buzz609, I don't know a thing about BF but can vouch for the wonderfulness of the Swift. just returned from a trip to Chicago where I packed it in a suitcase (no luggage charge, thanks Southwest), built it up in my hotel room (less than 15 minutes), and then rode it 40 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan: http://app.strava.com/rides/7347628

I actually own two Swifts, a stock version I travel with and a custom build with drop bars and BMX stunt rims (for potholes) to commute into downtown Boston. love the bike because everything is standard parts, very customizable

1st one in 30y? Wow. Did that put you off bike-commuting?

Scary. I haven't had a RTA yet, in 8 years. I hate driving so if one in 30Y is enough to put one off cycling... wow. Too scary to contemplate.

Heh heh here's my commute...
http://app.strava.com/rides/7023870

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t..._bullhorns.jpg

Now THAT's a commuter. What kind of bars are they? This is exactly the setup I would want if I do get the Swift,

Wow, nice. Any details on your setup there? Especially on the fork, riser/stem, seatpost and wheels? It looks light too - how much does it weigh?



I think it will *just* reach on 406 rims if you use the "rare earth magnet on your pedal spindle" trick for the cadence sensor part instead of the included magnet. My new Swift just arrived yesterday and I'm planning to use the same sensor. I have 406 rims too.

Fork - Litespeed 650c fork, used with drop bolts to make the brakes reach. Wheels are 451 for the slight higher gearing. Handlebar is a plain bullhorn, but I sawed off the curved rising bit at the tips - I don't like them and the bars look too big/clumsy to me. Gear shifters are Dura Ace barend shifters, and the brakes are Tioga crosstop levers; that combination allows both brakes and barcons to be mounted together. Normal TT style lever plug the bar up so you can't use barcons with those.

Like that the bike weighs about 8.5kg. Since that phot was taken I have ditched the Tioga Spyder saddle in favour of a Brooks. Front derailer is Ultegra, RD is XT shadow. That curving stem riser is a Bagetta recumbent stem. I reamed the stem clamp to accept 26mm bars. The bike is now very close to being perfect; I am wondering if I should go drops with brifters but I like the setup as is.

Hi There Swift Guru's.
I have been reading through this thread with interest. You guys have done some great mods to these bikes.
I am on the fence about a folder and the swift seems like a good place to test the waters (will use for travel overseas)
I have tried to organise a test ride with no luck in my area (through local supplier sales data). (Sydney)
I am 6"3" and currently have a road bike that fits me perfectly.
From what I have read I will need a longer stem and probably bullhorn or drop bars to get the same reach as my road bike.

As I am not an ideal height for all folders (except $BF) and you tend to sit in a more upright position to what I am used to.
My question is to all the tall guys who have modified their swifts to get longer reach
- Does it all feel a bit weird?
- Can you get into a nice racing position and feel like a road bike?
- Am I being unrealistic to expect a medium sized frame to ever feel decent.

Folders are small and I think I may be expecting the impossible.

Thanks
Wayne

Jur...I must admit that despite the accident and the injuries (dental work, bruising and a wrist broken in 3 places - 2 screws in wrist) i was ok after a while with commuting...BUT my wife said a big NO...So i ride when i can...:rolleyes:

I'd had plenty of close shaves also...but there character building!

The commute bike looks even better.....Thanks for the replies by the way....

[QUOTE=jur;14154681]Heh heh here's my commute...
http://app.strava.com/rides/7023870

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t..._bullhorns.jpg[/QUOTE

jur...i just noticed the commute profile...that's some climbing....you take the long way round ?!;)

Hi Wayne

Whether you could get stretched out on a Swift depends a bit on your build, if you are long or average in torso height, then I would say probably not; however you could add the option of going quite far back with the saddle. Assuming you don't intend using a Brooks (which have annoyingly short fore-aft adjustment range :mad: ), you could get quite far back just using the saddle adjustment range on the stock seatpost. You will have a slightly more relaxed saddle to pedal angle but that does not need to be a bad thing, in fact it would be required for balance if you really want to stretch out. So that gives you quite a bit extra over and above playing with stem length. The answer also depends on your existing setup - what is the saddle-to bar distance on your roadie? I could measure mine, add say 2-3" for the set-back seatpost that you could use, and see how it would compare.

[edit]Also wanted to mention that after 5 years the Swift has not faded in glory like all my other bikes. Only the Swift retains that thrill every time I ride it, the others get a feeling of "Ahh nice bike." but the Swift is like, "wow such a brilliant bike!" I haven't tired of it one little bit. I have tried a friend's Cervelo but it's just not the same. My friend raves over his Cervelo's stiff Dura-Ace wheelset; mine is stiffer still. He like the responsiveness; mine is more responsive. I just can't beat him on the downhills.

