P7HVN

Not a folding bike, but this seems to be the spot for 20"ers...
I've had a thing for the Cannondale Hooligan, ever since I saw it on their website years ago. Reluctant to buy anything sight unseen tho', and I've never found a Cannondale shop that had one in stock, so I've held off. In the meantime, I've been intrigued by several forum threads on mini-velos. One particular thread had a bunch of pics of full-size MTB's with 20's that I really liked, so that got the seed planted. Here's mine, just finished this week by my LBS. Local shop had a used Raleigh RAM 1.0 for $150. 10yrs old, but in really good shape, and if things didn't work out well I wouldn't be out too much money. Went with Sun Rhino Lyte 406 x 29 wheels & 1.95 hookworms, on 36 spoke disc hubs. I very happy with it! I was shocked how fast it accelerates, and rides pretty nicely with the full suspension. The 175mm cranks are way too long; I scrape pedals just barely leaning the bike. I also wanted to go with a single front sprocket to simplify things, but on the current old-style setup all 3 are riveted together. So my LBS is ordering a single sprocket & 152mm crank assembly from one of their child-sized mountain bikes.
I call it my supermoto; in the motorcycling community, a supermoto is a dirt-bike with smaller diameter sportbike wheels & tires.

smallwheeler

very cool! serendipitous, as i was just reading about these conversions after looking at pics of the kuwahara gap. here's another beauty:

fietsbob

26/20 front rear combo is also cool , steer with bigger wheel and smaller, stronger , drive wheel..

the main issue with just putting a 20" wheel in a 26" frame is dropping the BB height 3 inches.

9" is pretty Low if originally 11"..

LittlePixel

Bravo - this thing is excellent!

jmm

Not often mentioned on traditional lists of disc brake advantages, "select-a-rim-size".

P7HVN

Thanks! I think it turned out quite well.

P7HVN

Yep. And like the earlier supermoto reference, could run 20's for around town, then put back on the 26's for "real" mountain-biking...

FlyingPigeon

Interesting thread, there has been no update, recently?

I have a question regarding this build:

Assume you could unscrew the screw that links the rear suspension link with the seatstays. Could you then rotate the rear wheel (plus seatstays, plus chainstays) into a position such as:





or would the pivot point not allow such a big rotation?