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  • Finding Folding Bike Exhausting – help!!
  • davys
    Free Member

    I have been cycling for many years and recently bought a 16″ aluminium-framed folding bike. I read the reviews and chosen a very nice bike that looks well-made. See here
    But whereas my mountain bike will cruise up gentle slopes this folding bike almost comes to a stop and my thighs are painful. It is a struggle to do more than about a mile.
    The bike is set up carefully for my leg and the saddle position is good. It has a 6-speed Shimano derailer.
    Apart from the smaller wheels, the folding bike has smaller cranks (15cm versus 17cm) but one site that I have looked at recommends 15cm cranks for my 5ft 9″ height.

    Is my experience normal? Anybody any suggestion as to what might be the problem?

    mickolas
    Free Member

    I’d be suspicious of those short crankarms. doesn’t sound very ergonomic to me. but the next thing I would look closely at would be tyres and pressures. betting the standard ones aren’t much cop. would imagine that the pressures would want to be higher than an mtb tyre of similar width to keep the ratio of contact patch length to radius. schwalbe have an excellent document on all things technical related to tyres on their website.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    To put it politely, the problem is you bought a FBSO, not a real folding bike 😉

    You could maybe get slightly better performance with better tyres, but I doubt it – best bin it and get a decent Brompton, Birdy or Dahon.

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    TiRed
    Full Member

    Move the saddle back so you can get your knee over the pedal axle at 90 degrees. Change the tyres to Brompton 16″ and pump them up to about 5 bar.

    Tyres always make a huge difference and are skimped on at almost all price points

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    Hmm, That’s a pretty ‘interesting’ looking collection of tubes and round things and I can certainly see why you’d be struggling up the hills. Wouldn’t want to be going anywhere near anything rough with that rear mech millimetres from the ground there!

    I believe there is a reason it was cheap

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Jebus- that looks awful.

    Hope you didnt pay much.

    I found my folding bike (99 euro in halfords den helder) to ride just like any other bike just a little more twitchy

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    I’d have wanted 165 – 175mm cranks for an adult. 150mm cranks are for kid’s or clown bikes…

    TBH if you’re at the budget end of the folder market and not looking at a Brompton or Moulton then I’d have one of these SS Decathlon jobs.

    http://www.decathlon.co.uk/bfold-3-folding-bike-id_8248975.html

    I’d rather have proper sized cranks and 20″ wheels than a 6 speed drive train.

    mickolas
    Free Member

    I would also flip the bike over and spin the wheels, pedals, crank etc (with the chain off). it’s normal for these items to be a little tight when new (moreso with cheap stuff) but you need to judge for yourself if maybe some of the bearings are overtight. any problems in the hub will be exacerbated by the smaller wheels.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Change the tyres to Brompton 16″ and pump them up to about 5 bar.

    Brompton tyres are 349, this bike has 305 wheels – they won’t fit…

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    I can see your problem…


    .. its this.

    Get one of the cheaper Dahons (vitesse or speed) off ebay, it’ll be loads better.

    or this
    http://www.evanscycles.com/products/tern/link-c7-2013-folding-bike-one-size-soiled–ec051322

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    £119.95 I recon you get what you pay for 😯

    bentudder
    Full Member

    That looks like an absolute nightmare on wheels. Demo a Brompton from a dealer, and you’ll see the difference. Sorry, but it looks like you’ve bought a BSO.

    TurnerGuy
    Free Member

    If you don’t need gearing look at the Dahon Uno for simplicity – seem to be a lot about as popular.

    I think you have thrown that money away on a false attempt to save money…

    qwerty
    Free Member

    I had a 20″ Dahon, hub gears, mud guards, rack, was great for getting me to the suburb train station and then from Liverpool St to Waterloo, got mine 2nd hand from eBay, I just upgraded it with those puncture proof strips in the tyres.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    1) smaller wheels are quite a bit slower
    2) a different riding position can cause much inefficiency – like having your saddle too low for example
    3) I’ve always found £120 bikes to be generally uncomfortable and inefficient anyway, even without the extra cost of folding gubbins.

    TurnerGuy
    Free Member

    maybe alter the propedal setting on that rear shock as well…

    T1000
    Free Member

    molgrips – Member smaller wheels are quite a bit slower

    let me help you with that…..

    [http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk/features.html]

    [rubbish wheels are slower regardless of size…]

    this man knows what he’s talking about [http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk/heritage.html]

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Yes – on tarmac, wheel size has very little effect on speed. The problem with that 16″(305) size is that most tyres in that size are fat low-pressure ones, it’s hard to find fast high-pressure tyres.

    davys
    Free Member


    Thanks everyone for your views; although some of the comments along the lines of “just looking at it you can see why its slow” do nothing to educate me.

    The bike was bought cheap (£99) at a show to use from my motorhome for getting to a nearby village for supplies or exploring towpaths.