Thanks for the help Jur.
From center of bars to saddle tip = 25"
I realise that all seats are different but it will give me an idea.

Really like your swift setup. Something to aspire to.

Nice comment that you added. Good to know that you still rate this little gem after all these years.
I used to have dura ace wheels but I am too heavy for them and they were mushy and I started breaking spokes. I got some custom wheels built for my weight (only 84kg but thrash my bikes in crits) and the difference is outstanding. So your swift would be a similar standard - nice.

What is your height Jur? (can't quite tell from the photo)
Your bike setup is agressive so it's a good comparison.

I just looked at your No of posts. Dude you are dedicated.

+1

4 year owner. I love my Swift.

You can have a long seatpost, riser bar to get the height, but long stems affect the handling. The main dimension you are stuck with on the swift is the effective top tube, so you need to know how far off the swift (or any potential bike) is from the ideal ETT for you. Measure your own bike (I assume this fits) and measure the effective top tube (the horizontal distance between the centre of the seat tube and the centre of the steerer tube, at around the height of the top tube on a traditional diamond-frame bike (about crotch height then)). The ETT on the swift is 55.5 cm. The differerence in your ideal ETT and the swifts will have to be made up in the stem length. Any stem longer than 130-140mm (with typical angle) will have unusual handling that will take some time to adjust to.

This is a simplification - the difference in seattube and headtube angle also plays a factor (swift is 72/72). Let's say your current bike is 73 degree seattube so on a swift you need a slightly longer stem all other things being equal because the ETT on the swift is being measured at a point on the seatpost further back than on the 73-degree bike. But at your height I expect this doesn't come into it - that there will be a big difference between your ideal ETT and the swifts.

On solution to fitting the swift is when your ideal bike is measured using flat bars. You can make a taller person fit on a swift by using drop bars on the swift. Drop bars put the hand contact point much further forward than on flat bars. That's what I did: my ideal ETT for a MTB is 620 - a whopping 6.5cm longer than the swift. So flat bars would be too cramped for me but drop bars and a 140cm stem give me the stretch I need and while the long stem makes the handling less than perfect I have adjusted to that.

For a proper fit there are not many folding bikes our there that do long or custom fits. Bike Friday is the only on I know of.

Good luck!

Thanks Rickybails
I currently have a 58cm ETT frame with a 140mm stem on drop bars, but this is my ideal racing position to get as flat as possible.
It's going to be a comprimise on a swift but it doesn't sound like it will be too bad and workable (but a risk)
What I am afraid of is spending all the effort on customizing it then not being happy.

How tall are you Rickybails?
What is your handle bar to seat tip length if you don't mind.

Brilliant!
Is it stiffer/lighter that your former solution?
I also like your sterer/brake/shifter solution.

OK, my Swift is 51cm from tip to bar camp centre, 20". The curving stem riser is about 4" extension, so you have an inch to add there, and about 2-3" to add at the saddle, since my seatpost does not have setback plus the Brooks can't be set back much at all. So that gives 24" maximum from saddle tip to bar clamp centre.

I am 178cm.

Thanks Jur, appriciate your time.
Sound like it will work very well for touring around, trails and commutor setup. If I try to reproduce my road bike I am just pushing the limits of what this frame can do for me.
I have tried setting saddles too far back before - it just boggs the bike down, you start to loose that quick feeling of accelerating with the bike, just grinding from behind all the time.
I really want this bike to work for me but I will proceed with caution. I need to look around and check out other options I think.

Wayne

The 24 inch will result in a normal-ish saddle setback; mine is unfortunately quite a bit forwards due to the seatpost with no setback plus the Brooks saddle. So yes agreed, you can't get that same stretched-out setting as on your roadie. But with a small compromise here and there you can get quite comfortable. Pity the Swifts aren't made in a large, I would buy one in a heartbeat. Maybe we could ask Peter Reich to arrange such a thing.

Well i've done it. Purchased a used Xootr Swift. Should be here Friday.

One question...i will need to add front mech to extend the gearing. I've looked at the adapter from Xootr US but also i noticed that Shimano now do a top pull road mech, the CX70 (in 34.9mm)...

I assume that with a clamp on cable stop this would work in the same way. Any thoughts ?

I'm looking to keep the 8 speed Sram for now (to keep cost reasonable) and change the gripshift for X7 triggers..(Not a fan of gripshift..)

Other option is convert to 9 speed but the costs start to ramp up....;)

Also for anybody looking to use standard bottom pull mechs...i found this company who make an adapter for use as top pull...used mainly for the cyclo-cross bikes. http://www.speen.de/speen____SportsE.../products.html

The Xootr pulley system is a kludge at best, at least mine is.
1. The pulley does not have a system to allow the pulley to rotate when the fixing bolt is fastened. Basically the pulley needs a shoulder bolt.
2. The pulley groove does not line up with the cable run. In my case the cable runs in a spiral curve from the built-in cable stop to the pulley and out up to the derailer. so not only is the pulley not able to rotate, the cable wants to jump out of the groove.
3. The pulley diamtere is just plain too small so the cable does not line up in many ways. Where the cable exits the cable stop hole it rubs aganst the hole side. I noticed this whole mess when my cable broke off there. Hopeless really.

