Originally Posted by Andy_K

Hey everyone, long-time BF member, but folding bike newbie here. I just got my first folding bike, and I was hoping to get some information about a few things.

The bike I got is a used Citizen Tokyo with 16 inch wheels. I know, it's not what you'd have recommended, but I think it was a good fit for my needs. Periodically, my company sends me from Oregon to the SF Bay Area on the company shuttle. I can (I think!) take a folding bike along in a bag as checked luggage so I can get around down there without having to take Uber/Lyft. (Believe it or not, I've gotten this far without so much as installing either of their apps.) Typically I expect flat rides of around 1-2 miles, but my first experiment with this is going to involve an 11 mile ride (still dead flat) from the San Jose Jet Center to a conference I'm attending in San Jose. I don't imagine I'll use it for anything longer than that.

The bike was in kind of rough shape when I got it, but I stripped it down, cleaned and lubed everything, gave it new tires, and replaced a few parts I didn't like. Today I took it out for a first shakedown ride -- 7 miles from a local park-and-ride to my workplace.

Gratuitous picture:



Now my questions....

1. The bike feels wobbly, particularly at low speeds -- like it goes straight, but the front wheel is flopping back and forth much more tangibly than I'm used to. Is that normal? A bi-product of the tiny wheels maybe? Will I get used to it? It's very disconcerting. I feel like a kid just learning to ride a bike for the first time. No, the wheel should not be flopping back and forth. Your hubs may be loose.

2. The seatpost isn't quite long enough to give me the bottom bracket to saddle extension I normally use. The seatpost doesn't actually have a minimum insertion mark on it, but I decided that I should have the bottom of the post go down at least to the bottom of the top tube (do you still call it that when it's the only tube?). Am I being too conservative? The post is 550mm long and I think 32mm in diameter (I was expecting 31.8, but my calipers say 32). I don't want to spend more money on this thing, but I am curious whether aftermarket seatposts are even available in this size. Is there anything I can do about this? Your seat post should go into the seat post tube at least 2.5x the diameter of the post, so about 80mm

3. I replaced the original crankset, which was some awful heavy steel piece with a 48T chainring and (broken) plastic chain guides on both sides of the ring. My replacement crank is using a 52T ring, which still leaves the upper gearing kind of low but is fine for my needs. The problem here is that within the first 10 feet of riding I dropped the chain. It didn't happen again on my first ride, but I was kind of staying away from the big cog. I've used 1xN setups in cyclocross, and so I know a whole bag of tricks for fixing chain drop. Some of them won't work here because, for example, the seat tube is way bigger than any clamp-on guides. I might have a plastic band guide that will work, but I don't know where it is. Maybe just moving the chainring to the inner position or otherwise improving the chainline will fix this? Any other suggestions? Yes, improving the chainline should resolve this.

4. Do I need to worry about the rear derailleur or anything else when I've got it in a soft bag and handed over to baggage handlers? The original rear derailleur was some clunky Shimano sub-Tourney thing that was probably bomb-proof. I replaced it with a Shimano 600 Tri-Color that I had on the shelf. It works better but may be more fragile. What do you think? Dunno

5. I swapped in a Specialized Phenom saddle, which is what I always use on my road bikes. Of course, I've got a much more upright position on this bike. I kind of felt that on my way in to work. Should I consider going back to the couch-like saddle that this bike came with? Or maybe just something wider than the Phenom? Saddles are very subjective; try swapping it until you find what works for you.

6. Anything else I haven't thought about but should? Enjoy!

Thanks in advance for any help!