The end of this blog.

Well…………

The Dahon Speed 8 has a new home near Chicago. I sold the bike after owning it for only nine (9) months.

The Dahon Speed 8 is a great bike, but not the bike for me. I really enjoyed the practicality of having a folding bike, so much so I bought a Montague folding mountain bike. There were several times when the bike commute was too long, or I wasn’t feeling well where I would fold the bike and hop on the train to shorten my bike ride between work and home. You can’t beat the flexibility of being able to unfold a bike and ride off, or the opposite, ride up, fold the bike and move on to the next thing.

I found I was never satisfied with the geometry and fit of the bike – now this is hard to say about a bike that is almost completely adjustable. I found I really enjoyed the upright riding position, this I have carried on to my newest bike. I also found myself occasionally disappointed with the handling of the bike which I believe is because the 20 inch wheels/tires would occasionally dig into, or blow into, the ground when maneuvering between terrain as simple as hopping a curb and going from asphalt to grass. I don’t dislike 20 inch wheels, I have them on my recumbent delta trike (Easy Racer/Sun EZ3AX) and I have found them strong, efficient, and dependable. So I feel my ill fit was a combination of my size (6 foot tall, 250 pounds), wheel base, and tire size.

As for my new folder, I like the fit. I like that it folds. I like that I am not paying $3.30 per gallon gasoline when I use my new bike for trips many people only go on by car or SUV.

For now, my path forward will combine and consolidate my bike blogging into one blog, “The blog of a certified bike junky”, or possibly “The ramblings and babblings of a certified bike junky.” Regardless, I’ll see you on the web.

Regards – Pumpkinhead.

New Job - New Commute.

I found out tonight, on June 1, I will be starting a new job in the Company. I will be assume the role of Senior Instructor at my Company's training facility as a subject matter expert on environment, health, and safety topics. Career-wise it is a great opportunity. Commute-wise, well..... no more leisurely bike rides to work.

The new job is in the Long Island City section of Queens. From my home it is about a 1-hour commute using mass transit, or a 45 minute car ride (over a $8.00 round-trip toll bridge). Likely, I'll be using mass transit. The actual "transit" time is 35 minutes, I will have to walk about 25 minutes to get to the train and then from the train to the office.

My plan is to take my old Canondale and use it as a station bike - the train station is about 1 mile from my house. Seeing I will have to catch a 5:32 AM train daily (oooooo..... that sounds way too early) and the bike ride to the station is about 5 minutes (downhill - way cool), I can shave 10 minutes off the trip to work by riding the bike to the station. On the work-end of things I am stuck with a 3/4 mile walk. The upside is, I will have exercise built into my daily commute.

Financially, walking/riding and taking mass transit is more than $3,000 a year less than driving. I am sure if I could find a way to account for the excercise, social, and environmental benefits of using mass transit, the dollars not spent (saved) would be much higher.

I am looking forward to the change, but I will miss the 15 mile round-trip bike commute. I have only 28 work days left where I can ride the 15 mile commute. I hope I can ride them all.

Ouch!!!!!!!

2 months makes a big difference...... Today (+40 degree Farenheight), I bike commuted on the urethane-tire Speed 8. This is my first ride to work in 2 months, and boy do I feel out of shape.

With my schedule, 2 months is actually 1, 6-week work cycle (23 work days). For the most part of late-January and February the cold and slick weather was more than I chose to tolerate, so I drove the mini-van.

As for today's commute, the 7.5 mile ride took 1 hour 15 minutes. I stopped halfway to answer a telephone call (I don't ride and talk) which lead to me making anther phone call. A little closer to work I stopped at a local beverage center for a bottle of water. Then just before work I stopped and picked up my dinner order.

The urethane tires seemed to make no difference in ride time or comfort. After not riding any distance for more than two months I am not in any shape to be setting time records. Now, almost 2 hours post-ride, I feel my quads tightening up, but my legs feel less like rubber bands than they did when I got off the bike (thankfully there is an elevator in my building - the stairs would have been rough).

I have ridden thousands of miles on 26 inch and 700C wheels. I sometimes surprise myself with the hyper-responsiveness with the 20 inch wheels on the dahon. I must ride more to get better use to the feel of a 20 inch wheel ride.

