lucille

I'm getting close to ordering a Bike Friday (two of them, actually), and could use some advice.

We've decided on the New World Tourist, as we want to be able to do some fully loaded touring and also take the bikes when we travel and want to explore the area on day trips.
Here are my questions, if you guys wouldn't mind:

1. What kind of gearing should I get? I want to be able to climb the hills with a loaded bike. Since it's a custom built bike, what should I ask for? I feel totally stupid when it comes to gear ratios and such...

2. I have a hard time deciding on handle bars. The bike I currently ride is a hybrid with flat bars, to which I've attached mountain bike bar ends, for more hand positions. Should I go for drop bars? I test rode a Pocket Sport with drop bars and felt kind of stretched out, and a bit strange. Will I get used to it and love it, or should I stick with flat bars? Or maybe the STI touring bars?

3. Shifters. I know I don't want grip shifters. But should I go for bar end shifters or integrated shifters?

4. Should we get the travel cases/trailers or is it a waste of money? Should I just get a suitcase in the same size at a department store?

I think that's all I can think of now, but if anybody can think of anything else, please go ahead.

I won't ask you to help me choose the colour, even though it's keeping me awake at night....

Thanks!

rhenning

Call Bike Friday and because they are custom bikes they will walk you through what you want/need. The people there really care about selling you a product you will love not just selling a bike for as much profit as possible. After they/you come up with what you want they will give you a price not before. If you want Campy they will do Campy. When my wife ordered her Pocket Crusoe she went back and forth on the phone with them maybe 10 times and when the bike came it was exactly as she wanted/ordered. The phone calls were all paid for by Friday. It was worth the price of the bike for her to learn how to order the bike she wanted. The only change since purchase was she found she didn't like the H bars she ordered and we/I put on drop bars as her other bikes have. Roger

lucille

Thanks, Roger. We did call and the person we spoke with was wonderful. Just trying to figure out what I actually want and need, so I don't order the wrong stuff.

invisiblehand

1. With a reasonable budget, you have two primary choices; a complete derailer drivetrain or a dual drive drivetrain. Derailer drivetrains are a pound or so lighter, are the industry standard, and are fairly robust. The dual drive has an internal hub at the rear wheel which is a substitute for a front derailer. The internal hub is extremely robust; although from the average bike shops perspective, it would be a weirdo object. The dual drive is very easy to raise and lower gearing and, because of the Bike Friday design, is somewhat easier to fold for a new owner. Personally, I am a fan of derailer drivetrains. The lighter weight isn't much of a performance advantage; but it does matter when you are carrying the bike and trying to keep a packed bike under the airline weight limits.

What gearing are you used to? That is, what size chainrings do you have on your favorite bike and what size cassette do you have on the rear? You sound like a recreational rider such that really high gears are unnecessary for a touring bike. I would do an ordinary road triple with a 11-28 or 11-32 cassette. Note that an 11-32 cassette can use a MTB GS "medium cage" rear derailer. What this means is that the tension pulley of the derailer does not need to be as long and consequently, you will have more clearance with the ground.

2. People do tour with flat bars. Although my anecdotal experience is that drop bars are better for long rides since you have more hand positions. Will you get used to it? Maybe. Will you be better off with the H or STI bars? Maybe. My guess is that you will prefer the drop, sti, or h bars over a flat bar since that is the rough order of decreasing hand positions. But only experience will tell. Ask around for a local Bike FRiday chapter or owners. Many will let you take a spin on their bike and be happy to answer questions.

3. If you go with bar-end shifters, you can use them with drop, sti, and h bars. Bar ends are generally more robust and better for handling non-standard combinations of chainrings. Bar ends are cheaper, lighter, and allow you to avoid travel agents for mating v-brakes and integrated levers. That said, STI is just pain easier for many people. My wife, for instance, demands STI shifting. I, on the other hand, still use downtube shifters on one bike but have STI on my NWT.

