Originally Posted by
dynaryder
8spd cassette are like $20-30,easy to swap out. Chainrings are usually like $40 or so,again,not a big deal to change.
You shouldn't just jump curbs with any bike unless you know what you're doing. Technique is everything:
Psh hold my beer.
Originally Posted by
smallwheeler
sometimes when i am riding in manhattan, i get that "in the zone" feeling where i am one with the machine. maybe i've just hopped a curb or quickly navigated a suddenly opening car door. the adrenalin is flowing and i feel very confident. then, of course, i wake up and dial it back before i kill myself.
Yeah I know what you mean. It's definitely a very strange feeling when repetition of something over and over causes your neurological system to react faster than you can process. I've experienced in a variety of things in life and it feels AWESOME. But like you said, that's usually the feeling right before you're like "**** i need to dial it down a notch before i die".
Originally Posted by
HGR3inOK
You really need to test ride and test fold these bikes.
The current Speed P8 has a gear range of 33"-97". I don't know the gear range of a Montague Paratrooper.
Keep in mind that the specifications of most bikes may change from year to year. A red Dahon Speed P8 is most likely less than five years old.
You mention "disability". The lower step-over of the Speed P8 may be an advantage.
Generally speaking, small-wheel bikes spin up faster and are more maneuverable in crowds than large-wheel bikes.
The Speed P8 has a recommended weight limit of ~230 pounds. I believe the Paratrooper has a recommended weight limit of ~250 pounds.
Hope this helps.
-HANK RYAN-
Norman, Oklahoma USA
Thanks Hank. It did help. And thanks to everyone else who gave me their input. I actually went to another bike shop today that was 40 mins away just cause i was bored. I checked out their dahon but they only had 3 models. One was the uno, which is a single gear so that was ruled out. The other was the visfiness? or something like that. It had 7 gears but internal hub. It was okay, it was lighter than the last one, which was the Mu p8 I think. It had 8 gears, was black. I'm so glad I went to check it out because I found out something that made my decision very easy.
The dahon, BARELY fit in my car's trunk! hahahah so I ruled the Montague right off the bat. I didn't want to and I kept trying to figure out a way to make it work but I took out the tape measure and was like "nope, not happening". I drive a 350z, and that stupid ass rear strut bar in the middle of the freakin trunk completely makes the trunk useless. The dahon fits perfectly if I remove the seat also, which isn't a big deal. (I also have a 10" subwoofer on the side but it only takes up a very small amount of space)
The montague would fit in the passenger seat but that's not an option given that the Z is a two seater.
The other option was to look into various bike racks. The ONLY viable options are a tow hitch or a Sea Sucker Talon. The sea sucker talon is used by a few 350z owners with success. It is the best one. The hitch is another option but you have to do all sorts of crap and modifying. Gotta remove your rear bumper, remove the metal bumper plates, weld it, attach the receiver, drill, blah. Way too much work and it looks ugly. Seasucker is cool but it doesn't have a way to keep the bike secure to the car. The seasucker and bike can be removed off the car in a matter of seconds. So, with all that, I went out and bought a brand new Dahon Speed p8. It's red and 2013. Amazon is selling it for $699 and I got it for $400.
It's dark out so I didn't get to test ride it when I got home but it did fit nicely in the trunk and is accessible anywhere I go, which was the point of the bike. It helps me get places. At 27-29lbs (I forgot the actual number) it's fairly light. My ezip trailz was 70 lbs so yeah, it's light as a feather. But maybe there could be some way to shed some pounds so I can get into the low 20s?
A couple questions:
The bike only has 8 speeds, all in the rear. The man at the bike shop said that it's not possible to add a front derailleur and I'm better of trying to just CHANGE the front chainring (is that the right terminology? The gear in the front.) to raise or lower the range, but I won't be able to WIDEN the range. Does anyone know the answer to this? Is it possible to add a second or even third chainring in the front with a derailleur so I can get 14, 21 speeds? I'm not sure how important this is and I can't say until I have ridden the bike a while but based on my 30 second test drive, I feel like the lowest gear could be a bit lower. No problem on flats or downhill obviously, but uphill .. possibly difficult due to my situation.