Sunday, July 29, 2012

Qbicle Folding Bike Roller Wheel on the Dahon Vitesse P18-TT

Have you ever had trouble rolling your Dahon bike around when folded? Most of the time, it is difficult to roll the bike when it is folded because the front and rear wheels are not parallel. Trying to pull or push it along on both wheels will just cause the bike to unfold itself.

An alternative way is to roll the folded bike on just a single wheel, on either the front or rear. This can also be tricky as it is difficult to balance the bike on only one wheel, and the bike often ends up unfolding itself.

If you have a double kickstand, you can fold and roll the bike this way. But not everyone has a double kickstand, so what to do?

Enter the Qbicle Folding Bike Roller Wheel! This is an innovative roller wheel that is attached to the bottom of your seatpost. This was bought at the recent lelong sale!

When the bike is folded, your seatpost usually only acts as a leg to help the bike balance. However, with the roller wheel, your seatpost becomes much more useful!

The Qbicle roller wheel. Comes in different sizes for different seatpost diameters.

This is how it attaches to the bottom of the seatpost.

Roller wheel that looks good and rolls well.

Installation is as easy as it can be. With the seatpost already inserted in the seat tube, just put on the roller wheel and tighten the bolt with an M5 Allen key. Done!

Some points to take note regarding the usage of this roller wheel. During normal riding, at the proper saddle height for the rider, the seatpost must protrude below the bottom of the seat tube by at least 3cm in order to use this roller wheel. If not, the roller wheel cannot be attached. This means that taller riders that extend their seatpost higher up cannot use this roller wheel.

The roller wheel also cannot be attached if the seatpost is lowered too much, such as when children are riding the folding bike. The roller wheel needs to have some clearance off the ground in order not to hit road humps.

Lastly, the seatpost cannot be pulled out from the bike when the roller wheel is attached to the seatpost. This can be a problem if the seatpost needs to be removed for more compact storage.

Roller wheel lowered to the ground

Roller wheel resting on the ground

With this roller wheel, rolling the folded bike around is easy! I find that the best way to do it is to tilt the bike such that only the seatpost roller wheel and the front wheel are touching the ground. Rolling the bike around is then very easy and balanced.

This roller wheel will be very useful if you have to wheel your folded bike around often, such as in MRT stations. Other than that, the roller wheel is not very useful. Depending on your usage and situation, the roller wheel may be a godsend or it may just be additional weight.

3 comments:

  1. Hi, aside from the lelong place where you bought this, is this available in any of the bike shops here in Singapore? I own a speed d7 and don't really bring it on mrt due to difficult to carry around, so this seems to be perfect solution. Am 5'6" in height so will this product work?

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. some people have contacted qbicle directly at their website and bought about 10 at a go, and they delivered it. refer to picture 3.

      to know if it will work, just measure the length of seat post that sticks out from the bottom at your normal saddle height. you need at least 3cm.

      Delete
  2. thanks for the reply! btw, love what you did to your bike, fantastic! thanks again!

    ReplyDelete

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