mulleady

+1

I agree but I'm still going to frame this rare compliment from Chags to Brompton

Micheal Blue

Because it seems in the higher gears the chain is really forced to the side a lot. That cannot be good
for chain longevity and gear train reliability. I also read reports about the chain falling off.

On what authority do you say that? The Brommie's suspension or a Thudbuster are not there to smooth out potholes
and big bumps. They are to soak up "vibrations" from cracks, rougher pavement (chip seal), and other smaller irregularities.
Ask your spine if it prefers a suspension on small-wheel bikes. If you're not sure how to ask, you can ask a chiropractor.
(Sure, on smooth cycle paths -wherever they exist - a suspension wouldn't be needed.)

I have a bag that can comofortably hold my 20" Dahon. My concern is that because the Tikit's fold
is not as neat and clean, some parts could get damaged during transit.

The standard V-brakes on Tikit are cheap. They came standard on my Dahon and the front one seized 3/4 through the
first winter. I test-rode a Brommie, and the brakes seemed just fine (though it was a short test ride).

Buying two folders, one 16-inch for commuting and one 20-inch for touring, is out of the question, until I win the lottery

mulleady

Have you looked at the Pacific IF Reach from NYCE Wheels? It is down to $1500 now and maybe a compromise for your needs. i have one and it folds really well and rides beautifully across a variety of surfaces. It is £300 cheaper than in the UK so more realistically priced.

Useful review here:

https://www.pacific-cycles.com/upload...%20review2.pdf

You just need a better saddle and Ergon or Biologic grips.

See my thread & pics:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...cific-Reach-IF

I'm glad you appreciate the Brompton. Despite it's critics, it is a fine bike and very dependable.

chagzuki

Frame it, or perhaps tattoo it on your calves which I seem to remember are of the franken variety.

mulleady

No I'll send it to Will Butler Adams. Perhaps they can design a Chags Special edition with the compliments on it. Plus include some new parts in your honour!

chagzuki

I look forward to hearing from him, quite frankly it's about time he contacted me.

pacificcyclist

There seemed to be a lot confusion about what suspension does for a bike and I think it requires some clarification.

There seemed to be a thought that mechanical suspension can dampen high frequency vibrations (chip sealed, cracks etc and minor imperfections) and while they may help, fat and wide tires will do a better job at this. To combat high frequency vibrations, you need big fat tires that "SWALLOW" these imperfections as you travel at high speeds. Mechanical suspension is only effective at low frequency jolts (bumps and potholes etc..). Both the Brompton and the Tikit can not take the 16" version of the Big Apple as far as I know. Only 406 20" wheels can. The key is low pressure without getting into pinch flats and the Big Apple balloon tires can do that and the difference is noticeable. But the Big Apple has limitations as it provides a limited amount of compression travel at the minimum recommended tire pressure. To supplement that, you need mechanical suspension like a Thudbuster at the rear or a Pantour at the front. They work best in "conjunction" with wide fat tires.

The MOST COMMON mistakes a lot of newbie off-road riders do when they take their bikes on trails is still to maintain their high pressure tires at the max thinking that will make them ride faster and that their suspension will help. I've seen so many sad and frustrated faces on the Kettle Valley trail where riders were basically jack hammered to death due to poor trail conditions and running their tire pressures at like 70 psi when their tires can be lowered down to like 40 or 35psi to provide better comfort and better control on rough gravel plus good flotation on mud and dirt.

Know the benefits of running at lower pressure.

Secondly, I don't know if the OP realizes but in some parts of the Yukon and the outlying remote towns, roads are not as well super maintained and well super up kept like roads in the cities! These places get snowed in the winter and usually don't get plowed. If so, they are heavily salted. The temperature differentials meant that come spring, you'll see more cracks, bulges and potholes appearing once the snowplows come to clear for car and truck traffic. I just like to convey some ideas to the OP that you need to take the conditions of these remote roads into account when choosing the right bike for the job. Don't compare them to city roads as they get first priority, whereas remote roads don't -- less people complain you know.

My thoughts is this. Are you going to be flying up north all the time, like once a week or once a month? If that's the case, I can see why you need a Brompton or a Tikit. But a Tikit folded is no smaller than a 20" Dahon; infact slightly bigger than my Dahon Mu Sl with all the nice upgrades to combat rougher terrain of the north that the stock Tikit nor the Brompton even have nor can be equipped to.

I'm worried that all you're focusing is just the fold and the convenience, but how much time and inconvenience that this is going to set you back when you'll be riding say 20 to 30km on rougher roads that you need to endure being jack hammered for hours on end. Don't get too fixated on just the convenience!

invisiblehand

FWIW, the fixed difference between the bottom and top of the gear range can be altered with the size of the chainring/cog. So if you compare gear range possibilities of different models -- especially for IGHs -- it makes more sense to talk about them in percentage terms. Although there are chainring and cog size limits to this ... for instance, if you could double the size of the Shimano 11 chainring you could get a 42 to 172 GI range ... 130 GIs!!!! ... but that chainring would pose a whole bunch of problems if you could find such a gigantic chainring in the first place.