4. You can save money getting suitcases elsewhere. But when I last checked, Bike Friday's prices were OK relative to other online retailers. So it is convenient to pick it up from them. Sometimes they have specials on the suitcases as well. Although I recall that they only had them in black.

Additional Comments:

Do you plan on folding the bike much? If not, you might consider an easy pack seat mast. It is lighter and packs easier. But it has no hinge for folding.

If you are going with the swan stem and the split bars, I suggest you first get a fit stem and ride the bike for a while if you are going with drop, sti, or h bars. Different types of bars sometimes require different amounts reach. Since you have little experience with them, I think that the odds that you get it right a priori are slim. The fit stem will give you a chance to plop down a bunch of miles and perhaps see a fit specialist at a LBS to help dial the fit in.

Foldable Two

We went through this two years ago and our daughter (40+) went through this exercise just a couple of weeks ago.

My wife wanted 'lots of gears' - especially low ones, so we went with the Dual-Drive set-up. Our daughter ordered the lighter weight, triple chain ring set-up on her NWT.

My wife is happy with her "H" bars and grip shifters, but the daughter went with drops and STI shifters which she felt gave gave her more hand positions and she was familiar with from riding her son's bike. She was unable to find any STI Touring bars to test out. She's also starting out with the "fit" stem, so she can dial-in the correct specs for her stem riser.

I have no recommendation on the suit cases. however, since all of us only transport our BF's in cars. We do have both folding seat posts and 'easy pack' seat posts. The folding ones are one less loose (and greasy on the end) part when transporting the bikes.

rhenning is right - the BF reps do a good job of recommending solutions based upon your stated needs. We, and our daughter, had numerous conversations with Walter at BF before our orders were placed.

kamtsa

1. The DualDrive 3x9 will give you a very wide gear range. From my experience, the NWT is not FD friendly since the fold changes the relation between the two ends of the chain. The DD uses a single chainring which is easier to fold.

2. BF has those elongated H bars (called STI Touring https://community.bikefriday.com/faq?question=1710 ) which will give you few good hand positions. They split in the middle so they can be used also with grip and trigger shifts.

3. Another option is trigger shifters. I am using DD 3x9 with trigger shifters and am happy with them.

Also,

a) if you plan to use Thudbaster, ask BF to size the seat tube accordingly.

b) my NWT arrived with double walled Alex DM18 wheels which made the removal of tires very difficult. My other folder (non BF) has single wall wheels and I can change tires with no tools. Ask BF if the have easy tire removal wheels.

Good luck,

Kam

kamtsa

Dupe, removed.

IronMac

Congrats on the choice!

1. invisiblehand has probably the best answer if you have a reasonable budget but do remember that a reasonable budget should also be in relation on what you are planning on doing with the bike. I had an unreasonable budget and ordered a Rohloff hub with mine which gives a ton of gears. You may want to have a look at Sheldon Brown's website for more information on gearing and systems. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/

No matter what components you get you should be able to climb most hills fully loaded if you are in decent enough shape.

2. My other bike is a hybrid that's done a LOT of self-supported touring. Like you, I also put on bar ends for a bit more variety. The Pocket Sport may not have been exactly in your size so that is why you may have felt stretched out. BF will ask you what sort of riding position you want to use with your new bike. I wanted what I had before with a bit more of a lean forward so I now sit at about a 45-degree angle on the drop bars.

3. With a Rohloff hub there is not much of a choice, it's a bar end shifter.

4. There is a bit of an issue with getting the Samsonite Flite (F'lite?) case from somewhere else. It's actually been discontinued (as told to me by a retailer) and replaced with an almost exact duplicate that's a roller-type suitcase. BF is probably the best choice to get it and they do have the occasional sale; I got mine for 15% off. A possible alternative trailer that will fit the suitcase is made by Carry Freedom - the Y Frame (not sure if it's the large model or not that will fit the suitcase).

invisiblehand

Follow-up on folding the bike. The DD is easier to fold since it lacks a front derailer. With a front derailer, you have to be careful about the chain falling off and being held in place by the front derailer. Unfortunately, one can subsequently spin the rear wheel while folding if you are not careful resulting on a lot of tension on the front derailer. This can bend the front derailer. With a little practice though, I think one can fold the derailer drivetrain Bike Friday in a straightforward manner.

