Folder rebuild
 

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This bike project started innocently enough and then snowballed. About eight years ago my girlfriend asked me to buy her a bike so that we could go riding together. Somehow I got the idea that a folding bike might work, and found this circa 2005 Schwinn Run-a-bout folding bike.(Schwinn made three items with that name: a StingRay kids bike in the 1960's, a bike trailer, and this folder made by Pacific Cycles.) My girlfriend was not impressed, so it's been sitting in the back room since then. A few months ago I was thinking of taking a trip back East, and the idea of using a folding bike to get around sounded good. I started looking at various folders, and liked the old Dahon Speed TR. They haven't been made for some time, apparently because SRAM stopped making Dual Drive hubs.

I looked at the Runabout, and it actually had fairly decent specs and a solid frame hinge. It had a stock 6-sp cassette that was geared way too high, so I started looking for old parts to make it more useable. On EBay I found a complete Dual Drive 3 hub with X-4 deraileur and shifters that had been stripped off of a Bike Friday. The old rims were 28h, the DD3 hub was 36h, so I built a new set of wheels using Rhyno Lite 36h rims. Most of the other parts were from a bike that I started building during Covid and eventually sidelined. The bike came with a steel steerer post, so it was replaced with an aluminum one that is adjustable. To give it some suspension I sawed off the top handlebar clamp and attached a Meroca suspension stem. The handlebars are Genetic Zygote trekkng bars. There is a set of dense foam sleeves for the bars covered with cotton bar tape for protection. For the seatpost I flipped it upside down and inserted a Suntour NCX suspension post. A 33.9mm post clamp holds it in place. I cut the fluted end off the bottom of the post and added a Litepro landing wheel so the bike could be rolled around when it is folded. The rear rack is a Tortec Epic stainless that fits perfectly. The brakes are Shimano V-brakes with Koolstop pads. The wheels, bottom bracket, and headset are new cartridge bearings.

The new cassette is 11-32t 8-sp, and the front 53t chainring was replaced with a 42t w/Hollowtech bottom bracket. The new gear range is 18-97 gear inches (24 sp). The Dual Drive shifts very smooth. The deraileur jockey wheels were also replaced with oversize ceramic bearing ones.

For panniers I had an old front and rear set of Kirtland bags in bright red that were made around thirty years ago, but are in excellent shape. The rear ones sit too far forward, so I'm modifying them with new Jandd clips. The handlebar bag is a Biria Quatrone that sits on the front platform. The Quatrone is an interesting bag as it easily folds out into a full backpack.

The bike weighs 33 lbs, which is not too bad considering the dual drive hub, racks, and suspension parts. The whole thing folds up nicely and fits into a RhinoWalk travel case designed for a Dahon.

The bike rides and shifts just fine. Small wheeled bikes are slower on the flats and downhill, but have better torque for hill climbing. Looking forward to using it for urban commuting and maybe some light touring.

Quite an impressive conversion! You touch on a lot of things I have considered.

36 spokes on 406 rims, that's strong, you could haul bricks on that thing. I'm OK with my 28 hole, I don't like the newer Dahons using 20 front, and especially radial spoking, cross spoking is more durable.

Ironically, the Dual-Drive was the reason I did not buy a Speed TR or later Bike Friday equipped with it, as I wanted to do all of my own maintenance, and my current residence has no space for a workbench where I could service an IGH. But I desperately needed lower gearing while maintaining the 88 gear inch high. I wasn't aware of wide 1X cassettes at the time, so I went with a 2X crank. These days I'd probably just go wide 1X, but I'd need to upgrade the freewheel body from 7 to 8 speed.

I have a tall steel handlepost, which I like for its height and rigidity compared to the adjustable height ones. But the handlebars are perfect position now, so if I cut off the clamp to fit a suspension stem, the bars will be too far forward, plus my post is tapered up top. But I sure like your thinking. Because my top clamp does not open for easy bar removal, I plan to find a one-piece aluminum handlepost with top clamshell opening and same forward cant and height. I could go straight up and then a horizontal or suspension stem, but I'm concerned about the post top then being further aft; I had fit a small skinny bag to the back of the handlebars and was hitting it with my knees when I climbed standing, I don't want to hit the handlepost that way.

