Originally Posted by
Rowan
Thanks for the tip. How does the rear triangle handle the wider tyres?
One of the nicer things about BF compared with the Brompton is that there are all sorts of options that can be put on the order list, and of course the sky's the limit (both options and price-wise).
I haven't got the Brompton brochure in front of me, but I got the impression that except for the handlebar configuration, the overall options list was quite limited.
The NWT rear triangle could take a 1.75 tire, I had it set up with a 1.6 Supreme and 2.0 Big Apple front. Hopefully the QC on the 20" Supremes is better as one of the ones I got had an objectionable hop. I commuted a couple months 25miles a day with loaded front panniers and bag on rear rack. There's something about the high aft mounted rear rack that just looks wrong. I used a cheap Sunlite rear rack with the legs cut down so it rested right above the fender with an expandable Jandd rear rack bag occupying the space all the way up to the underside of the saddle. On smooth pavement the Big Apple felt faster than the stock Kenda Contact and PrimoVmonster(the ones with tight blocks). The BA also handled gravel better than the 1.95 Kenda handled speed, I mean the tight block tires were great going down fast curves and sticking to the road but on the flats pedaling fast you could tell they were a bit more effort than the BA.
Something else, if you're riding on wet roads it really helps if the front fender extends forward of the fork. I had one of those front fenders that only mounted back of the fork and while it was adequate for spray up from the back of the front tire an unforeseen aspect of 20" tires is that it carried water forward of the fork and above 15mph it shot a stream of water up into the wind then back at my face. Not quite as bad as following someones wheel in the rain but almost.