Sounds like the boss and I should show up with some Dahon Curves if we visit her relatives ... :D

I had a great first real ride today on my Curve. It is a fun bike, and I think it performs well for what it is. However, by the end of my journey I could no longer access 1st gear. The bike came with an information sheet on the Sturmey Archer. I'm going to try and follow that. I'm going outside to snap a couple of pictures and I will upload them soon.

I'm glad to finally have my bike and some decent weather to go with it.

Here is the Curve in the trunk of my car:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3428/trunkwz1.jpg

As you can see there is still plenty of room for groceries etc.

Here is the Curve in my backyard:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5150/curveof6.jpg

@MequonJim - Your pic links wouldnt load could u pls check them / reload them Thks

They are not working for me either.

OK, I switched from Yahoo Photos to http://www.imageshack.us/ That works much better. Sorry.

When I adjusted the rear hub, I found out that the lock nut things were loose back there for holding the adjustments. That is probably how I lost 1st gear. I just took a guess and adjusted both to mid range and then tightened the lock nuts. Now all my gears work again. I couldn't understand the sheet that came with the bike on how to adjust the hub.

I will ride some more today and see if I can keep 1st gear today.

It seems that you can fit 2 Curves in your trunk with some room for extra stuff. That is really nice.

Thank you for the pictures.

For the gear adjustment, if you have it working, then there's nothing to worry about for now. Which part were you having trouble with, though? The indicator rod that it talks about is just a metal rod attached to the end of the little chain that runs into the axle. If you put the bike in 1st gear, you should be able to see the end of the rod clearly where it's attached to the chain. When it's in 2nd gear, the end of this rod, where it attaches to the chain, should be just level with the end of the axle. In 3rd gear, the rod will be entirely inside the axle, and you won't be able to see it.

By the way, did your bike not come with the rack, or did you remove it?

Thank you DaFriMon! I was close with my adjustment, but your explanation let me get it just right.

I took off the rear rack. That thing is VERY heavy! An aluminum version would be lighter, if you need a rack. Right now I do not. However I do like their bungee cord system for the rack.

Thanks again for the adjustment explanation.

Jim, Good to hear you finally got your bike. I too had to adjust the read axel as it wasn't centered. That fixed a lot of my gear shifting problems.

I've been using my bike daily to get to work. I fold it 2x/day and ride it about 3 miles round trip. The other day it was really nice out and I took it on an 8 mile lunch cruise along lake Michigan.

I'm going to keep my fenders on it because I rode it all last week in the pouring rain and while I still wore rain pants I really didn't even need them.

My Dahon Thudbuster arrived yesterday. After changing out one of the elastomers to get in my weight group, I tried it out. Oh is this nice!!!! What a tremendous design. I am really impressed by the effectiveness of this product. Unreal.

On the downside, the post was not designed for the Curve D3. It is shorter than the stock seatpost, and when it comes time to fold, you notice that. It took me quite a while to come up with the correct dimensions for the handelbar height and brake lever position to allow me to fold the bike. If the seat tube wasn't tapered near the top, it would probably work better. Or if the seat tube was a bit longer. I do have to say that this product comprimises the Curve's relative ease of folding.

14R, With the extension seat post, and the regular Thudbuster, do you have any trouble folding your bike?

Now that I have tried a Thudbuster, I will never be able to ride without one again.

Jim, did you figure out the bumps in your tyres? (See my post in your other thread.)

Okay, I'm very interested in this bike, however I have no way of testing one because there are no stocking dealers within hundreds of miles from me.

I think, I want the SL for the lower weight and couple extra gears (by the time its available I should have the money for it). I currently ride a Dahon Speed pro (25.5 lbs) and a Downtube INXS (23.5 lbs), which are both nice, but I would like something lighter and more compact that I could store under my desk at work and be able to fold and take more places. As you all probably know the 20 inchers are just a little to big for this.

I'm also interested in a bike that is simpler and quicker to pack into a suitcase.

Here are my questions.

My commute is 5.5-6 miles one-way and a slight uphill with a couple of pretty minor hills. I usually average 14-15 mph going to work (uphill). Should I be able to maintain this speed on a Curve?

On the way home I can average 19-22 mph or more depending on how hard I want to push it. Can a Curve handle those speeds? With the stock gearing? With modified gearing?

I don't want to lose too much in performance on my commute.