My old road-racer I had fit the bars with GrabOn foam padding, I miss that. My bar ends are oversize and I haven't found the foam yet in oversize diameter. I never covered the foam with tape and it held up great over 16 years and mega miles.

They used to make a Thudbuster seatpost in super long and 33.9mm, but no longer. I should have grabbed a used one I saw for sale but missed it.

I agree about the hollowtech II style crank, so smooth, that's one of my best upgrades.

I got lucky and found a rack that positions the panniers well aft, but I needed aftermarket super-XL length stays to reach the rack mounts. Like yours, lower tier for the panniers, and well aft.

I still have the stock 11-30 cassette and plan to replace with a lower low, at least 34, 36 might work with my mid-length (GS) rear derailleur of "conventional slope", the angle of the cogs on the cassette; Wider gearing than that and I'd need a newer 1X design RD to accommodate the steeper slope on wide-range 1X cassettes.

Here's mine, on a short, non-camping visit to someone via train in 2022, I'm hoping to tour on the bike in the coming years. Camping I have plenty of experience, but I have some other challenges which may or may not get worked out:

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It's panniered full time as my townie, it's indispensible for shopping.

Thanks for posting yours!

Quite the solid build! Dahon makes some really nice designs, and your upgrades are well thought out. I like how you have everything set down low for better handling. I suspect you are going to have a lot of fun with it!

Aliexpress had the adjustable steering post in aluminum for under $50. Shaved over a pound off the steel post weight. What works well for my bike is that the upper portion is quick release and can be popped off easily. It makes it possible to use the butterfly bars, otherwise they would make a mess of the fold. When I cut off the upper clamshell clamp there was a tiny lip of metal left that keeps the stem from pulling straight off the top. I was going to grind it down, but then decided it was an improvement.

This project was a bit of a scavenger hunt. The old Runabout needed to be rescued, and by chance the Dual Drive and deraileur came up on EBay. No one else bidded on the DD3, and I picked it up for $140.00. It allowed everthing else to fall into place. The suspension parts, handlebars, saddle, pedals, rear rack, etc were all sitting around from a 700c build that I worked on over Covid but sidelined due to some medical issues at the time (this getting old business is not for the feint of heart!).

The Zygote bars work well with the 90 mm suspension stem. It places the shifters just slightly behind the pivot point of the post, which fits my geometry perfectly. I've put Zygote bars on other bikes, and found that the slight sweep in the lower position is really comfortable. High density foam padding has a nice feel for a while, but eventually collapses and shreds easily. A lightly placed layer of cotton tape over the foam protects it and the foam last much longer.

The weight is a bit high for a touring bike, but I'm usually happy with slight tradeoffs for better gearing and comfort, and dependabiltity. The DD weights around 3.5-4 lbs, which is quite a heft. Will see if it was worth it. The suspension parts are not the lightest either, but I like the parallelogram motions and am not really going to nearly double the price of the bike for the latest and lightest parts.

Two changes I'm looking at are to pick up a set of Wellgo QRD pedals (I like SPD clips) and might experiment with different saddles. I have a Selle TRK and a SQlabs 602 that might work. I spent decades touring on Brooks B17s, and now am wondering why.

The old Kirtland panniers that I had tucked away needed to be modified a bit to work on this rig. I've used this saddlebag strap system on other panniers, and it works well.


Safe travels!






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Old set of vintage Kirtlands on a Tortec Epic rack
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The panniers were too far forward (heel strikes), so I moved them back 4". The strap system is 1/1/2" wide nylon web that mounts in an "S" arrangement, much like an old mule pack
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The clips and strap are attached using M4 stainless screws. The clips are from Jandd (pannier hardware).
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The straps are homemade. With a sewing machine it only took minutes to attach the velcro.

Thank you. And very nice on yours. There's a blog online, crazyguyonabike, has toured worldwide on a Bike Friday, and he has some good tips on things like rear panniers; His attachments let loose, so after fixing that, he rigged straps that go diagonally underneath the lower corners to take the vertical load instead of just the pannier hangers, and one strap horizontally around both panniers to hold them in when riding. A lot of good practical info on his blog, many pages. I think he's no longer touring due to health, but last I looked the blog was still up.

