Speedo

My wife and I finally took our Tikits out for a ride today, here's what we thought...

This was a perfect Tikit ride because it involved a bit of a commute, some errand running, and then some tooling around town just to put in some miles. I took my normal commute to work to put in a couple of hours. I pushed hard getting there.

One definite plus for the Tikit is that it comes in three different sizes. I'm 6'3" with a 36" inseam, so a lot of one size fits all folders are too small for me. I can get a very comfortable riding position on the large Tikit without pushing any adjustment to the limits. I have the handle bars set to the same height as the saddle.

The gears on the Tikit cover a good range. There's an annoying hill that I have to go up on the way in. Short and steep. I usually just put the bike in the lowest possible gear and spin up. The low on the Tikit is a little higher than the low on my commuter, so I went up faster, but was a bit winded at the top. On gradual down hills I was in the top gear and moving pretty fast.

The Tikit, like the Pocket Rocket and the New World Tourist, has a stalky seat post and handle bar post. When you push hard, and fast you feel a little bit of front to back bounce. This feels more pronounced on the Tikit than on the NWT. If you are careful, you can control it, but it's limiting on the Tikit when you try to go fast.

There's a short cut that I take that involves leaving the pavement and heading across some rolling grass. I decided to try it out on the Tikit, and rode it without difficulty. The Tikit handles fairly well. With both hands on the handle bars it feels solid, but if I take one hand off the handlebars it feels a little squirrelly.

After putting in some time at work it was time to meet up with my wife and do an around-town ride. We agreed to meet at a local drug store where we had to pick up a prescription for the cat. When I got to the drug store, I just folded up the bike and walked inside. A little girl by the entrance turned to her mother and said "See Mommy, everybody has bicycles today." Ah! I knew my wife was already there. We got some strange looks in the store, but no complaints from any of the staff. We were out and on the road in a few minutes.

Our plan for the rest of the ride was to just ride through quiet neighborhoods and get a feel for the bikes. When just casually riding you don't get the bounciness that you feel when pushing hard. Our ride through town was relaxing and uneventful, with the bikes feeling quite comfortable.

It is pothole season here now. We had to be very careful to avoid the many yawning potholes that have opened over the winter. There were quite a few that would have swallowed the 16 inch wheels whole. We avoided the worst streets.

pros: Ability to get a good fit, good but not great handling, quick fold, reasonable gear range (if you aren't a sissy like me.) comfortable for casual riding.

cons: bounce when spinning fast and hard.

I'm planning to ride a century in May. I was tinkering with the idea of riding the Tikit. Why? Well, just because. I'm shying away from that now. Pushing to get done in a reasonable time would not be that comfortable, and riding at a speed that it would be comfortable might take forever.

Speedo

Zonker

Speedo, thanks for the review. I am 6'2.5" with a 34" inseam and was wondering if the large would fit. I was able to try out a medium on Bike Friday Desert Camp, and it was obviously too small. I am trying to hold out for the Speeding Tikit version, which they teased for 2009.

blovejoy53

Zonker,

I probably missed it somewhere along the way. Concerning the Speeding Tikit... Do you know what the difference would be between that and the Express Tikit they have now? I too am trying to wait, in my case until an IG hub version is available, but I know the bike they have now is a good one.

Anyway, just curious if there was info on potential new models out there. All help appreciated.

Bob

Zonker

Bob, not a lot of info yet. Bruno, from their sales department, was at Desert Camp and said they were still working on the spec, but that it would have drop bars, the 9 speed Capreo cassette and be lightened up some with either carbon or titanium bits, to be determined.

Speedo

Desert Camp looks like fun. It sold out really fast this year. How many nanoseconds after registration opened did you sign up?

The guy with with Capreo equipped Tikit (is that the speeding Tikit?) looked fairly slim. In the spring-mass-damper problem of spinning fast and hard on the Tikit someone light might fare better.

Speedo

vik 

I'm 6ft - 160lbs and don't have any issues spinning fast on my Tikit. I don't get any noticable flex in the stem or seat post. Having said that I wouldn't pick it for a 160km ride, but I have been pretty pleased at how fast I can go in town up to 20-25kms. I'll probably go on longer rides with the Tikit as it gets warmer. My guess at this point is for rides longer than 30-35km I'd probably be happier on one of my full size non-folding bikes unless there is some multi-modal/travel element to the ride.

Zonker

Speedo, actually I attempted to sign up on 11/22, and it was already full. I got on the waiting list and a spot opened up 12/18, so I jumped on it. The ultra slim Tim Link, a Bike Friday employee, brought the Tikit. It's decaled as a "tikit 2 ride" but more set up like an Express, in my opinion. Tim told me he went from an already lean 175 at just around 6 feet to 150 by following the Paleo Diet (aka cave man diet). No beans, grains, processed food, etc. As a semi-bulky 6'2", 227 pounder myself, I was interested/fascinated by that. If I can get below 200, I may reward myself with a Speeding Tikit. Now that's an incentive!

invisiblehand

I can't quite tell from the photos, but I assume that the tikit's rear fold is similar to their NWT in that the distance from the rear wheel to the crank is less while folded. Consequently, even if you had an internal hub with horizontal dropouts, one would need a chain tensioner to keep the chain in place.

vik 

No the BB and the rear hub are one unit so the distance doesn't change during the fold. Alex W has an internal gear hub on his Tikit with no chain tensioner. Looks like a great setup. I might go there myself when my stock drivetrain needs replacing.

invisiblehand

Excellent ...

invisiblehand

I just read through Alex's description ...

Is it really the case that the SRAM 7 speed hub is more efficient than a Nexus 8 speed hub?

Wait a second ... there are (were?) two Nexus 8 speed hubs; the regular version and the Red Band high performance version. Given the glowing reviews of the Red Band, I assume Alex must have been referring to the ordinary Nexus.

-G

vik 

I don't know for sure, but I seem to recall stumbling across a German site with some test results for different IGHs...of course I can't put my fingers on the URL at the moment!...

Speedo

Interesting. I suspected that someone lighter, with a shorter lever arm on the seat post would have a better time of it.

Oh, I've been trained by riding my NWT, not to pull or push a lot on the handlebars. It didn't take a lot of training because my natural inclination is to spin rather than muscle my way around. Interestingly the Tikit stem feels a little stiffer than the NWT stem.

Oh yeah. In moments of sanity, neither would I. But, well, just think how cool it would be to do a century on a Tikit. I did one of my usual 27 mile training loops on the Tikit yesterday. It went pretty well. If I keep my cadence a little lower than normal the bouncing is not so bad. I'm going to put on some bar-ends to get a change of hand positions, and maybe swap the Brooks saddle over to it for the spring. The Tikit century idea is definitely not dead!

Speedo

Speedo

I'd love to go with my wife, but the short fuse on signing up and the long lobbying campaign it would require will make it a challenge.

Good luck! I'm 6'3" and these days tipping the scale at 210.

Speedo

doco

Hey Vic, here is that german hub site you were referring to

https://hubstripping.wordpress.com/in...ar-hub-review/
The Internal Gear Hub Review « Hubstripping.com