What is required for packing a Curve into an airline legal suitcase, what needs to be removed etc?

When you remove the rear wheel, do you have to always readjust the gears? The SRAM 3x8 usually never requires adjustment after wheel removal, which is nice.

Something that would also be nice is to see a picture or video of a man about 5'11''-6' riding the bike, to get an overall idea of the fit and size of the bike. Dahon usually shows there bikes with small women on them that done even have the seat tubes properly extended, so it's really hard to get an idea of just how well it might fit.

Thanks.

jur, I tried deflating and playing around with the inner tubes while deflated. I then re-inflated. The problem is less noticeable now. It is to the point where I can use the fenders without rubbing on the tires. I would not say that my tires are perfectly round by any means. My wheels might be a tad off too. I'm going to put some more miles on, and then re-evaluate the situation. Thanks for your advice. Thor included a couple of extra inner tubes with my seatpost, in case I blow them out.

According to Dahon's website the Curve D3 has a gear inch range of 42"-77" and the Curve SL has a gear inch range of 38"-85" To me, this does not seem like a big difference.

For hill climbing, I think a gear lower than 42" would be nice to have. I don't think 38" will be a big difference. For top speed on the flats the 77" gear is pretty good. 85" would be nice. Higher than that, I'm not sure how confident I would feel on such a small bike. Maybe I am wrong.

I don't have a computer hooked up to the bike, so I can't verify any of my speeds. I could try using my GPS unit, if nobody else has a Curve with a bike computer attached to it.

Your other questions, I can't offer any help.

In my experience with 16" wheels (Brompton and a Merc), I would avoid 20+ mph speeds. There are just too many surprises that can destabilize the small wheels ... mainly big pot holes.

The Curve has a 3 to 4 inch shorter wheelbase. I don't imagine that helps matters.

How fast can you spin? If you can comfortably spin at 90 RPMs then if you let the bottom end go to something like 30 gear inches--say with a 16 tooth cog in the back ... I believe that the SL has a 46 tooth chainring--then in the top gear you could still hit ~18.5 mph.

Maybe. I doubt if I could, but sounds like you're a stronger rider. I'd think other than gearing, a limiting factor would be that this isn't the most aerodynamic bike around. I don't have a bike computer on mine, but I did take my GPS unit on one 11 mile trip. Max speed was 28 mph (must have been down hill). Average showed as 13 mph. The GPS unit keeps computing average speed when you're not moving, so my moving average would have been a little faster. I suspect that this would have been fairly typical for me on this bike. I wasn't trying to go my fastest, and obviously, other people might go a lot faster anyway, but I wouldn't expect this to be your speediest bike. I definitely wouldn't think it would compete with the Speed Pro.

There's a thread on the Dahon forum by somebody who has just modified his Curve D3 with an 8 speed SA hub. Of course, if you wanted to go that route, there's also the Downtube Mini.

I'm 5' 7", so can't help you there, but I did take some measurements that might give you an idea. I put the both the stem and the seatpost and the max height mark and measured the distance to the floor. Saddle (Brooks B67) 40 inches, top of handlebar, 38 inches to the floor. Saddle (from center of seatpost) to center of handlebars, 25.5 inches. Of course, I put both of these much lower for myself. Please take these measurements as rough approximations, but I hope it helps. I suspect a taller person might feel a little cramped, but I don't know. Not my problem. :D

Hopefully others will be able to help you more with the other questions. I don't plan to take this bike in a suitcase, and haven't yet had reason to remove either wheel.

I just rode home from work. 10 miles 1 way. No seat mods. It was fine. Against the wind the whole way north up LSD from the Loop to Lawrence Ave and then west 6 miles to home. Going against the wind was really tough but it was worth it.

Let us not forget the rich racing tradition of the Moulton 16" wheelbase bikes of old. They were routinely pitted against their larger wheeled foes and won several of the contests. The moral of the story? Small wheels don't always equal slow wheels! :)

Juan

Ya, I was keeping up with the full sized bikes yesterday riding against the wind.

Very true. Just to be clear, my concern is not whether one could reach those speeds but whether it would be wise to reach those speeds on typical city roads on a short wheelbase sub-20" wheel folder.

BTW, there are people who share my opinion as well as people who believe that I overestimate the likelihood of a mishap. So I would take my opinion with a grain of salt.

After riding around on 8" wheels I'm starting to think that the wheelbase is probably more important than the wheel size.

