Nemosengineer 

I have been looking at Pocket Rockets for a while now, the right one came along and I pulled the trigger. The box arrived yesterday.



Un packing was uneventful and the bike assembled in about 15 minutes. First impressions are, the frame build quality is excellent, nice welds, and 20 years after it left the factory, the fold pivots, slip joints, and the general tightness of the assembly with everything clamped down is impressive, nice stiff and confidence inspiring.
This particular Bike Friday was outfitted with a Chris King Grip-Nut headset, full 9 speed Ultegra groupset and American Classic hubs, Alex R390 rims, somewhere along the way a XT rear derailleur and lowend Sram cassette found its way into the mix.
During assembly I could not help myself and installed a Nitto Jaguar SP72 seatpost and Brooks Professional saddle, the seat tube takes a 28.6 mm post, I used a Sunlite 27.2mm to 28.6mm shim to fit the Nitto seatpost.
Some of the factory supplied components mainly the seatpost and the quick releases for the fold and stem assemblies are somewhat low end, weigh a ton, but are serviceable, the seatpost issue is done and the quick releases will be replaced with nice stainless hardware as tools are required to knock the bike completely anyway.




The first ride around the town went well, the handling is quick and feels great on a long fast downhill near my house leaving a big smile on my face, the bike hits all its gears eventually, I will blame that on kinked cables and crusty brifters, normal for a 20 year old bike. It's a LOT of fun to ride and I will repeat what I have been told "it feels like any other road bike".
I am very happy to own this and it was money well spent.



: Mike

FolderBeholder

Nice ride. (Likely one of very few BF’s here in Murrieta!)

joey buzzard

Wow! Congratulations. That's a choice set o'wheels.

What's the largest ring up front?
Do you think that triple crankset is worth keeping? Personally I'd ditch it first thing.
I ride with only a single up front and a wide range cassette in the back. and my bike climbs like a little dream.
I don't understand the desirability for having so many ultra-low gears in front on a 20" bike with a 53t big cog?
Seems to me that it just adds weight and unnecessary complexity to the machine.
Simplicity is bliss, especially on a fast bike.

That LX rear derailleur looks like it's a long cage, so maybe the current cassette already has some extra low gears on it?
You could lighten the bike by hundreds of grams by getting rid of extra rings, front derailleur, brifter, etc.

bargainguy

Nothing wrong with simplicity! But if you're running a single chainring with a widerange cassette, that means big gaps between gears, and that's not for everyone.

Hence the various gearing permutations for 20" folders - triple cranks or 3x IGH's - to allow smaller steps between gears within the same total gear range.

Bluesfrog

Nice bike. I find on mine I may need a longer handlebar. I'm thinking better handling. Put some miles on it and let us know what its characteristics are. Be Well. Bluesfrog.

Nemosengineer 

Thanks for all the responses guys,
I will try to hit some of the bases here.
Triples, I love em, I ride a lot in coastal San Diego and it gets very hilly, I won't go into detail at this point but I will say that I have a groupset on standby. Really it's too soon to make a final call on gearing as I don't really know what the bike needs at this point.
Ergos, needs some work. The Nitto seatpost is too short by about 1/2", so it's going back in the box as its at the limit line. A laidback Thompson Elite was put on order today, 28.6mm, 330mm long, this lets me get rid of the seatpost shim and gives me the needed length. The bike needs more stem length and the bars are too narrow at something like 37cm and generally I use 42cm, I have a plan that will be detailed later when the parts show up. I will post more later as I'm running out of time as the wife has found more chores for me .

linberl

20 years on a Bike Friday is just broken in, lol. Enjoy the tweaking and the ride. Congrats!

GTA

Congrats!
Just press the LAUNCH button!

Nemosengineer 

Thanks Guys!!!,
I'm just riding around the neighborhood trying to sort out the fit. I LOVE THIS BIKE!!! The ride is nice and not at all what I expected, the handling is sharp and quick without any twitcheness, it's all good stuff and so much fun, did I mention that this thing comes up to speed very quickly.

Parts showed up today, the 330mm Thomson seatpost, seatpost clamp, and new American Classic quick release skewers to replace the chewed up set. This new hardware installed painlessly along with a Selle Anatomica saddle, the Brooks is still as painful as it ever was and is back on the shelf of things I liked but don't work for me. So what about the Anatomica... It works and feels as good as any seat I own that I like after I set it nose high, I will report back when I get some miles on it.

So on to today's ride. With the seat set at the correct height and my butt happy it became apparent just how bad the bars are and how short the effective stem length is (something less than 80mm). The plan is to replace the adjustable "uni-stem" with a length of 1 inch chrome molly tubing and a 100mm ahead style stem with 15 degrees of rise. The bars will be 42cm Rene Herse Randonneur bend, this is the best guess as to what will work for me as I'm built funny with short legs and a long torso and I go through this routine with every bike I own, expect many changes. The rest will be a surprise when the parts show up. Photos for entertainment.







Best Wishes: Mike

linberl

Brooks didn't work for me, either. I tried really hard (no pun intended) to make it work, suffered for months, because I love the look of it. Ended up on a Fizik and my butt cried "nirvana". One on each of my bikes now. In case you didn't know, BF will craft you a new gooseneck to your specs if you want to go a more traditional route or supply a riser stem with ahead unit in your size. One of the joys of BF, I think, is that you CAN tweak absolutely everything with standard parts (if you buy used) or can customize precisely to your designed configuration if new.

FolderBeholder

I too am sitting on (pun INTENDED) 2 lightly tried, and now unused Brooks saddles....mine and the Missus'. She whined longer and louder about it than I did, but in the end (also intended pun) just a no-go for either of us.