The roads I ride are still pretty crummy from the winter. There are still remnants of snow banks and undisolved clumps of rock salt/sand. Plows have gouged new holes in the road and the local municipalities have yet to start patching the roads or running the street sweepers. I found it odd at first to be aiming at broken beer bottles along the side of the roads, this I have a deeply set instinct to avoid, but not now with urethane tires. Puncture potential materials are now more of a skid hazard than tire shredding source. I have found most of my commuting punctures occur (1) during the early spring when the roads are still dirty, (2) when tires get old and thin, and (3) in the fall after landscapers trim bushes with thorns and leave them for curb-side pick up - I hope these are hazards of the past.


Some modifications to the bike include removing the Wald folding baskets. They were too heavy and too small. I have replaced the baskets with a milk crate zip-tied to the rack. I have also installed bar ends that add a welcome new choice of hand positions. Soon, I will be adding fenders - they have been sitting on my work bench for too long and since I removed the Big Apples, the fenders now fit the bike.

February 3 - What a strange winter (I ride again)

You guessed it right. I didn't ride at all during the month of January. During the month, I actually used an entire tank of gasoline in the mini-van. Between really cold temperatures and winter storms that kept me at work for extended hours I chose not to ride in favor of the convenience of using the mini-van.

Now I didn't solely rely on the mini-van. I spent a week in training in New York City. For that week I commuted via walk-train-subway-walk. My commute time for those trips was approximately 1 hour each way. The equivalent motor vehicle travel time was the same. By not driving I avoided an increase in my monthly EzPass payment, I didn't pay $20/day for parking, and I was one less single occupant vehicle on the roadway. I actually found the walking exhilarating, and being near some many people without having steel barriers between us was quite refreshing too.

Yesterday, with temperatures pushing 60 degrees, I rode my airfree equipped Dahon folder twice. First, I had to bring my wife's car to the shop for maintenance. The shop is across town. So I popped the folder in the back seat (that's real easy because Heidi's car is a convertible), drove the car across town, left it at the repair shop, and rode my bike home. Later while out running errands with Heidi, on our way home we stopped by the repair shop and picked up the car. Here, the folder and a little planning to choreograph our errands minimized the use of both cars. Later in the day I rode my Dahon to the Post Office to mail some orders. I placed the packages in my backpack, rode off to the Post Office, parked in my favorite spot (right on front on the first parking meter), and at the counter in less time than it would have taken for me to drive.

I am still undecided about the airfree tires. I only have only ridden about 20 miles on them and I am not in the best of shape at this time of the year only riding once every 20 to 30 days. The bike rides well, but I need to shed about 50 pounds to really notice the differences between man (me) and the machine.

Moving forward, I plan on discontinuing this blog and starting a new one encompassing all of my 'cycling. Later this spring I have a rickshaw I will be assembling and riding around. I am also keen on building a wood-foam laminate low-racer style bike, the motor will go back on the Cannondale, and I may resurrect the Trek 400. Stay tuned in, I will post links to any new blog I start.

Jim S.
A/k/a Mr. Pumpkinhead

December 31, 2005 - Ride-train-ride.

What a way to end the year - with the "bug" that's going around. Last night I thought I just bonked on my ride to work. Well, it was more like the begining of doom. Basically, I now feel like crap, my stomach, head, and caboose are all in termoil, and I was 7.5 miles from home at 6:00 AM this morning (32 Farenheight - burrr).

Well, I did as I planned. I coughed up the $2.25 and bought a train ticket for the ride home. The ride to the train was under 5 minutes, the wait for the train was 5 minutes, the ride was 14 minutes, and the ride home (until the hill I walked up) was another 5 minutes. 30 minutes total, I was home before 7:45 (I left the office at 6:15). I couldn't have ridden faster.

The Train Conductor didn't even bat an eyebrow (and she really only had one to begin with), she just took my ticket and kept going.

I am off to bed. The weather forecast is crummy, I feel crummy, so I'll likely drive to work tonight and be one less target for the drunk drivers.

December 30, 2005 – I rode to work and I bonked!

I bonked on the way to work. It’s the first time I have bonked in a long time. I can’t even remember the last time I bonked, but I remember the feeling all too well. I attribute bonking to: 1). Not riding more than 5 miles at any one time during the past 2-months; 2). I have only ridden half as much as I normally would because of the recent cold, wet, and nasty winter weather; 3). The temperature was just above freezing; 4). I am out of shape; and, 5). My biorhythm is shot because I am working nights and I haven’t eaten anything in the past 20 hours (the food intake is probably the big issue here).

