Buzz Flyby and waited for it to come to me. There was the issue of Dahon’s Global recall for handleposts. But I will save that story for another post.

I will write a more detailed impression on the bike later but let me mention that the Flyby is an amazing value.

1. It has a very good choice of gearing,
2. an internal Geared hub (standard 8 speed Nexus),
3. comes standard with fenders,
4. reasonable saddle,
5. nice handlebar grips,
6. good tires,
7. a pump hidden in the seat post,
8. a cute addition of a bell,
9. A kick stand,
10. front and rear reflectors and
11. the plastic foldable saddles.

It follows the basic frame of a Mu and seems to be a lower speced Mu XL Sport, which is a high end model offered by Dahon. To top it, it comes in a color and decent graphics that is not typically Dahon. I think REI did a nice job with the graphics.

Dahon’s bike design has been copied in much of the cheap bikes and hence teh design is usually linked to the cheaper bikes. But it seems to me that though not revolutionary anymore, they have regular updates to the basic components and are constantly improving them. I have ridden the bike before and I knew pretty much what I was getting. But though I was not expecting to be blown away, I was plesantly surprised by the package and the nice thoughtful touches in the bike.

I did mention that Foldinitis is a infection. What happened after a week of getting the bike is that the infection started spreading. A friend of mine laid claim to my bike and another one (in my household) decided to try commuting to his workplace about 6km from home.

This is like giving a candy to a kid, what happens next is obvious to victims. But I will mention anyway. So he rides the bike to work, stuff the bike in the bag, takes it to his office. Then spend a major portion of his day explaining to curious colleagues on why he started biking and what he is riding on, gets a bunch of “thumb’s up” and says to himself, this is cool, I should be doing this daily.

I was checking out my usual haunts and realized that diginexx has a Sale for foldies. A good one at that. I found that the Bike Friday tikit was selling at almost the dealer price. I casually mentioned to the new victim of foldinitis and before we knew it, we were at the shop, signing on the dotted line after a quick test ride. A Bike Friday Tikit, the bike that broke the barriers on how quickly one can fold / unfold a usable bike. A bike that is from a different planet compared to the elegance of the Brompton. A bike I have been lusting over for the past 2 years and now it is in my living room and it is not mine.

Well I am like a kid in a horse ranch, I have the option of choosing what to ride when I have to ride and I have friends who would let me take a ride or two without getting paranoid over their possessions. That I am glad for. But now that I have had close contact with victims and had a whiff of what is in offer, it is going to be a very short while before I will breakdown again and add another pony to the stable. Now, the question is what will it be?