EDIT:

If we think about more reasonable figures like giving the Alfine 11 a 25 GI bottom, the top of the range will be a bit more than 100 GIs ... roughly 75 GIs. Roughly speaking, a 6 sp Brompton will typically give the range of the 8 speed IGH or an 11/34 cassette ... although you'll have to do that 1/2-step-like shifting to get reasonable jumps of the 8 speed IGH and the uber wide cassette should use a medium cage MTB derailer for good shifting. The Alfine 11 will typically give a wider range than those alternatives.

invisiblehand

I think that this is a non-issue for such small wheels which are much much much stronger than 26" or 700c wheels with an equal number of spokes.

Micheal Blue

Thanks, Pacificcyclist, for the interesting info. I can clearly understand this applying to suspension shocks on MTBs, but not as clearly when talking about a block of elastomer doing the work. Jiggling a dense plump of jello should soak up even higher frequency vibrations better than big gas shocks, no? They use some kind of rubber (or whatever) blocks on submarines to dampen vibrations from machinery (that would be high frequency?) and other sources. Well, I'm no engineer.

I've never been to Yukon. I'm reasonably aware of the limitations of small wheels (my folder is 20"), so I wound't try to ride on too remote roads. The map shows enough of main roads that perhaps could be no worse than many of our roads in Toronto (many of our roads here are quite bad).

The folder I will buy has to handle commuting duties, as well. That includes multi-modal commuting, especially in winter. I'd love to buy a Pocket Llama or a NWT, but they would be very difficult to handle/carry folded.

It's an irony that my Dahon is the best compromise in this respect - a jack of all trades (though master of none).
Unfortunately, my trust in its service evaporated when the steerer tube broke during a ride and sent me sniffing
grass in a ditch (fortunately at a very low speed so nothing happened).

chagzuki

In my experience both the Thudbuster and Brompton suspension do work well in terms of vibration dampening. Sometimes with the thudbuster you can feel the vibrations through the pedals but the rear end is isolated.

fietsbob

Brompton's high gear with the 6 speed is a combination
of the overdrive gear in the hub,
and the 13t (&15t) external cog..

Dual Drive hub in the Tikit will also offer that gear combination.
Sturmey has a Dual drive as well as Sram. IGH + cassette..

Indicator pull chain Vs klick box, with plastic case.

pacificcyclist

Elastomers on bikes can't be made as soft as jello, or your body weight would simply crush it and providing no beneficial shock absorption. Even if it is hardened to support a range of rider's weight, it can not be made too flexible or the pivot point that holds the elastomer to provide the suspension will become the flex point causing the frame to be too flexy. Part of the slowness and some frame flex of the Brompton is the soft elastomer that most people prefer to have on and by replacing with a firmer elastomer will reduce frame flex and thus improve pedal power transfer making the bike feel faster in expense of some vibration damping and shock absorption. Also the elastomer dampens and isolate one part of the 3 contact points. Whereas the Big Apple tires isolate and dampen the road vibration on the whole bike! Which do you think is superior? Little dinky elastomer on the Brompton or a pair of big fat tires on my Mu SL. A lot of people who rode my Mu SL afterwards had an immediate change of heart. There is a trend going now with people touring with Salsa Fargos, Surly Pugsley and Moonlander with fat tires on rougher terrain and the reason is, fat tires make for a magic carpet ride on rough roads

Part of the downside with Big Apples is that they are heavy tires, so they accelerate slower. But once you get them up to speed, I have no problems keeping up with the roadies.

Downtown Yukon and the outlying areas are no problems with both the Tikit and the Brompton or your Dahon. I'm sorry to hear that your have a problem with the steering post. Must be freaky when it happened?!? Ouch!!!

Why don't you do this. You've got a Dahon which you can convert into a dirt bike with a Thudbuster and a pair of Big Apples and use that to explore the remote areas on the weekends. The Dahon can be folded and be taken into transit albeit not as convenient as a Brompton. Tikit is still bigger size wise when folded compared to a Brompton. Use the Brompton when you have to go to work during the week in the middle of the nasty winter. I use the Mu SL basically for weekend excursions, tours and light off-road duties. The Dahon Speed Duo is used for week duties including inter-modal travel because it is not as messy when folded as the Mu and I don't need the gears or the suspension. The roads in Vancouver are pretty bad, but manageable with the Dahon Rotolos.

I would vote for the Brompton and then add a Thudbuster if it is at all possible. You can a consider a sprung saddle from Brooks. But if you prefer a racing saddle, then Thudbuster helps.

jcmkk3

What about a Birdy Inter 8? You get a relatively small size, some suspension and most importantly better tire selection. Schwalbe Kojak, Big Apple, or Black Jack depending what you are doing at the time.

chagzuki

Quite a good idea.
Btw you can just about squeeze 1.5" tyres on a brompton, the only one available being a greenspeed scorcher. Mudguard clearance is a bit tight but it works.

MadCityCyclist

If you're going to user the Brompton for touring you should also budget for the one of their granny gear options, otherwise the 1st gear is going to be too high for many of the hills you encounter. The gearing is the only thing I don't like about my Brommie, I never use the 5th or 6th gear, and the lower gears don't have the right ratio for most hills.

