High Profile 20" Carbon Wheelsets!

For all the mini velo and folding bike riders out there, you can also have high profile carbon wheels! Although they are rather rare, they are still available, albeit at a higher price. Check them out below!

 

Very sweet looking 20" carbon wheels!

Carbon frame with carbon wheels!

 Lots of Alex Moulton bikes with high profile carbon wheels!

Not to forget the Birdy bikes, also with carbon wheels.

If you are wondering where I got these pictures from, they are all from these magazines which I brought back from Taiwan a few months ago! Lots of other bikes and poisonous upgrade stuff. Feel free to let me know if you want to borrow them!

Journey of the Boardwalk: Part 14 - Caliper Brakes for Boardwalk TT

There are many Dahon bikes, but how many Dahon bikes come with road shifters/brake levers and caliper brakes? Other than the Speed Pro TT and the new 2011 Dash X20, no other Dahon folding bike comes equipped with these road components.

Because of this, the Speed Pro TT can be truly called a road bike, since it has Shimano Tiagra ST-4500 road shifters and bullhorn handlebars. As for the brakes, it has been changed every year since 2008.

In 2008, the Speed Pro TT came with long reach caliper brakes. For 2009, it came with V brakes and NO Travel Agent, which caused the braking performance to be really poor. As for the 2010 version, it was V brakes but at least it came with the Travel Agent, which allows compatibility between the road shifter/brake levers and the V brakes. Currently, the 2011 version is called the Vector X27, which has V brakes with the Travel Agents.

 

2008 Speed Pro TT, comes with long reach caliper brakes. Chromoly Steel frame.

2009 Speed Pro TT, comes with V brakes and NO Travel Agent. Aluminium Frame.

2010 Speed Pro TT, comes with V brakes and Travel Agents. Aluminium Frame.

2011 Vector X27, comes with V brakes and Travel Agents. Hydroformed Aluminium Frame.

At this point, if you are wondering what are Travel Agents, you can check out my previous post showing the transformation of my Boardwalk to the Boardwalk TT.

Travel Agent as seen on the 2010 Speed Pro TT.

However, these Travel Agents are not ideal for braking performance, as it introduces a lot of friction and thus efficiency losses into the brake system. The are many points of contact between the moving brake cable and the Travel Agent, and the rubbing can be easily felt through the brake levers. Also, because the brake cable is bent around such a small radius, it tends to want to unravel itself and again causes a lot of resistance when applying the brakes. Lastly, the geometry of the bullhorn bars, together with the long frame of the folding bike plus the wrapping of the brake cable around the Travel Agent means that even with the full length of the brake cable, it is only barely long enough to reach the rear brakes.

Due to all these issues, I decided to try to find long reach caliper brakes, which can be mounted on the holes for the fender bolts and reach all the way down to the rim. After some searching, I came across some caliper brakes that are actually meant for trekking/comfort bikes, which means large and fat tires with fenders installed. These caliper brakes are able to reach up to 74mm (measured from mounting bolt to rim), compared to the normal reach of about 50mm.

Extra Long Reach Tektro R559 brake calipers. Comes in black or silver.

Compare the distance and the arch width between the Long Reach Tektro brakes (Nutted)
and the normal reach Ultegra brakes (Recessed).

Also, it is necessary to get the nutted version, which has a bolt and an external nut to fix the caliper brake onto the frame. The recessed version can only be used on certain frames, not Dahon frames. To learn more about these two different mounting methods, read the Sheldon Brown website here.

Installing the brakes was rather straightforward. For me, it was the first time I was installing caliper brakes, thus it was quite tricky to get the alignment correct. By the way, I changed to Kool Stop All-Weather brake pads, not even bothering to try the stock brake pads!

 

 Good clearance between brakes and fender! Clearance is maintained even when brakes are applied.

At the maximum reach, it is just long enough to reach the rims.

 

 Black caliper brakes to go with my black fork!

 Rear caliper brakes fit well too!

Once I had changed the brakes, the braking improved tremendously, as the cable pull of the road shifters match the required cable pull of the brake calipers perfectly. Also, there is much lesser friction acting on the brake cable, which means that the braking action is much smoother. No more squishy brakes!

This upgrade should be possible for most Dahon bikes, as the frame structure is similar and the reach required should be achievable by these Tektro R559 long reach caliper brakes. Of course, these should be paired with road shifters/brake levers for optimal performance.

Rolling the Dahon Boardwalk TT around with ease!

I recently changed my kickstand to the Pletscher double kickstand, and I am very pleased with it so far! Read about the upgrade HERE.

Although it is rather heavy compared to my previous kickstand, it is extremely stable, which makes it excellent when I load my bike up with more stuff, because the bike will not topple. Previously it can be difficult to balance the loaded bike on the single-legged kickstand.

But stability when carrying heavy loads is not the main reason for changing the kickstand! The main reason I changed the kickstand is so that I can roll my Dahon Boardwalk TT around with ease, instead of carrying it around. This is particularly useful especially in MRT stations.

Before I had this Pletscher kickstand, when I take the MRT with my bike, I will have to fold it up at least partially, by putting the seatpost down to stabilise the bike. At this point it is still possible to pull the bike around on its wheels, but it is hard to balance and the base of the seatpost will scrape on the ground whenever you rest the bike.

I know that some people are able to roll their Dahons around even when folded, but it can be tricky especially if the wheels are not parallel to each other. This causes the bike to come apart frequently as the magnet is not strong enough to hold the two halves together. Which I why before I had the Pletscher kickstand, I ended up carrying the bike around as it was faster than attempting to roll it around.

