Folding Bikes - bike friday tikit stem wiggle

Hey guys, first let me say, i love my tikit! ive been riding it everywhere and its been a blast!

One little thing keeps bothering me though and I wanted to see what other Tikit owner's experiences were.
at the very beginning my handlebar stem was quite rigid with no play. however, when i folded the bike I had to reach down and fiddle with the headset clamp to get it to fold. I brought this to my bikeshop's attention and they fixed it, but then added in a degree of wiggle in the stem. Note that its not a ton, and very rideable, but for climbing out of the saddle on hills, it can be a bit annoying.

Is this normal? is there some way i can adjust this myself, or should i trek back up to my lbs and get them to fix it. Even with this play in the stem, I love the bike and wouldnt give it up for the world. this would just be the tiny slice keeping me from 100 percent happiness right now.

I'm not sure what happened when your LBS "fixed" your Tikit, but if you are experiencing something different about your steering I'd get it checked.

Was the initial problem that the silver clamp wouldn't pop off when you folded your Tikit and you had to manually release it? If so it only need to be lubricated to solve your problem and that shouldn't have resulted in any change to the feeling of your steering.

This is a wild guess, but if your LBS loosened the hyper-fold cable to "solve" your problem that might change the way your steering feels.

I think Vik's note about the hyperfold cable is probably right. I would check to see if tightening this cable solves the problem. And yes, as Vik notes above, a little lubricant at the clamp should make it a lot easier to fold the Tikit.

--sam

It's possible that the LBS dis-assembled and re-assembled the stem. I feel that the slight wiggle I have on my tikit comes more from the bearings than from the hinge itself, and it's possible that in loosening and fiddling they've loosened something besides the hinge.

If you've got an older model tikit with the old-style stem (2 cables instead of 1) it's possible that you or they incorrectly folded and stretched out the pac-man clamp, too. That real issue is supposed to be part of the motivation to the newer thicker pac-man on the newer stems.

-Peter

It's possible that the LBS dis-assembled and re-assembled the stem. I feel that the slight wiggle I have on my tikit comes more from the bearings than from the hinge itself, and it's possible that in loosening and fiddling they've loosened something besides the hinge.

-Peter

Hey Peeter....my Tikits don't have any bearings in the stem hinge mechanism - just a bolt holding the pieces together on one side and the hyperfold clamp on the other.

they actually added grease to the clamp as well when they "fixed" the folding of the front stem. At first i thought maybe the grease was causing the wiggling, but they probably also loosened the tightening cable. Ill try tightening this cable to see if i get any luck. Is it easy to tighten?

Vik,

I didn't mean to come across as saying bearings in the hinge, but bearings where the stem meets the body.

To the OP, to see if there's play in the plates at the hinge, try cutting a piece of a tin can (eg next time you open a can, snip off a strip of the top of the can), and placing it across the plates and closing it. If that fixes your problem, then the problem is how the plates meet because you've made up the difference with some soft metal. That's obviously not a solution, though. I upgraded my stem to help this, but I had an old-style stem.

If that doesn't fix the wobblies, then look elsewhere.

-Peter

they actually added grease to the clamp as well when they "fixed" the folding of the front stem. At first i thought maybe the grease was causing the wiggling, but they probably also loosened the tightening cable. Ill try tightening this cable to see if i get any luck. Is it easy to tighten?

The grease will have absolutely no effect on play in the stem. It's standard to have a small amount of it on the surfaces where the c-clamp connects to the hinge. This is to (1) keep the clamp from squeaking and (2) make it easy for the clamp pop off of the hinge when you unfold.

I know of three causes of stem play. (1) You have an old two-cable design, which is difficult to get sufficiently taut to prevent play. In this case, I recommend considering upgrading to a one-cable design. BF can work with your LBS to do that. (2) Your hyperfold cable isn't tight enough. You just need to turn the lock-nut a few turns. This is standard maintenance, and easy to do. The trick is to find the right trade-off between sufficiently taut for the handlebar stem and not so taut that the seatpost won't stay put in the seatpost clamp. If you want to avoid scraping it up with pliers, I believe that the lock-nut is a 10mm wrench and the cable hexagonal cover is a 5.5mm wrench. You can get them at Sears. (3) The hinge itself is broken or loose. There have been cases where the LBS put in the wrong bolt on the hinge for example.