Single chainring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvENx6X7sXs

Triple chainring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_8cO21r-8

Regarding double-wall versus single-wall rims; double-wall rims are stronger. I'm not an engineer, but the prevailing wisdom is that double rims tend to be higher quality as well. I can't remember whether the Alex rims have single or double eyelets. So potentially, the double-wall rim can probably withstand greater spoke tension as well. Anyway, there is a reason to pick double-wall rims. I have not changed hundreds of tires, but I have noticed variation across tires with regards to how tight it fits on the rim. I only have one single-wall rim on a DT Mini. But I have not changed a tire on it in ... two years or so. So I can't make a careful comparison across single and double-wall rims.

lucille

Thank you all very much for great info! I will will have to google a few things and think about it a bit more. I really appreciate you taking time to answer.

lucille

Invisiblehand, to be honest I have to count the teeth to tell you what gearing I have on my bike now. Shameful as it is, I don't know.

I want to use the bike for touring, but if I love it (which I hope I will), I want to commute on it as well and take it up to the office rather than lock it up and check if it's still there every 5 minutes.... So I guess I would be folding it a fair bit. I think I will go for folding seat post and the new folding stem.

Foldable Two

I ordered folding stem last Thurs morning just after seeing the video - wife has always wanted her Crusoe to fold like her old Dahon Boardwalk.

Found out yesterday that it will be 2-3 weeks before the first ones ship (we are near the top of the list). Seems BF has to machine an interface part between the Kalloy folding parts and the bike, per my telephone conversation with Tim Link at BF, yesterday.

Guess I need to rib our daughter that BF's need to her make bike (among others) is the cause of this delay.

invisiblehand

Nothing shameful about it. It never mattered until now.

I would wait on the folding stem until you know how it affects packing.

lucille

I will ask about the stem and packing, when I talk to them again. I have to make myself a list of questions.

invisiblehand

BTW, if the commute can be handled with a single chainring, you might consider getting a cheaper bike for commuting: I'm thinking of a (preferably used) Dahon D7. I think that it comes with a rear rack too. Space and money, of course, are real issues. Commuting can take its toll on a bike, IMO. Moreover, a "beater" that won't kill you if it gets stolen is a nice thing to have. This way you could stick with the lighter and cheaper NWT stem.

lucille

I have a beater commuter bike. Got some thinner tires and side baskets for my old mountain bike. I don't really like riding a mountain bike frame though. I may look at a second hand Dahon to replace it at some point, but not now.
We have 4 bikes now, and the space is a bit tight. It's all about NWT at the moment! haha!

LeeG

Lucille, I got a NWT with a Llama front fork and a Llama. The NWT has a Capreo 9-26t nine speed cluster with a single 44t chainring and drop bars. That gives me a 33"-92" range which is enough for most riding. I did a week long tour with that and it was perfectly acceptable. I got the Capreo because I didn't want a big front chainring and a single front chainring because I had "heard" that people were having trouble with the chain coming off while folding. Thereafter I got a Llama with a 36-46 double front chainring and the Capreo with straight bars. That gives a 26"-96" gear range which is more than wide enough.

Turns out the chain can fall off if you have a single or double and it's more a matter of how you align the pedals. The Capreo is a bit finicky when riding on the 9tooth cog but like any rig one doesn't ride in the high gear with power for long anyway, with the Capreo I'm mostly in the 11,13tooth cog.

If you don't have a preference for drops or straight bars you'll probably develop a preference for whichever one you start with. I have ridden with drop bars for too long and have yet to find straight bars and bars ends that are acceptable. I'm switching over the Llama to drop bars.

