badmother

Do you know what the description of a gentleman is?

-A Who can play the accordion, but who refrain from doing so...

fietsbob

Old Norwegian Accordion player, Here , Occasionally I get to sit in and try my hand at the old Music,
on my Mandolin.
Around the 6 /21 midsummer Scandi Fest ,

Invariably the tune will be announced as Being in C .. the white keys..

badmother

Are you talking about those with buttons and two rows? In that case i am guilty of playing one myself many many moons ago but plse do not tell anybody...

invisiblehand

I was thinking about this at the park with the kids. Rather than modify the cassette and find the perfect derailer, maybe you'd be better off swapping the crank for a compact. 34 to 28 gives you almost the same bottom at 39 to 32 when mated with the 369 wheel ... the 26 might be low enough. You'd be using pretty standard parts including a short pull rear derailer. Compact cranks are readily available. Your top gear would remain in the low 90s. Is that high enough?

chaadster

Nice bike!

fietsbob

No Pianistic keyboard type..


A Portland Oregon band leaning into the Tango and other types is 3 legged torso..

onbike 1939

This is a Moulton and uses a brazed-on FD bracket so there's no way one could get the FD low enough for the chainrings.

What I've done is to rejig the cassette to give me 9-32 which gives me the low I need. It works but I have to remember never to go to the 32 with the 53 chainring as I would come to an abrupt stop.

Good of you to give it some thought....thanks.

badmother

Ok. I actually did play that too, before the other one. A crime against humanity if you ask me

fietsbob

Roland has a couple models of Synthesizer Accordions..

Heard a Guy in Ireland, Playing Flight Of The Bumblebee (by) Rimsky-Korsakov on what I recall as a zillion Buttoned accordion.

Like this Guy

badmother

Bumblebee can be accepted..

BruceMetras

Closet accordionists, rejoice in my SST thread with jokes, anecdotes, personal experiences .. like when I accidentally left my accordion in full view in the back seat of my unlocked car while shopping ... when I came back, there were two more ..

tds101 

This is not humor! This is a fact of LIFE!!!

jur

The only thing worse than the accordion player is the guy hauling out a guitar at the campfire and belting out what passes for music after some beers. At least you can walk away from an accordion player. ☺️

badmother

Wow, that is hilarious. You made my day. I hope it is not true..

tds101 

Don't you mean run? LOL!

fietsbob

Works with Banjos too ..

tds101 

MovingViolation

Resurrecting this thread because I'm about to take delivery of an SST frame with 53/39T, 11-32T SRAM Apex setup. So ~23-91GI.

It's my first Moulton, so haven't quite made up my mind what specifically I'm going to use it for. Tending toward day rides around the hilly bits of Lantau Island, Hong Kong + some pootling around other flatter parts of the New Territories.

Therefore, didn't want to go overboard on the groupset at this stage as may later decide I want to switch to flat bars and Rohloff or go the other way with a tighter range cassette and a 55/56T big ring.

Also, kind of a dry run for a possible 50th birthday extreme extravagance next year (Double Pylon). I'd be grateful if folks could talk me OUT of this idea, however!

Need to know myself and this bike as currently specced more first. It's going to be interesting!

onbike 1939

This seems wise and it's best to try the original set-up before changing anything at all. The gear range with your transmission does seem pretty good but only by trying it will you know if it fits your particular needs.
A Rohloff hub would provide a huge range of gears given the 20" wheel size but I think it would be unlikely that you would need such a wide range unless you are touring with camping gear or are old and decrepit like myself.

I needed very low gears on my Esprit so I made up a custom cassette to provide this using Capreo cassette and sprockets from other sources. I did try flat bars with thumb-shifters as well as drops with STIs but ended up with bullhorn bars and bar-end shifters as I find this arrangement comfortable and the narrower bars I think do tend to suit the configuration of the Moulton frame.

MovingViolation

Many thanks for your comments! I will definitely take my time experiencing and learning more before making any changes to my initial gearing setup. I hadn't considered bullhorn bars before but am now intrigued by the possibility.

littlewheels

I don't suppose you could email me a picture as they have been removed from Bike Forums

jamie.leaffoundation@gmail.com

ttakata73

I encourage the purchase of a Double Pylon. Before you buy one please tell your dealer to tell Moulton to start making bikes with disc brakes since they might actually listen to you. It's ridiculous that such expensive bikes run such antiquated braking technology when disc brakes are so cheap now. Every few years I get tempted to buy a TSR but end up buying something else with disc brakes. Nowadays I am debating a V brake TSR but am swinging towards a Birdy Gen3.

MovingViolation

Not being a Mainland Chinese Billionaire putting in an order for 100 Double Pylons so that I can pile them up in my front driveway to gain big face, I doubt anyone at Pashley would listen to me Now that Campy have hydraulic disc brakes (courtesy of Magura, so most likely to be very good brakes at that), It *would* be lovely if Moulton produced disc brake bikes.

However, I *suspect* (zero evidence/figures) that the Pashley/Moulton business model is to sell as many bikes to well-heeled retro-cult- or face-driven consumers in China/Japan/Taiwan/SE Asia as they possibly can. And this market mostly doesn't want to see *any* change at all since they're buying a freshly-minted museum piece.

What little there is of a market for current Moultons in the West is probably a pimple on the posterior of an afterthought to the much larger Asian market sales. One can get a feel for this by reading the Moultoneer... no offence to the dedicated folks behind it... but the whole thing gives off an aura of moribund mustiness. Western Bike Nerds with the means to purchase and who may have gone nutty about Space Frame Moultons per Sheldon Brown or Richard Ballantine back in the day are nowadays far more likely to be after a custom steel or titanium road or gravel bike, or maybe even a resurrected and improved Herse/Singer Constructeur style cyclotouring bike per Jan Heine et al.

Again, I could be totally wrong... but I think there just isn't any market incentive for Pashley/Moulton to innovate.

So, if you really need disc brakes, best buy the Birdy, methinks. I've seen a few in Hong Kong and have always been tempted by the slightly over the top Rohloff version.

As for my SST: I've owned it for nearly a year now and enjoy riding it. However, I've since purchased a BMC Roadmachine and a Bianchi Infinito and have been riding both of these bikes much more. Currently trying to decide whether to keep the SST and take advantage of its separability to use it as a travel bike that can be transported in the Samsonite Flite 31... or sell it and put the money toward a Rinko-ized Cyclotouring bike. Tough decision. May well end up keeping the Moulton because even if I don't ride it, it makes a lovely living room conversation piece - not something can be said about too many other bikes!

Given all of the above, it should be clear that my tastes have changed a bit in the past year and there are a few other cycling itches I need to scratch before spending an insane amount of money on a Double Pylon. However, if I won the lottery tomorrow...

jur

I've had disc brakes because I believed all the hype surrounding them. They do have better performance if riding wet roads, by baking sooner, but I discovered that's the only advantage. If rim brakes are used properly their advantages outweigh those of disc brakes. So my Ti Swift now sports rim brakes again.

Joe Remi

I had an ebike with hydraulic disc brakes, which were pretty fabulous for hauling down a fast, heavy bike without much hand pressure. But the several mechanical-cable discs I've tried showed no improvement over rim brakes, and the hydraulics aren't necessary on a non-assisted street bike. I think you're right that the Swift is fine with rim brakes.