Originally Posted by jasong
Thanks for your reply.
There is a guy on the net that has mod'ed his Presto Lite to have a 7 speed SRAM Spectro hub (303%), which is all the gearing I'd ever need. The dropouts are a bit narrow (119), but it seems quite unlikely that an extra 1cm spread is going to cause any problems. Perhaps the Piccolo's steel frame would be happier with such a spread. So gearing doesn't seem to be an issue, if you're up for paying out the $1-200 for that upgrade later on.
The presto is Aluminium, so you can't spread the forks without worry in my opinion. Also on the Piccolo, you are going to have to spread those back forks quite a bit even to squeeze a 125mm hub gear in (which adds 1.5 lbs and quite a bit of transmission drag by the way) alignment after this is a bit tricky. It is possible to fit a derailleur if you are willing to buy 2 hubs, a 7-speed and a 9-speed and swap the cassettes (=115mm OLN), but you'll need something like a 64T chainwheel if you want to use a 11-28 cassette.
However, the Dahon stem can be replaced with a zoom adjustable quill stem. This would give a far superior riding position.