I ditched the pulley and replaced it with a wide flat profile Delrin cylinder of the proper diameter with a flange to prevent the cable from slipping off. On this flat surface the cable can do its proper spiral path.

Doing a top pull will also solve this unholy mess. If you get it going nicely, post some details here for the interested parties. :)

[edit]Just a word of warning: No standard clamp-on derailer will fit around the seat tube which is 40mm IIRC. You HAVE to use the Xootr clamp with a braze-on derailer.

Thanks Jur...was wondering what the seat tube diameter was.

The also do a braze on top swing CX70 also. I have a friend who is going to look at making a mount only for the front mech..but i also now realise the commercial cable stops also will be too small....

I'll keep you posted....Thanks for the advice...

Thanks for the detailed reply! That does seem quite perfect (I like drop/brifters the best but bullhorns are my 2nd favourite). Nice find on the fork - I'm guessing that's one of the biggest weight savers available? I would love to get mine down to 8.5kg as it would then be lighter than my (full-size) road bike :D

Confirmed. Cadence/speed work fine with Garmin GSC-10 sensor. You can adjust the "reach" of the speed sensor arm (small Phillips head screwdriver) - I tilted mine in a bit to make sure it was closer to the wheel magnet, and this allowed me to tilt the whole unit out a bit to catch the cadence magnet. I don't have any rare earth magnets but I just grabbed a standard wheel magnet off a currently unused bike and unscrewed the plastic part off. The round magnet sits fine behind the pedal spindle in the crank (my pedals use a hex to attach so there's space there for the middle pin of the round magnet).



I just took my Swift for it's maiden ride today (only a quick mile). This is what I ended up with:
406 wheels, Capreo cassette/rear hub, 20x1.1 (28-406) Duranos
9-speed Tiagra RD and right brifter, drop bars. (no FD) This gives a gear range from about 35 to 100 with reasonably sized gaps. Quite a bit lower up top than my 50x11 on my road bike (~120 gear inches), but I enjoy not having a FD/extra shifting.
Stock 50t chainring/170mm crank with chainguard. Candy pedals and Nashbar R2 saddle (supposedly < 200g) taken from another bike.

I need to get a shorter stem as I think I measured wrong but otherwise I'm loving it so far and I think it'll be the ideal bike for most of my riding (which is 20mi/day commuting) and a great bike to take with me when traveling. I love climbing so the 406 wheels should be fun for that, and as for descending, I don't go much beyond 40mph on my 700c bike anyway.



I do have a couple questions for fellow Swifteans. Apologies if they're in the thread elsewhere... a lot of pages to sift through.

- Do you change how you corner compared to your road bike? It feels a bit different from what little I've ridden so far but I haven't figured out how to adjust my technique.
- How do you keep the seatpost height correct when folding/unfolding?
- How does the stem length affect the handling? I think for the right fit I'll need a pretty short stem (<80 mm) which makes me wonder if the handling will be weird.

I'm ~174cm and 64kg. or 5'9" / 140

very nice! this sounds almost just like my build - capreo, brifters, 9-speed Tiagra. and my roadie is 50x11...yes, it's not as much range as I get on the road bike, but still enough to get up above 30mph.

the first few rides feel weird, then it feels normal. my LBS tightened up the headset to make the steering a little less twitchy, which helped a bit. these days I find that whichever bike I've ridden most recently feels "normal" and it takes a few minutes to readjust to the other.

as for saddlepost height (why do people say seatpost? it's a saddle), you can try to mark it with a sharpie but it'll wear off eventually. I put a piece of electrical tape around the spot; of course, you can't insert the post beyond the tape.

GOOD LUCK and welcome to the fold

yep I don't use 50x11 much anyway, and 100 gear inches is still plenty. if I really want more upper range I could always get a 52, 56T chainring etc

i imagine it'll take some time to get used to. i decided to leave it at home for this morning's commute as it was raining.

yeah it would be nice if there were some sort of markings built into the seatpost (I'm going to say it's a seatpost because the saddle is seated on it :D ). i'll try sharpie to begin with i think, although i doubt i'll be folding the bike much. it fits as is in the back seat of my car!

thanks :)

Markings help but it's still a faff to set it at just the right height. Much better to do this mod I've done: stick a piece of tubing down the lower part of the seattube (so it rests on the BB shell at the bottom of the seattube) so when you unfold the bike and push the seatpost down, the new tubing acts as a stopper for the seatpost. You cut this new tubing to just the right length so that the seatpost stops at just the right height.