At speed, I think the momentum of the bike will carry the wheel over holes which are bigger than the wheel itself. Of course, when you get air you lose stability, but as long as the wheels are far enough apart only one wheel will get air at a time, while the other remains stable (increasing the overall stability of the bike).

I wonder how much this actually changes for a bike with larger wheels. After all the contact patch is still small and as long as the contact patch is going over the hole instead of in it, the rest of the wheel doesn't matter (it isn't touching anything). Of course, there's the inertia of the wheel to keep it pointing forward, but that's related to the wheel weight rather than the wheel size and the wide wheels/tires commonly used on smaller wheels make them just as heavy as their larger brethren.

Remember that car tires are even smaller in diameter and just about pothole sized (probably no coincidence), yet they remain stable due to wheelbase and tire width.

Thank you everyone for the helpful comments.

I have to figure out the gears that I use on my bike now for my commute, but I think I could match them up pretty close.


I don't know about being a strong rider, the commute home is a slight downhill so the lay of the land gives me an advantage, there. Plus the extra momentum that comes with more mass. :) I'd be pretty happy with a 14-15 mph roundtrip average on my commute.

The Downtube I ride has a 38.5" wheelbase (axle to axle measurement). The Curve sounds like it's 37, I wonder how much that will make a difference. I have no problems with stability on the downtube.

I'm not too worried about potholes, I think I have them all named on my commute :D. Anywhere else I'd just slow down, I'd be enjoying the ride then rather than trying to get somewhere.

I certainly understand your concern. I don't really live in a city (population 45-50,000) and most of my commute is not really in the town, just the last mile or so. I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

I've never really felt, that riding a 20 inch folding bike has slowed me down at all compared to riding a conventional bike (for the majority of riding I do). I have, however, needed to adjust my riding style and need to be more aware of road hazards and such. I'm curious if a 16 inch folder will be more of that type of adjustment or if it is just asking too much from that wheel size.

Loch,

Well after years of urban motorcycle riding I'm conditioned to being overly cautious when riding on city streets. Any mishap on my part will damage me more than anything else no matter who's fault it is. All true unless I hit a pedestrian and then we are both screwed.

Pedestrians are worse than taxis or potholes IMO. They are less predictable than a pothole and harder to see than a taxi.

I ride my Curve on a busy 1 way street in Chicago's Loop. Its downhill all the way from the trainstation to my office's front door. I wait to enter the road until after the traffic signals stop vehicles from going down the 1 way road then I just start coasting the whole way to the office.

Immediately after I enter the road I encounter a mobile (draw) bridge that has a gurder like metal mesh surface. My Curve handles this well, in fact better than my BWM r1100s motorcycle. I notice little or no difference in the handling of the Curve and my mountain bike on this surface.

As I travel past the bridge I can really pick up speed. The Curve handles this fine too. That said, I don't like to get going too fast because the road has its fair share of uneven surfaces and the pedestrians are always darting out into traffic when they see that no cars are approaching.

I also enounter several speed bumps on the way. I just do little wheelies entering the bump and exiting them. Our speed bumps in Chicago are about 5 feet in length so they aren't those little things. This allows you to perform the dual wheelie. That said, I wouldn't recommend stunting on the Curve. Its solid but its still a folding bike.

Again a lesson from motorcycling: when approaching an uneven street surface I come off the seat and let my legs take up some of the shock. If you want to avoid potentially flying over the bars then come up off the seat and wedge the seat between your thighs while moving your butt back farther past the seat to counterbalance the center of gravity shift. If I'm on a sidewalk and want to enter the street and can't get the curb cut the Curve handles this fairly well using the wheelie technique as long as the curb isn't higher the the bike's axel (yet another reason I didn't buy a Mobiky w/ 8" wheels).

I suppose I'm too cheap to buy the Thudbuster and I've never tried it so I claim blissful ignorance but this is how I handle potholes and such.

On Weds I took the Chicago lakefront path home (10+ miles). Since there weren't any cars or people I was able to get going pretty fast for sustained periods of time. The surface is really good too. I had to cycle through all the gears fairly often to keep the pace while fighting the wind but I the bike felt as stable as my mountain bike on the straightaways. Again it was the curb cuts that I needed to reduce speed and perform a slight wheelie to traverse safely.

I think you'd probably end up doing the same on any folder. For that matter, I'd do the same on my full size bike.