Selle Anatomica seems to be what we're happy with.

linberl

They aren't for everyone but fortunately they hold resale value pretty good when new-ish. I knew I was done when, after 7 months, I rode home standing up because it hurt so much to sit. Finding the right saddle makes all the difference. I can ride my Fizik all day long. I've heard good stuff about the Selle, too.

Nemosengineer 

It's been a nice day and the post office fairy smiled on me by dropping off parts. So here are some photos of the handlebar fit up.

The ahead stem is a Thomson Elite 100mm with a 15 degree rise, these are really nice parts. The riser tube is 1" X .065" wall 4130 chrome moly tubing, the lot number is visible in the photo.



The bars are Rene Herse randonneur 42cm wide, I have these on my Bob Jackson, they have a bunch of different hand positions, long flat ramps and are very comfortable. The result is the cockpit of the "Rocket" is much improved from the before condition, the changes work out to be an increase of 20mm of stem length and close to 60mm in bar width plus the vastly different bend of the rando bar.





Next up will be controls and other details as parts show up.

: Mike

Nemosengineer 

It appears I have fallen into the deep end of the pool...











: Mike

Nemosengineer 

The Velocity A23 rims arrived today, 24 hole front and 28 hole rear to be matched up with the Hope RS4 hubs. I have an appointment for Tuesday to set down with Charles at Jet Bicycle Wheels in San Diego (https://www.jetbicyclewheels.com/custom-wheels) to go over the details and start the build, my current thoughts are black Sapim CX-Ray aero spokes with their black alloy nipples for a all black wheelset. But as always I will go with Charles recommendations.

The rims, 642 grams for the pair, not bad.



The bike is getting fresh Dura Ace kit and is going 10 speed to get the gearing range I want. I got lucky and scored a NOS Dura Ace CS 7900 11 - 27 titanium cassette for a great price. Total weight 186 grams. The reason for going 10 speed is the 11 tooth sprocket on the cassette, I need that gear to make the 95.9 gear inches for the top of the range.



With the Dura Ace triple crank the gearing looks like this.



: Mike

linberl

I have A23's on my BF pakiT, along with the extremely light Velocity race hubs. Love them.

Nemosengineer 

Happy to hear you like the A23 rims, it's nice to know I'm making good choices. I try to buy American parts where I can if the cost is within reach. The wheels on the bike were pretty much toast when it arrived, the front has a warp in one of the brake tracks and I find this extremely annoying to ride.
The strategy behind the build... Since the Rocket has shown up it has become my primary rider and I'm extremely reluctant to take it apart until I have everything to complete the overhaul in as few days as possible, if that makes any sense. The Bike Friday unique parts like the bars and stem will be stored and no modifications will be done that are not reversible to the factory configuration.

Have A Great Day: Mike

Nemosengineer 

Minor progress today, shifters are fitted to the levers and are shown centered in their sweep, controls are fitted to the bars.



: Mike

kayakindude

Velocity also has great customer service. I blew a spoke on my Airnimal and called Velocity (based in Michigan). They set up a package with all the different spoke lengths and walked me through the process on how to fix everything and this was on rims that they don't even make anymore.

Nemosengineer 

You nallied one of the reasons I like to deal with American companies, whenever I have had problems with a product the stateside manufactures always call back, give advice, and even came through when I was the cause of the problem in the first place. Folks like Paul Components, Chris King, Velocity, Thompson, White Industries and others that don't come to mind at the moment all give excellent customer service. I guess you have to to truly invested in the customer to be successful in an industry like this.

: Mike

kayakindude

I've been pretty lucky, never really had bad customer service when it comes to bikes. Bruce has been very helpful here, Richard at Airnimal always responds to my e-mails and helps even though I bought the bike second hand and it is 10 years old. Even the LL Bean mechanic went out of his way to teach me with several issues. Like you said, good service is what keeps a business open.

Nemosengineer 

Dura Ace 9100 brakes showed up today. The Rocket has taken a turn to the dark side, with the wheels at the builder and going with black spokes and nipples, I have a few vintage bikes most are all polished aluminum as far as finish is concerned so with this one I'm playing with the contrast of finishes, the only polished or bare aluminum will be the Dura Ace crankset, derailleurs, brake tracks, control levers and a few bits. We will see how that turns out.





: Mike

Nemosengineer 

More Dura Ace fun, a nice new 7703 triple crankset 53-39-30 gearing was found on my porch today...



And two pedal options...
MKS Ezy quick disconnect Urban Platform pedals for "Ezy" packing, soon to get clips and straps.



MKS NJS stamped Custom Nuevo Wide pedals with clips and straps for everyday around town stuff.



More fun stuff as it shows up. Mike

Nemosengineer 

Dura Ace 7803 triple derailleurs, disassembled, cleaned, greased, oiled, and ready to go...



Wheels are ready for pickup so photos soon, really close to starting the overhaul so stay tuned for more greasy fun ahead.

: Mike

Nemosengineer 

Picked up the wheels today so I'm really happy. The rims are taped, the tires are mounted, the cassette, and skewers are installed. Jet Bicycle Wheels did a great job of lacing all the pieces together, Charles had to break out the spoke threading machine and cut down the DT spokes as this particular combination of hubs and rims falls between standard sizes, so custom butted spokes and bomb proof wheels.






The fully assembled wheel weights below. I think I did ok as the total combined weight for everything in the pictures is exactly 5 pounds.

front 950 grams complete


Rear 1318 grams complete


So that leaves me waiting for the last piece of the puzzle, the new old stock Dura Ace 7703 bottom bracket being shipped from Hong Kong. Parts are where you find them

: Mike