    Its almost identical 20″-wheel version was reviewed on the Folding Society’s website here where you can see close-ups of the construction. It was described as cheap but perfectly adaquate for distances up to about 15km. It is so painful on the thighs that I can barely manage one kilometre!

    Thanks to those who suggested that tyre pressure might be the problem. The tyres are inflated to 40psi and I would not want to go any higher than that on loose gravelly towpaths.

    If I look for a replacement then what design differences should I be looking for?

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Firstly, you should be spending £300-400 or more to get anything half-way decent, just as you do with a fill-sized bike. Then ignore suspension – it adds weight and flex. Then get tyres you can run at at least 80psi.

    With folding bikes especially, flex is a big problem – make sure it’s got a very beefy stem and seatpost, Try sitting on the saddle and pushing the bars – if there’s flex there, then that’ll soak up energy.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Yes – on tarmac, wheel size has very little effect on speed.

    My own experience would not support that. Got any research that wasn’t done by someone selling small wheeled bikes?

    rootes1
    Full Member

    i use a brompton – they are ace, but are actually pricey…

    best folding bike deal around at mo…

    dahon based thing from made.com? £269

    http://www.made.com/garden-leisure/bikes

    bencooper
    Free Member

    My own experience would not support that. Got any research that wasn’t done by someone selling small wheeled bikes?

    Bicycling Science gives drag coefficients for various tyres – the small wheel they tested was a Moulton Wolber one, one of the few high pressure small tyres available at the time.

    The Moulton has a CR of 0.0028. Track tyres measured on the same equipment are 0.0016-0.0026, road tubulars are 0.0033-0.0037 and road clinchers are 0.0039. (Kyle, 1986)

    T1000
    Free Member

    Got any research that wasn’t done by someone selling small wheeled bikes?…..

    I think Mr Moulton knew a fair bit more about engineering…particularly suspension systems and small wheels…than most folks on here

    unovolo
    Free Member

    I believe these are supposed to be pretty good off road for a folder,
    The guy on the video doesnt look like its impeeding his progress too much.

    http://www.birdybike.com/

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Birdys are certainly pretty good off-road – I do quite a few of them for people who want to get to the hills.

    TurnerGuy
    Free Member

    Birdy’s ride really well, make Bromptons feel like clown bikes.

    Ride very similarly to a slick wheel mtb, and they are fast. Makes the 30+ mile ride home in emergencies feasible.

    There are two stems though – the comfort and the sport. The comfort is more upright and therefore the bike isn’t as fast or fun but is more like an amsterdam type bike in ride – I felt less safe in traffic with one.

    They hold their value well so if you pick up a 2nd hand one you shouldn’t lose much – I am just about to sell one of mine for a decent price.

    The front and rear suspension aids in the fold and so is necessary, but you can run a hard elastomer on the back if you need to.

    The advantage is that they don’t have a hinge in the frame, as don’t Mezzos.

    The only disadvantage I can think of is you need to keep hold/control of the bars, as you do on any folder really as the front will ‘whip round’ much faster than a large wheeled bike would, so if you hit an obstacle, or are hit, then it is much easier to be dumped down quickly in front of the bike and probably break a collarbone – which I have done once and very nearly did again courtesy of a russian pizza delivery driver.

    Mezzos might be cheaper 2nd hand as they are uglier, but I think the wheels are 16inch instead of 18.

    Most Dahons are 20, and that is actually bigger than the limits on many train services.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    The Moulton has a CR of 0.0028. Track tyres measured on the same equipment are 0.0016-0.0026, road tubulars are 0.0033-0.0037 and road clinchers are 0.0039. (Kyle, 1986)

    Tyres or wheels? 1986 was a while ago too especially in bike terms.

    I rode around on a 26×1.25″ fully rigid flat barred stretched out MTB as my commuter for ages, that weighed about 23lbs. After it got nicked I replaced it with a cheaper heavier 700c hybrid with the same diameter tyres. It felt much faster. I didn’t do a comparative test of course, but the OP is talking about feel isn’t he?

    People seem happy to assert that 29ers are faster than 26ers. There are of course fewer bumps on tarmac, but most city streets I know of are still far from smooth. The difference between 700c and 18″ wheels is quite a lot.

    Also smaller wheels will be turning faster so will create more drag when going for it. EDIT actually that’s bollocks, the linear speed through the air of any part of the wheel will actually be the same I think because the higher rotational speed will be coutnered by the fact it’s smaller.. which is the reason it’s going faster in the first place… Although the OP is complaining about hills so when struggling up an incline the wheel size is less likely to be an issue.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Yes, the CR is only really valid on smooth tarmac – if the surface is rougher (or even off-road) then wheel size matters. However suspension also makes a difference in those cases – with a Moulton, for example, the small wheels have a larger angle of attack on any obstacle, but the suspension means the entire weight of bike and rider isn’t being lifted.

    Aerodynamically, small wheels are definitely better – a smaller cross-section.

    tl;dr small wheels can be just as fast as big wheels sometimes

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    Surely it d

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