Pedal Upgrade, Compact Front Chainring, Dahon Helios
 

Love my Helios. All 17+ pounds of her. I want to make her faster by adding compact gearing to chainring and pedal upgrades. Oem pedals just dont cut it for me. I like to have my feet fasten to pedals by clipless or Power Strap. What pedal upgrades do you use and how would be the best way to add small chainring and what front deraillure?

I'm a bit confused by your comments regarding the chain ring. If you add a smaller chain ring, this will allow for easier peddling with a slower top speed.

If your goal is to go faster, you will want to either add a larger chain ring, or a smaller cog (at the wheel), or both.

Did you mean that you want to create a larger range of gearing options by adding a second chain ring? If so, please keep in mind that adding a smaller chain ring will not give you any gear that is faster than what you're getting now with one chain ring. Instead, you will gain additional low speed gearing.

Regarding pedals, that's totally a personal preference. What are your "wants" and "needs" in a new pedal:

low weight?
large platform?
cleat type? (road/mountain/SPD/other)
material? (metal/plastic/resin/other)
sealed bearings?
rebuildable?
folding?
removable?

Thanks and I should have been clearer. I'm looking for a better range. What I've seen are Bike Fridays with 2 chainrings. Also I would like some recommendations of pedals either clipless or clipped.
Thanks again.

(other .. than the Weight Thing)

Build a wheel around the SA 8 speed IGH .. the low gear is 1:1, the other 7 are overdrive gears ..
So, dialed for small wheel bikes..

then a 2/3 0f a triple crank may work the granny ~ the same size as the hub cog
means the wheel size inches is your low gear inches.. a unicycle gear.. same 1:1..

Big ring, pick it for how tall the high you want ..


MKS has Plug in QR pedals of several types , that may make them plug interchangeable..

I'm not sure if ThorUSA sells the adapter to add a front derailluer for the Helios, but he sells one for the Speed and Mu series of bikes. I have one of that installed on my Mu SL so I can run a double chain ring on my Mu SL with a double shifter. Then for the rear hub, you can go either with a Capreo hub and a 9-28 cassette or a road cassette with tighter spacing. That gets you either 16 (if you have 8 speed rear) or 18 speeds if you have a 9 speed rear. That's enough gears to get you fast while reserving the second chain ring for bail out situations.

In regards to pedals. If you want clipless, you can either go with the MKS version that Thor sells that is removable for ease of folding. The cleats are different from Shimano ones. I just use Shimano types and they are good and been using them for a long time on my Mu SL. I also have Power Grips (or power straps) on my Dahon Speed DUO cause I wear street shoes and need straps to fasten to my pedals and they are cheap and work good. MKS sells something better of course for a price.

Thanks for all replies. Has anyone here added a 3 speed hub to a multiple rear cog?

Sure, it's called a SRAM Dual Drive .. before that, Sachs 3x7 (could go to 8 if you wanted).. both the Sachs and the SRAM are excellent hubs .. the Sachs uses a pull chain for shifting the hub gears, the SRAM uses a clickbox .... Sturmey Archer has one out now, but they aren't getting rave reviews..

it would be a shame to add an IGH internal gears to the helios SL .... weightwise anyhow...
dont use the word compact because it messes peeps up.... they usuaqlly have a huge gap double chainring, which the medium/small cage derrailleur in combination with short chainstays will not work on any foldy .... think adding an adapter and change the front sprockets... like go from a 53 to a 55 and add a 50 or 49/maybe 48 to the inner one.. any more difference and u run into shifting problems....
and keep the weight down on this classic lightweight

Hey Tony,
Bruce and Thor make some excellent points which relate to a situation I'm currently in.

I have a Sram Dual Drive hub (3x8) which gives me an amazing range of gears to play with. However; I've also been obsessing lately about the weight of my bike and I've been trying to cut weight anywhere I can. My beloved Dual Drive hub is a porker though.

Great thoughts. I agree about the weight of the internal hub. I'm going to look into the possibility of shifters for the front chainring.

basic weight of sram dd 24 is about 2.14 lbs. and weight of a shimano 8 speed cassette is about .75 lbs. so you'll definitely save some weight by getting rid of your DD but at a price of having a wide range of speed.

Pedals..I have MKS Promenade with Powergrips on my bike

I like both the MKS Promenade and the Wellgo QRD with PowerGrips .. the QRD is a little less money .. both companies offer different styles of pedals for their coupling system, including clipless..

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