One advantage the Tikit may have for touring is that the rear rack looks higher and further away from the pedals than the Brompton. That would make finding rear panniers easier, because the rear rack on the Brompton is very close to the pedals on the back swing, especially if you have big feet like me.

fietsbob

Hill Climbing? I Run a Schlumpf mountain drive with my BSR/AW3,
2 gear ranges in the crank reduction planetaria .


3 low gears take up where the top 3 leave off.. bottom is 17.6"


people use Carradice saddle bags, and the seatpost beam racks
On Brompton to put more stuff on the back..
or Herr Stuke's technique of standing a backpack up on the rear rack.

I Don't like the Tikit pannier front rack (goes double for the single sided one)..
as well as the travel 20" wheel bike.. removable EZ pack.
on my P. Llama..

But I do like the big single bag on the front of the frame of the Brompton.

feijai

What I meant was: compared to the tikit, I found the B to be a bit *harsher* ride despite having an elastomer built-in. This was mostly down to tires. So saying that you had to put a Thudbuster on a tikit to get it up to the B's elastomer suspension standards was nonsense.

Ozonation

To the OP... for what it's worth, it seems that you want - even demand - the flexibility and customization available from a Bike Friday or even a Dahon/Tern. The Brompton is a great bike - I've ridden in a lot of different places and the fold is amazing - but there are limitations and vibration/suspension is going to be one of them.

It sounded from your original post that you wanted the BF more - I'd save up and get it. After all, the "poor man/woman" buys twice. Once you get the Brompton, you'll be thinking about "the other bike" all the time!

Micheal Blue

Well, if by that you mean eating dirt, then I can use the Dahon as is
OK, more seriously, as I mentioned before, I don't trust this bike any more. This wasn't the only issue with it,
though it was the most critical. This bike is going into a garbage container asa I get the replacement bike.

Micheal Blue

Birdy is an aluminium bike, and I don't trust aluminium steerer tubes in applications where lots of pressure is put on them - that is having a long handlebar post. Also, equiping a Birdy to carry panniers may be difficult.

Micheal Blue

The folding rear rack for Tikit looks nice. It's carrying capacity of 35 pounds is nothing special, but doable. Because of it's great hight, the stays and folding joints have to support lots of dynamic weight. Let's hope the rack is built to really handle it in the long term...the price would suggest so.
Actually, I think that Brompton can carry more stuff than a Tikit-without-the-trailer, when used the way pathlesspedaled
uses it; the T-bag can carry probably more stuff than two front panniers, and a backpack sitting on the rear rack can
carry at least as much as two panniers.

Micheal Blue

"poor man buys twice". Yeap, I've been there...with my current folder. I'd be happy with either of them (Brommie or Tikit), though I'd prefer the Tikit. But, as I said, I'm not sure I can justify spending extra thousand bucks on a Tikit + accessories to get the same overall functionality as a Brompton, when considering other stuff in my life I have to pay for. Pathlesspedaled
have been using Brompton for lots of touring successfully, and so have other people, so the bike can handle it. Obviously,
a 16-inch-wheel bike is going to be the most compromised bike of them all; the only thing going for it is the fold. But if you cannot get it to the destination and back, then the bike's greatness doesn't matter.

Micheal Blue

Yes, I'm aware of this, and if I do get a Brommie it will be with the reduced gearing. Even with the reduced gearing it's not anything extra, but I don't mind walking; it stretches the legs, relieves the back and butt

Ozonation

The funny thing is that when I ride the Brompton, it's not THAT compromised. It's easy to weave in and out of congestion on crowded paths and plazas, turns on a dime, and is way easier to accelerate from a standstill due to its internal hub and small wheels. I do have the reduced gearing, and it's far more useful than you think, especially when riding in urban areas! Think steep overpasses and lots of building generated headwinds. And I would agree that the Brompton carrying system is pretty innovative and works well in many occasions.

If folding and travel are your biggest concerns, then the Brompton does rule. If you do, get the B&W case. Not cheap, but since you're in Toronto, for your info, I've packed and checked the Brompton in the case and flown into and out of Edmonton, Toronto, Windsor, Montreal, and Charlottetown. No issues with either Air Canada or Porter. I do suggest additional padding however if you pack it to prevent it from moving. Get a portable scale - you'll come close to the 23 kg/50 lb limit.

As for buying the Brompton itself, I think another poster in Toronto has been waiting 13 weeks now for his to come in! I got mine in about 10 days. What I did is phone every Brompton dealer in Canada and see what they had in stock, and I compromised a bit on what I wanted for the original colour. I still got a great colour (sage green) that almost everybody comments on. All I had to pay extra was shipping (hey, HST is pretty much the same everywhere), and it only took about 4 or 5 days at most from BC, where I got my bike. I've had good luck with Fairfield Bicycles in Victoria and Dumoulin Bicyclettes in Montreal. In fact, if you make it out to Montreal, Dumoulin has a great selection of bikes and accessories (I stopped by on a conference once). I don't know how many bikes Curbside keeps in stock in Toronto.

Good luck!