I felt the bonk mostly in my legs. Half way up the last big hill my legs turned into limp noodles, and 3-hours later my legs are still cramping up. I have since eaten and my energy level is picking up. I worked all last night (12-hours), got home and didn’t get to sleep until 7:30 AM and I slept until 3:00 PM, but it wasn’t a good sleep because it was punctuated with the kids poking me to see if I was alive and my wife asking me some critical questions – why do they always ask the “big” questions when you are sleeping? Is it they know I am not conscious? There was nothing in the refrigerator that struck my fancy so I didn’t eat before I left for work.

The ride to work was otherwise uneventful. During the first ¾ of the ride I past all my bench marks in normal time, then a half mile past my last big benchmark my legs cramped up and I had to take a 5-minute break which I used to change my bandana and put on finger-gloves. Shortly thereafter I made a second stop and picked up diner at a local pizza restaurant. With two stops, bonking the last quarter, and stopping at busy intersections (it was Friday night rush hour so I rode conservatively), the trip took 1-hour my actual ride time was 45 minutes – not bad for riding in the dark, during rush hour, and in freezing weather.

The early morning forecast is for subfreezing temperatures. Right now I am planning my commute home to be a little different and I will tap the beauty of the folder. I will ride to the local train station 1-mile away from the office, hop the early train to my neighborhood station, and then ride the last 1-mile home. If I plan the trip right, the travel time will be about 45 minutes and limit my exposure to the cold weather.

Now, I haven’t ridden the Dahon much, so I am still getting use to the tight geometry and 20 inch wheels. As such, I really can’t tell if there is a difference between the urethane and pneumatic tires. I am also still trying to dial-in the right fit, and I have been playing with stem/handlebar height and seat heights. I also think the bar ends will help the fit too. It’s also nice to have the 1st gear now working.

Presently, I have one Wald folding basket in the left side of my rear rack. I don’t think I like this set up. I want to try a folding basket mounted on top of the rack. Better yet would be a backpack that would snap on and off the top of the rack. For commuting, I find panniers a little too limiting and not as flexible or easy as just throwing a pack on my back. No that I don’t have to carry as many tools because of the urethane tires.

More soon…

December 30, 2005 - It works!

The Airfree tires are on the Speed 8! My first test ride around the block found all systems functioned. Unfortunately, I had too many conflicts today to do any serious testing, but that will come.

So, it’s been two full months since I got the Speed 8. I paid $375.00 for the bike, $60.00 for new tubes and rim tape, and $300.00 for new wheels and the Airfree tires. For this money, I should be able to buy a really nice bike, or could I? I haven’t bought too many bikes that I have loved right out of the box.

During the past two months I have been stranded at work with flats, waited weeks for delivery of parts, and educated myself on several topics, including, but not limited to, Dahon knowing there was a tube failure issue with the wheel, tube, tire combination on the bike I bought. The flat issue led me to rekindle my interest in flat-free Airfree urethane bike tires, which led me to further understand the extent at which the bicycle industry is not standardized and I would need a new wheel set that lead to have to modify parts of the bike to accept the new equipment. All the time with this tinkering (I am proud to be a tinkerer), my bike has remained in the corner of my shop until today.

All the parts arrived this week, and I have spent what little free time during the past 2 days assembling them.

First, the Airfree tires I bought are Catalina 20 x 1.75 inch 120 PSI equivalent tire. The new wheel set is from Velocity, their 20 inch 36 spoke Taipan rim. I also purchased a new SRAM 11T-32T cassette to keep the pneumatic and urethane wheel set separate so I could easily swap the two back and forth – well this isn’t happening because the Velocity rims are wider than the Dahon OEM Kinetix Aero rim’s, so the brakes and derailleur have been adjusted for the new wheel set making swapping back and forth an exercise in fine bike adjustments.

Next, mounting urethane tires is like alligator wrestling. The tires stay on the wheels by friction, as well as mechanically fitting to the grove on the rim intended for the beads on clincher style pneumatic tires. Part of the “friction” attachment is the urethane wheels are smaller in diameter than the rim of the bike tire, so mounting the tires is a little like putting size 30 jeans on a 36 inch waste. The tool Airfree supplied with the tires broke and I had to resort to using broad bladed screwdrivers as levers. Warming the tires for a few minutes at a low heat helped to soften the tires and made them a little easier to mount – the beer helped too. Luckily the screwdrivers didn’t mare the rims.

With the tires mounted on the wheels next came mounting the wheels on the bike. The rear wheel fit into the dropouts without a problem. Because the Tiapan’s are wider rims the brakes needed adjustment. Moving to the front, the Tiapan didn’t fit the fork dropouts. I took the fork off the bike and brought it to my buddy Sal at the local custom motorcycle shop to see if he could use some of his neat tools to make the fit – needless to say, Sal no longer works at that shop. So, off to the LBS in search of a new fork.

No new fork needed – yet. The gorillas at the LBS muscled the fork blades into accepting the new wheel [I hope the work done by the LBS doesn’t cause any premature failure]. So home I went, reinstalled the fork and brakes, did a quick safety check – nothing loose, nothing cracked. With everything in order, I took the bike for a quick test ride around the block – a few times, and in the rain.

My initial impression of the tires and wheels are there is little difference between the urethane and pneumatic tires. I got on the bike, I peddled, and I moved forward – and I didn’t fall off. The traction in the wet weather appeared fine. The road noise is a little different, but that could be as simple as the tread pattern is different from what I am use to. I also appear to have an added bonus. The 1st gear finally works without the chain skipping off the chain ring. I suppose the chain angle between the 32T cog and the chain ring has lessened by a few degrees thus decreasing the tendency for the chain to want to jump.

Slowly I’ll be adding the fenders and rack back onto the bike. I also have a pair of bar ends I will install.

I have also been playing with a few concepts for light bars (accessory bars) that I can swap between cycles so I don’t need to continuously swap lights, bells, flashers, mirrors, etc. between the bikes. With the light bar all I need to do is swap the bar between the bikes. I have found ¾ inch PVC pipe perfect for the bar because most clamp-on mounts fit that diameter. The length can vary on the users desires. I have drilled holes along the pipe specific to each bike and position (i.e. front or rear). Cable ties and/or black plastic tape keep everything snug.

More will come……

December 28 - 20 days later.

Things are coming together. The wheel set arrived today. The tires arrived yesterday. The cassette arrived two days ago. I am about to mount the tires on the wheels.

December 8 - Dahon, it is still time for you to help me believe in Santa!

I have not commuted to work by bike for the past 4 work days because the temperature has been below 27 degrees (farenheight) - i.e. sort of "REALLY COLD" - and I have had some timing issues where I have had to combine my commute with erands making the use of the minivan much more practical (picking up and dropping off children). However! I have 7 more work days this year, and it is my goal to ride at least one, in not more than one, of those days!

Regarding the tire/wheel/hub tape issue.... Dahon was very nice and sent me two new tubes and 4 new rim tapes. I applied them to the wheels - this is a project in and of itself because you just don't slap a tube onto wheels and pump them up - NO! - the tire comes off, the tire gets checked for problems, the tire gets cleaned inside and out, the rim gets inspected [dangerous job because the inspection requires a fine touch to locate burrs or other rim normallities using your fingers' which can lead to (and it has) slash and punture wounds to your digits - Ouch! - but necessary], after everything is found to be o.k. the tire/tube/wheel is assembled and it gets pumped up slowly.....while you work the tire and wheel to make sure everything is seated properly. When done, I let the air out of the tire and allow the tire and tube to get to a "relaxed" pressure. When I am confident everything is seated properly and nothing is crimped or otherwise noticably out of line, I pump up the tire to the maximum specified pressure labeled on the tire's sidewall. Having done all this, I prefer to let the tires sit atleast overnight before riding on them, which I did. Well suprise of suprises! In the morning when I inspected the bike, I had two new flat tires. I took everything apart and found the tubes have once again failed between the tube valve stem and the first spoke nut, this is the same problem I have had since I first recieved the bike.

So did Dahon's fix work? Here, no.

Regarding the bike and Dahon, it is too bad the OEM tire, wheel, etc. choice was placed into production because consumers like me have unfortunatley had to educate ourselves too quickly that it didn't work, for this Dahon should have acted faster and more thoroughtly to correct to problem - I should have never recieved this bike in the condition I did and Dahon should in good faith replace the wheels and pay the labor costs to do so. To Dahon's credit, they acknowledged the problem (in more ways than one...). They also sent me token tubes and rim tape replacements - for this Dahon should be embarassed - new wheels would be more appropriate. To remain positive, I keep remembering Dahon is in the business of making a lot of bikes. I, on the other hand, I am into making sure I have reliable transportation. The Dahon Speed 8 I purchased is not yet a reliable mode of transportation, and throught my persaverance and resources, I will one day make this Speed 8 a "hot commuter" bike, but no credit will be due Dahon.

Dahon, will Santa fix the problems with my Speed 8? Help me believe in Santa, either fix my Speed 8 or give me a new one (at your cost).