Don't worry too much about whether you're making the right decision. When you aren't operating from experience simply trust the folks at Bike Friday know what they're doing and after you ride for awhile your own exploration and problem solving is what matters. You can't make a short cut from not knowing to knowing without doing.

kamtsa

If you are considering the inexpensive Dahon route, Thor has a Mariner D7 for $210 shipped.

https://www.thorusa.com/dahon/accessories/oneoff.htm

Kam

invisiblehand

Smokin' deal.

lucille

"You can't make a short cut from not knowing to knowing without doing."
Oh, I like that! I am so stealing that quote! :-) But seriously, thanks for your input, very much appreciated.

Ruthy at BF is suggesting 50/39/30 cranks and 9-26 Capreo cassette for both of us. She calculated that it would give us a high gear of 100" and low gear of 20". Our current bikes are 128" high and 27" low on one bike and 118" high and 27" low on the other. I trust her opinion, but would like to know what you guys think.

Also, what tires do you use for touring? On our full size bikes we ride Continental touring tires, which have a smoother middle and slightly knobby on the sides.

If all goes well, we could be riding our new bikes in May!

Foldable Two

That is a good quote! Sort of what my wife has gone through in learning about what different bikes are like and what she prefers. When I ordered her Crusoe for her in 2007, she had no idea why she would ever want a close to $2,000 bike and what difference there might be from the $300 models she had been used to. Now, she knows why she might want it, and would not give it up. She also knows she doesn't like Cruisers, and her Pocket 8 is a great city bike.

Ruthy leads tours in Japan, so she should have a good idea of what you might need. Also, 20" on the low end approaches our Dual Drive system and should give you good climbing capability.

Our daughter expects delivery of her NWT in about two weeks. Hers will have the same gearing as yours - I would bet it's pretty standard because it works for most folks.

Lou

LeeG

I don't see a need for gears above 93 or so on touring bikes. 118"-128" are more an accidental consequence of manufacturers having 11 tooth wide range cassetes put on road bike cranksets than touring riders making use of those ultra high gears.

For example I rode my NWT with it's 9gears over a small mtn range. In one direction I went down a lonngg 10 mile 6%-7% grade. I could spin out the 93" top gear and coast at about 30mph. It took about 20minutes to do down the mtn. In the other direction I used the three lowest gears and took 3hrs to go up. What got me down the hill quicker wasn't a big gear, it was the ability to get into a tuck on a bike that didn't have panniers and spin with effort. What took so long going up hill was my motor in hot weather. If I had a bigger gear I could have pedaled slower but my time over all wouldn't have been much different. The descent made the time fast, a bigger gear would simply require more effort to push more air. That's great if you're racing but putting out peak efforts for an unaerodynamic touring rig doesn't make sense.

lucille

Foldable Two, let me know how your daughter likes the gearing.

LeeG, I see what you're saying. I'm more concerned with climbing then going down the mountain, I like my granny gear. With the 100" high and 20" low I think we will get a bit more of lower gears. After all day of riding or on an off day, it's nice to get a little help pushing the bike up the hill.

Foldable Two

lucille,

I'll let you know her reaction to it.

Her "need" is to keep up with her 12 1/2 yr old son who has three seasons of track racing (in the Jr. training program at Marymoor Velodrome in Seattle area) under his belt. He's a very smart, gangly and decidedly nonathletic kid who's sport is bike riding. He has a Giant Defy3 road bike and she wants to be able to keep up with him on the various Seattle bike paths they ride two days a week during the summer. She currently has a Gary Fisher Hybrid bike and it's not up to the task.

On the demo ride she took at the local BF dealer, she really liked the way the bike could climb an adjacent hill.

I ran her chain ring/cassette combo thru the Sheldon Brown gear calculator, and it's a bit less than our Dual Drive's capability but very close.

Will keep you posted.

Lou

feijai

I am somewhat wary of Capreo. It's getting rarer, meaning it's now expensive and tough to find parts for in strange locales. Plausible but I'd consider other options (like DualDrive).