Tuesday, February 3, 2009

More about the new bike

I ordered my Bike Friday a couple of weeks ago and hopefully it will be here in about a month. The company is in Eugene, Oregon and the bikes are built specific to the buyer. First of all you spend quite a bit of time talking with your sale's rep about what type of riding you want to do with your Bike Friday; commuting, touring, mountain biking, etc. Then they help you determine what model will fit your needs.

Peter is my sales rep and he suggested the New World Tourist. This will be more of a touring style bike. Here is a review by a New World Tourist owner at his blog site; The Lazy Randonneur.

I spent a lot of time on the phone over a two week period asking questions - the first was how can a Bike Friday with 20" wheels be comparable to bikes with standard size wheels? It all has to do with the gearing (so I'm told, but don't completely understand). My other concern was with frequent folding of the bike that the derailleurs would become damaged. To help prevent this problem I order a dual drive SRAM internal rear hub. This eliminates the front derailleur. The down side is that the rear tire does not have a quick release and you need to carry a 15mm wrench to change the rear tire. I ordered the Schwalbe Marathon tires which I'm told are more puncture resistant.

The last step before ordering the bike was taking several measurements from my road bike along with my inseam measurement. I can hardly wait to get the bike and see how it rides!

Final decision to make was what color - drum roll please....the color is POWER RASPBERRY!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks like a great color! SloJoeRecumbo is a dedicated recumbent cyclist that lives in Shanghai part time. When he goes for long rides, he's on his bent. When he's just cruising around town he takes his wifes' Bike Friday. He loves the little thing. That is good enough testimonial for me.

bikingbrady said...

You should have went with Power Purple! Looks cool though!

You better start showing up to 6 am cycling class or they will cancel it!

Tez said...

SPIN SPIN SPIN! See those little wheels go round an round!

Congrats on the new purchase!

Road Legs said...

I am excited for you