Bike in the unfolded state

To fold the bike so that it can be rolled around, I only need ONE step! Yes only one step, very easy. Just loosen the frame clamp and fold it in half, that's all!

 

 Tall but narrow, doesn't take up more space than a person!

From this folded state, just lift the bike up slightly by the nose of the saddle, and drag the bike along with you! It is very comfortable because the saddle is at a good height to hold, and you can put down the bike anytime on the rubber shoes of the kickstand and not damage the base of the seatpost.

Also, when pulling the bike along this way, the bike rolls along on the front wheel only, the rear wheel does not touch the ground. This allows the bike to be rolled forward or backwards with no problem.

 If desired, you can lower the height by folding down the handlepost. 

Still can drag around easily by holding the saddle.

Points of contact with the ground: Rear wheel, front wheel and one side of the kickstand.

 Can lower the height even more if you put down the seatpost!

 However, this makes the folded package very wide with my bullhorn bars. 

No problem with flat handlebars though.

Not sure how I folded the bike with the handlebars outside? Check it out HERE.

The best part about using the kickstand as one of the points of contact with the ground is that I don't need to adjust my handlepost or seatpost! Forget about fiddling with the height of the seatpost or handlepost after unfolding. Just tighten the frame clamp and you are good to go!

  

From this...

to this in 3 seconds flat!

Pletscher Kickstand Review!

Just installed my new Pletcher kickstand today! For those who do not know what it is, it is a highly acclaimed kickstand with double legs, that folds up to one side. According to many people, this double leg kickstand makes it very stable and able to withstand heavy loads, especially for touring bikes!

 

Kickstand with rubber shoes (sold separately)

Double legged kickstand!

The whole kickstand is rather solidly built, such that initially I thought it was steel! But the whole kickstand is actually aluminium, but still rather heavy.

However, installation was not as straightfoward as I thought. Initially I thought I could just swap out the kickstand, but it was not possible! From the first picture above, you can see that the bolt is quite long. In fact it bottoms out in the kickstand long before I have even clamped the kickstand on!

What is worst is that the bolt is not of metric size, which means that I cannot just change to a shorter bolt that I have. It is probably something like 3/8 inch in diameter or something. In the end I managed to work out something, although it is not neat at all. I had to use larger nuts as spacers in order to take up the extra length of the bolt.

 

 Extra 2 nuts (M10/M12 size?) + Spring washer

A word of advice here, if you plan to fix on this Pletscher kickstand using your existing kickstand mount, be prepared to do some fudging to make it work! 

 

Uncut legs, puts my rear wheel 12 cm off the ground!

Without cutting the legs of the kickstand, the long legs ended up lifting my rear wheel by 12 cm off the ground, which is far too much for me. Had to cut the legs so that my rear wheel is not lifted so far off the ground. I would prefer that the rear wheel be lifted by maybe 3cm off the ground. However, do not cut 12-3=9cm off your kickstand leg! Because the distance measured is at a different place, cutting 9 cm off your kickstand is likely to make it shorter than the wheel, and your kickstand would be useless.

Original length as embossed on the leg is 320mm, decided to play safe and cut at the 270mm mark, which means sawing 5cm off. To do this, of course you need a saw and some arm power! Luckily it is aluminium and not steel, so it is not too tough.

After putting on the rubber shoes, here it is!

 

  

Rear wheel is about 4cm off the ground!

After putting on the rubber shoes, the rear wheel is found to be lifted off the ground by 4cm. More than what I was looking for, but no problem at all. Too lazy to cut the kickstand legs again haha. I would rather leave it longer, and trim later on if needed, than have it too short.

Unfortunately, the left crank will still hit the kickstand leg. I remember seeing on another bike where the crank will clear the kickstand leg, but the geometry is probably different on that bike. This means that roadside tuning of the bike that requires spinning the cranks is still not possible. However, changing tubes is made easier, since the bike can be see-sawed so that either the front of rear wheel can clear the ground.

Left crank will still hit the kickstand leg

Very stable platform, especially if you have panniers! Perfect companion with Ortlieb panniers haha...

One thing to take note is that this stand is definitely not for the weight weenies. The stock Dahon kickstand is only 160 grams, but this Pletscher kickstand + all the bolt and spacers weighs in at around 630 grams! More than 400 grams added, whatever weight savings that you have saved by using carbon fibre/ titanium parts will all be gone...

 

Then some of you may ask: Why change to this kickstand in the first place and suffer the weight penalty? This is not because I want to add panniers or something, but because I want to enable my Dahon Boardwalk to be folded and rolled along easily! Wondering how I can do that with the Pletscher kickstand? Watch out for my next blog post!

Updates below!

Earlier in the post, I was saying that the bolt was not metric, which means I cannot just substitute another shorter bolt for the kickstand. In fact I wrote an email to Thorusa regarding this matter. They were very nice to actually send me a collection of bolts of different lengths, in order to solve my issue with the bolt that was too long.

I just received the bolts a few days ago, and I used the short bolt to mount the kickstand directly to the frame as shown below. Apologies for the poor picture quality.

With this shorter bolt, it now looks very similar in mounting to the original Dahon kickstand! And since the extra nuts and spacers have been removed, and a shorter bolt is now used, the total kickstand weight has dropped to 550g. Still not lightweight, but definitely an improvement!

Most importantly, it now looks much sleeker, without the stack of spacers as previously used! Thanks Thorusa for the wonderful customer service and advice. Wish there were more online bikeshops with your level of service and expertise!