Folding Bikes - need advice on Bike Friday accessories

i bought a large green BF pocket rocket standard last weekend from the dealer in sydney, with the intent of taking it on work trips to have something to tool around on and to do some light touring (i have a 700c touring bike for full-on touring).

need recommendations on whether to go with a bag or the travel case for packing it up on trips. i'm guessing the pros & cons for the case are increased protection at the cost of having to deal with putting it somewhere while you ride. i'm not terribly interested in towing the case around as a trailer. pros & cons of the bag would be reduced protection for transit but you could roll it up and take it with you as you ride. what size bag works best for a BF with drop bars, the compact or standard? are there other considerations to take into account? i could afford either, but preferably not both.

are there racks other than the BF-offered ones that i should take into account, or are those the best ones going? again, looking for something to support a light touring load. same question regarding fenders, are there other good ones out there i should look at?

I am adding this link as Thor is a regular here and I like his site for accessories and it will give you an idea of what is out there for accessories. . Their are some fenders that can be added and removed quickly, so if you dont need them they can be stored in the bag. The Dahon bag is a good buy and can be used to wrap around yor pack and tied down to a front rack. you can get hold of Thor and he could give you a better idea of what will work.

Matt,

I also own a Green BF Pocket-Rocket

You've mentioned light touring. Exactly how much volume do you think you need? Have you considered a saddlebag like Carradice. You can get anything from 8 liters to a gigantic 23 liters. The best part is no rack needed.

You pretty much nailed the bag/case thing, so I won't comment on that.

Good luck

http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u11/bicycleflyer/?action=view&current=Picture123.jpg

I did a test last year to determine if packing our BF's into a Dahon Carry bag was possible. (We are talking old style bags here, not the newer 'Bolsa'.)

I have a very LARGE - and also Green - NWT (like 61mm effective top-tube), and the wife has a Crusoe with a 53-54" effective top-tube length. The results: My wife's bike will fit without removing the front wheel; mine requires removal of the front wheel.

Since we normally travel with the bikes folded & mounted on a board inside our mid-sized SUV while pulling a small trailer, we have not needed to use the Dahon bags we have left over from when we had Boardwalk D7s.

ADD - Re: Fenders - Have a set of current BF fenders for both bikes. Work great - just one bolt per fender to install or remove, and pack very compactly.

i guess i hadn't seriously considered a saddlebag, just because i already have 4 good ortliebs. but, if i was going with the BF folding rack i'd be up to $120 anyway, so the idea is growing on me. it seems like people have difficulty keeping the carradices in stock. rivendell is sold out of most of their canvas bags too, but it looks like velo orange has some. a saddlebag would have the added benefit that i could use it on my other bikes too. the BF non-folding rack looks like my old blackburn rack with longer front brackets. i could probably figure something out to make that old one work if i needed it.

do the dahon bags have any features that make them stand out from the BF version? i kind of like the fact that the BF ones are made in OR. i checked out the thor site, looks like a good selection of stuff there for future experimentation.

I got a Carradice bag directly from them via their web site, a lot cheaper than the LBS.

I got the BF folding rack because it folds. The rack just wouldn't work in the case if it didn't fold.

For airline travel, the case is a must, but if you are traveling by car, then the bag will work. The standard size bag is best; the small bag will not fit your bike (you mentioned that it's large).

I traveled overseas with the case and just did day trips, leaving the case at my hotel.

Yea, Carradice is definitely in demand. You can also try Peter White Cycles. Another big supplier is Wallingford Bicycle. But they are in New Orleans and I am not sure what their status is since Gustav came ashore. A new company called Acorn is making similar bags to Carradice. I have one of Acorn's small bags and the quality is first rate. There is a worker's coop in Oregon somewhere that sells Carradice too. But I've bought most of mine through Ebay.

http://www.acornbags.com/index.html

http://www.citybikes.coop/parts.html

http://www.wallbike.com/

http://www.carradice.co.uk/

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/index.html

Another issue to consider if your saddle does not have loops is how to mount it. There are several ideas on Wallingford's website under a heading called "Carradice Hacks". Including one that I submitted :)

http://www.wallbike.com/content/carradicehacks.html

I thought about getting a Carradice bag for my BF, but instead I puchased a Xootr CrossRack http://www.xootr.com/xootr/swift/Crossrack.shtml

It's easy to remove when I want to fold or don't need it, and - since I already own panniers - I didn't need to buy an extra bag. Plus, my pannier holds more than Carradice bags, and is also pretty simple to remove.

thanks for all the inputs. although those acorn bags looked really nice, i didn't want to have to wait until october to put in my order and ended up ordering a pendle from the carradice website instead. the BF fenders sound good, although $60 seems steep when i think i got my 700c SKS fenders for about $30. has anyone tried the thor SKS dahon-special fenders on a BF?

i think on the bag, i'll probably order the standard-size BF one and look in the secondhand shops for a large suitcase to set up for flying the bike. the bike will probably make at least one airplane trip in the bag though, i'll just have to make sure it's padded as much as possible in all the right places.

For padding, go to a Clark Rubber shop, they have these foam rubber tubes in all sorts of diameters, great for slipping around the frame bits.

When checking in, have the bag marked as fragile.