There are some details to work out with this method:
1) You need a way to remove the stopper tube. To achieve point 2 below you need a snug fit so that it can't move around. my tube has a split pin spanning the inside diameter of the stopper tube and to remove I under a wire with a hook at the end and fish the tube out by hooking over the split pin.
2) the stopper/seatpost interfaces has to be sound and guarantee the same saddle height every time - not one that will compress over time (my Mk1 version of this mod used a wooden dowel that failed on this point). The the stopper tube has to provide a solid top that mates with the seatpost. One way is to get a solid bung on the end of the seatpost to give it a flat and plastic end. Another way is to use a snug fitting stopper tube only slightly narrower than the seatpost (or maybe an old seatpost - but there are lighter weight options)
3) Ideally you need a way to adjust the effective length of the stopper tube. I have a bar-end-type bung on the bottom, and I add/remove objects of varying thicknesses (nuts, washers) taped on the end to acheive the perfect height.

My stopper tube is actually cut down from the original QR stem riser of the swift - it already had the split pin inside. I've taped a section of zip-tie around the circumference of the tube at the top to provide a snug fit inside the seattube and keep it aligned in the centre of the seattube so it mates cleanly with the bottom of the seatpost.

With this mod I can unfold the bike in about 2-3 seconds!

That's an excellent mod! I did't quite understand everything you mentioned but definitely get the gist of it - you basically never have to fiddle with getting the seatpost at the right height since the stopper will guarantee it, but you can still fold the bike the same as usual.

I'm 6' and the saddle tip to handlebar/stem clamp is 53cm with drop bars. Different drop bars have different forward reaches so to measure reach, and also compare drop bar positions to handlebar position, the measurement I always use is tip of seat to where the centre of the palms when riding. That dimension is 66cm when riding with hands on the brake hoods and also 66 when in the drops ('cos my saddle is much higher than the handlebars).

However, there is one bit of wisdom I'd like to pass on from the many bike fits I've had over the years and experiments I've done with different positions and a power meter....
The most crucial part of the fit is the position of the saddle relative to the bottom bracket - this is more important than the reach. This means you should not be moving the saddle back to achieve the right reach - the saddle should always be a set distance behind the BB for your ideal fit. By ideal fit I mean where the work your glutes do vs the work your hamstrings to is balanced and the leg extension at the bottom of the stroke is as long as it can be without overextending at the knee. So you are stuck with the saddle/BB relationship for your ideal fit and the ideal reach has to be achieve through the combination of the effective top tube, stem length, and handlebar shape.

I have had 3 bike fits, by 3 different people, on 3 types of bikes over a 7 years span (first on a MTB, then 5 years later on the swift with drop bars, then 2 years later on a track bike used only for racing) and with each fit, the saddle/BB relationship came out exactly the same - and I mean to the nearest millimetre. When I went for the track fitting and told him my MTB and Road fit were identical, he told me the track position would end up with the saddle much further forward. I didn't tell him what my MTB/road fit was but he came to the exact same conclusion on my track bike. I've had a power meter on my swift for the past 3 years and I've experimented with slight adjustments to the position, and sometimes kept them there for months in case it was an adaptation thing, but I could never get the same power out.

Digression 1: When comparing position between bikes with different crank lengths, you need to take account of the crank lengths too. So for me, with 170mm cranks my saddle tip must always be 73mm behind the BB as well as a particular height above it. On 175mm cranks the saddle would be 5mm further forward and 5mm lower.
Digression 2: Moving the cleat position forwards/backward would require moving the saddle backwards/forwards the same amount

;About my seatpost height mod - here's a challenge for the group To make the mod even better, when the seat post hits the stopper there would be something to alighn the seatpost so that the saddle is perfectly forward. You could do something like on the stock stem riser (a split pin engaging in a groove) to engage the seatpost with the stopper, but then you also need a way to stop the stopper rotating, perhaps by shaping the bottom of it to fit with the BB shell. A requirement of the mod is that the height must still be adjustable (not quickly adustable) for when you change cranks/saddle/rider/shoes etc.

Can anyone come up with a simpler solution than this that's a bit more DIY-friendly (doesn't envolve so much precision metal cutting)?

Good point rickybails about the saddle-BB relationship. I agree it's the most fundamental dimension of fit, and one that's often ignored. A good reminder to me that I should get myself a pro fit to nail it down. I do know that I like my saddle further aft than most folks do (one reason the Swift's slack seat tube angle appeals to me, also one reason I despise Brooks saddles) and that I can put out more power that way, and thus I've realized that the standard KOPS method is BS for me -- but I don't know the exact measurement that's ideal. Really should spend some money to get that figured out.

Hey thanks for taking the time to write this up. :thumb: