My Ideal Bike

/ Wan Ahmad Saifuddin
After so many months of desktop research, sporadic visits to bicycle shops and reading as much as I could, it was time to first decide what would be the ideal bike for me. I had a couple of particular criteria that would really narrow down my choices:

  1. The bike would have to be foldable due to:
    • convenience – can put in the boot and ride whenever I felt like it, and without needing a bike rack
    • coolness – I just simply buy in into the whole folding bike genre philosophy, and do not see myself as a MAMIL (Middle-Aged Men In Lycra), a phenomenon especially prominent with Road Bikers
    • posture – foldies are usually require an upright stance, which is compatible with more leisurely pursuits, and I intend to mainly cycle alone
  2. It would ideally be able to do some off-road:
    • I fancy the idea of being a prepper, and in emergencies one could just get the bike out and go to just about any terrain
    • to be able to do off-road, it would need to have either a front-fork suspension or full suspension
    • Off-road would also require a pretty good range of gears, more akin to an MTB than a Road Bike, but most ideal would be a hybrid between them
  3. From most of my readings, if the bike were to be foldable and have off-road capabilities, then one would have to go to established folding bike brands:
    • Pure folding bike companies would be preferred, as their total design concept would be to have the ideal fold and therefore the quality of the components involving the fold and more importantly the frame design should be much higher
    • Quality Dual Suspension would be preferred, firstly to withstand the state of Malaysian roads which may be a good training ground for off-road adventures!
    • Quality components would be required to handle both road cycling and light to heavy off-road use
Having painted myself into such a tight corner with such difficult requirements, there were only 3 bikes that would come close to meeting my expectations:




Often touted as the Rolls Royce of full-suspension foldable bikes with off-road possibilities, the Dahon Jetstream EX 2011 model would be the ideal bike for me. Dahon is arguably the highest seller of folding bikes in the world, and certainly one of the oldest and most established. The Jetstream EX has a German A GA Force Kilo A Air Shock front suspension with a Suntour Epicon Air with lockout and damping adjustment, with SRAM Dualdrive II 27-speed hub with SRAM X9 Rear Derailleur. I must say I was greatly influenced by Sam Cheong’s Samosaurus Chronicles coverage of the Jetstream EX and his wife’s Jetstream P8. It was also through his blog that I read about Debby & Carrey’s off-road pursuits which included pushing the Jetstream EX to extremes until it failed!


German A GA Force Kilo A Air Shock
Folded





Unfortunately this bike is no longer on the market. According to Samo there were only 10 units that were brought into Malaysia. The original price was also close to RM10k if I am not mistaken, with a second-hand unit that was going for RM4.8k on bicyclebuysell.com though no longer available. I was also tempted after finding it online on an indonesian website with an encouraging price of USD1.4k but do not have the budget at the moment. If anyone does purchase through this website please tell me!




2. Airnimal Rhino Black ‘Wild Thing’




While the Dahon Jetstream EX has been marketed as a trail bike, the Airnimal Rhino is a full-on off-road full suspension foldable ensemble. With Manitou Marvel 80mm front fork suspension and a Rock Shox Monarch rear suspension supporting a hovering frame design, the Rhino Black seems to be an equal (to the Jetstream EX) if not more ideal bike for me. Its Rohloff Speedhub 14-speed 32h Rear Sealed Gear Hub has a gear range of 19 – 101 inches.


In addition, it has two fold options as well as cases that corresponding to them. In addition, the frames can take one config of 20″ and two configs of 24″, its geometry designed to have the handling of a standard road bike, as well as a fold design along its centre line to provide stiffness. I have not actually experienced an Airnimal, the closest being my visit to My Bike Shop (MBS) in Singapore a couple of months ago when they showed me an Airnimal Joey frame and its vertical fold.


First Fold







The Airnimal Rhino actually comes in three configurations – the White which is a lower-spec off-road config using an 8 speed Alfine hub and Airnimal 48T Crank weighing 14kg (UKP1899), the Black using the 14-speed Rohloff (as above) with Airnimal 52T Crank weighing 13.6kg (UKP3299) and the Road with a 27-speed Shimano Tiagra-Ultegra-Deore drivetrain with FSA Gossamaer Triple-crank and Pro LT Dropbar combination weighing in at 11.5kg (UKP2199). So price-wise, even more out of reach for me – takes a special kinda bonus for me to splurge on this beauty.




3. Montague Paratrooper Pro




Montague is the only company I found that only makes full-sized foldable bikes. Its Folding Integrated Technology (FIT) was reputedly funded by DARPA for designing a bike that can be transported by a paratrooper (hence its name?). Montague focuses on two lines of bikes, the Pavement Bikes (FIT, Boston 8 and Boston), the Multi-Use Bikes (Navigator, Crosstown and Swissbike X50) and the Mountain Bikes (Swissbike X70 and X90, Paratrooper and Paratrooper Pro). The Swissbike and Paratrooper models all use the same frame, and I have a preference for the matt-black finish of the Paratrooper Pro (notice that all of my 3 choices above are black or dark framesets!)


The Fold





Between the Jetstream EX, Rhino Black and Paratrooper Pro, it seems that the Paratrooper Pro could probably take the most off-road punishment, having the geometry of a classic Mountain Bike and having a standard MTB Front Fork suspension (and therefore having many options and easier-to-find replacement). Unlike Jetstream EX and Rhino Black though, it is more of a hardtail frame design and is therefore not a full suspension bike. It does seems to feel like the most durable though – I had seen one at Van’s Urban Bicycle Co. shop at Kampung Tunku, PJ and man, it feels amazing. With the price just north of RM4k, it is the most affordable among the three choices.


Thus I have presented my ideal bike choices. Like life though, one often does not start with ideals. My next post will outline my first 3 bike purchases and why (here’s a hint – it’s none of the above!). Stay tuned for the next installment, which hopefully will not take a month like the time between this post and the previous one.


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