From reading of others (not personal experience), the challenge with fat tires, is, while it provides better ground clearance for the derailleur cage, you can have issues with the bottom run of the chain rubbing the tire when on the lowest cog, especially if running 2X or 3X crank on the inner chainring in low-low, like an older Bike Friday, someone running that setup had to skew the axle in the dropout and eventually redished the wheel. Should be less of an issue with 1X gearing, but it can still be close.

Yes, indeed, BF do not fold as small as many other folding bikes.

For the price, with prices between 1900 and 2500USD, their bike are between the high end expensive bikes and the low end cheap bikes. Of course no US or European made bike can compete in price with bikes fully made in China.

But they are available almost anywhere in the world because BF ships almost everywhere and they now have resellers in many countries including Asia.

Nice quality Dahons, Terns or Fold 560 from Decathlon (very good bike!) are very solid base for such drivetrain upgrades, and they're much much cheaper.

Add shipping and taxes and the price is almost doubled.

All of the bikes noted above have a mid-frame hinge. The Bike Friday does not, so inherently more robust. (Also others like the Tyrell Ive.) Having said that, robustness and designs of the hinges have improved, although replacing the hinge pin is still quite difficult if possible at all, and usually the holes that the pin fits into are not replaceable bushings.

Now, Dahon introduced a feature called a Deltech cable, running from near the head tube to the bottom bracket shell, which triangulates the main frame, like a Bike Friday Diamond Llama, but in tension only. What this does is change the load on the hinge from bending, to compression shear, which drastically reduces the loads and wear on the hinge. How do I know? I got tired of waiting for Dahon to introduce their "Add-On Deltech" retrofit, so made my own from Kevlar line (*extremely* low stretch and high strength), and it's worked fabulously. I went from monthly hinge adjustments to... NEVER, not once in two years and a lot of riding, have I felt any hinge looseness when climbing, or rocking the bike fore/aft with the front brake engaged. Can be retrofit to any bifold. So the advantages of the Bike Friday are narrowing. But on the plus side, the price of the New World Tourist has stayed constant for years, while Dahon's prices doubled during the pandemic. The NWT is a better buy than it used to be. BF's newer models, the All-Packa, quite popular, price is about 50% higher. Much to consider.

Regarding standing behind their product with customer support, consensus on here is that Dahon is non-existent (at least in the USA), Zizzo has been good (but no major failures yet), and Bike Friday IS responsive and stands behind their product.

Behold, improvised Deltech (before securing line ends):

That pic is like the opening credits to Star Trek (original series, 1966), where the ship is warping toward the screen, then instantly warping away from it. But that's just me.

"These are the voyages of the bikeship Damontrek. Its yearly mission, to seek out new life, civilizations, and great food with pictures. To boldly go where other people only dream..."

Greetings, DG.



It's a panorama wider than 180°.

Great to see you too, Ron.

Yeah I gathered it was a panorama, I'll have to look for that feature on my phone. I've seen that with merged still pics, but my guess is now there is probably a feature to hold the shutter button down, do the pan, release. EDIT: Unless you have a fisheye lens that wide.

• Replaced handlebar with a 2.5cm riser bar installed upside down for a more aggressive position and that hip, alt, cafe-racer vibe.

• Installed a new front fender with longer front overhang to reduce/eliminate 💦 splash to mounted luggage

Took the opportunity to scrub and wash the tires after being caught in the rain a couple of times recently and the sidewalls turning black from brake pad and road slurry.



Looking and riding sweet still, seven years in. Regular maintanaince pays dividends. In the pipeline, after the rains, is replacing the inner & outer cabling from the original build for smoother actuation.







That front fender probably needs a mudflap still.

Hi, yes, those are 47-406 wheel/tires. That RD will span up to 50T if you want to push it even further at the expense of RD ground clearance. Here's a prototype:


11-50T, 10sp cogset


You gotta be careful about the choice of cogset on 130mm rear OLD, rim-brake frames, though. Otherwise, the RD will rub against the cogset. Less of a problem with 135mm rear OLD, disc-brake frames. Pushing it at this stage becomes a game of millimeters, but it works as I can attest from actual wrenching and riding.

Re-build in progress...

What happened; is this the tour bike !?!?

Tranquilo, pana. Yes, this the bike...well, the frame at least... that went on tour to Thailand. It's now back home and ready for temporary decommission or a prompt re-build. Haven't decided which one...

Man, for a minute there I thought you were still traveling and something had gone amiss. I'd say rebuild but, whatever; I really like how that frame still looks.

The fold pivot mechanism had become hard to turn, making folding the bike a bit of a chore. This is a known issue with the FSIR Spin bikes. To get at and clean the pivot mechanism, I separated the two halves of the frame. I was expecting a struggle, but it was remarkably easy to do with one person counter-rotating and pulling each half of the frame, having removed the holding cap and bolt prior. The two frame parts came off rather easily.



Unsurprisingly, the pivot internals were bone dry, devoid of lubrication. The white residue, I imagine, is the remnant of the original lubricant which once enabled smooth, effortless swiveling.

Back in business as one piece after cleaning the pivot innards and lubricating them with lithium grease. It's now back to swivelimg effortlessly, smoothly.




EP2 sauce

I took the opportunity to weigh the frame and it came in at 2.1kg (headset, BB and rear magnetix included).

[The FSIR Spin 5 is currently disassembled and decommissioned from service.]