My super-XL front rack stays I originally got from Jandd, stocked at the REI bike shop. I later swapped them with I think Topeak IIRC that are narrower but thicker.

Both of our high racks are good for hauling full size panniers on the lower tier (which makes putting the trunk bag on and off a LOT easier) without the panniers dragging on curbs when biking close to them.

Your rack looks like it's made for the job. However, the angle of the front stays is not ideal to resist fore/aft rack motion pivoting about the lower rack screws, it should be fine, but if you need a better angle, check out the angle of my stays above, and, this pic of my bike folded, you can see how I attached my rack stays to a (large, heavy) horizontal on the rack deck (or you can go to a side support) with rubber-covered stainless steel P-clamps, available at marine (boat) supply stores in different clamp diameters cheap (originally, because the wide Jandd stays did not fit in the channels on the rack). This works fantastically:
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I miss my old SPD setup on my road bike, but my shoes are too deep in storage, I only found one brand that fit me well. But also, here in hill country (unike back east), there are times I need to walk a bit on long ascents, or stretch out a calf cramp, and that is way easier in regular shoes, and riding in low hiking boots with cages and straps works well. I don't like plain pedals with nothing. But QR pedals would be nice. The folding pedals that came with the bike were plastic with stamped steel bearing cups, and only a season of daily riding was enough to fracture the cups in fatigue, I think not as much due to the steel cups, but the lower stiffness of the plastic around them would allow the cups to flex elastically more than being in aluminum. I currently have on standard pedals, that I've needed to service twice, until on the third time I learned about proper bearing preload, especially important with the tiny pedal bearing balls, and now they've been on for years and still going strong.

That huge cargo space between the front rack and aero handlebars is just amazing for cargo, I've actually hauled there a boxed folded frame of the same bike model, back from my offsite mailbox.

Take care of that Dual Drive; Some SRAM hub manuals say "lubed for life", don't believe it. I have a SRAM IGH 3 hub on a bike I bought before my conversion, and instantly discovered 168% gear range is not enough in Seattle. I printed out the whole pro tech manual from SRAM for that but don't have the facilities to do IGH service (I did when I printed it), but I want to lube it before giving the bike to anyone, and I'll look to see if it's grease or oil or both; For oil, I may just be able to drip proper lube in via the pushrod shift hole, don't know.

Despite being lowbrow compared to my former love of road race bikes, I love this folder as a townie, the stepthru frame has spoiled me when it's heavily loaded from food shopping, and the tons of space for cargo. But wider gearing, better crank, aero bars, etc., have really improved it a lot.

Again, great thread, very encouraging to those thinking of improving their folder.

EDIT: Great deal on that rear rack! Stainless steel racks are rare and pricey, but weight usually worth it for durability. I just looked that up, the steel version is no longer available and not stocked. The one I use is no longer made either. However last I checked, Axiom made an aluminum one that could fit centered or well-aft, via different lower section, had lower tier for panniers, and also had a wide deck for trunk bag, unlike their narrower Streamliner racks. Good rear racks are now rarely stocked at my local bike shop, as there is less demand with "bikepacking" setups.

That's a beautiful and functional bike. I like the bars. Are the bars fitted with a shock system?

He did do a great job, didn't he, especially for the first try on a folder upgrade.

He's got one of those parallelogram suspension stems, with adjustable and swappable springs, IIRC. I have not yet tried but I'm interested, as the pivoting suspension stems change the bar angle in rotation as they move. The dense closed-cell foam on the bars also helps, I used that in my road bike days (GrabOns, designed for bikes). He covered his with cloth tape, mine worked fine plain, but it was also black, which usually resists UV light better than lighter colors. I also might like that bar; I used bullhorn bars on my road bike but have not on my folder, as the bulls are 40cm wide and I now find it more comfortable with 58cm flat bars with bar ends, I passed on some Bike Friday H-bars at the LBS because they were a lot narrower. I may look up that trekking bar to check the width. The rear bar position mitigates the stem putting the bars forward, and forward bar position is more aero, but it lacks my primary reason for aeros, and that's to put weight on the forearm pads instead of my hands.