trainsktg

I have no real purpose for this bike now, but the future holds a few certainties and some possibilities where owning a folding drop bar bike will make riding and training while traveling much, much easier. Plus I got it for I think a pretty good price compared to a similarly spec’ed new bike. I’m not sold on the bar end shifters, but I’ll get them a fair shake before deciding to replace them with regular road shifters.

I present my my new Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro . I rode into the city to test ride it today and I pick it up after work tomorrow.

Keith

linberl

Once you ride a Bike Friday, you'll be spoiled for almost any other folder. Congrats and enjoy. Be sure to join the BF Facebook community and the Google Yak BF group.

dorkypants

You didn't say if the BF is a recent model or an older used one. If the bar-ends are indexed, they shouldn't feel terribly different from brifters, since the cable/housing lengths don't differ a huge lot. If they're friction, they'll feel a lot less precise (I used to have a road bike with bar-ends in the pre-indexed shifting days).

trainsktg

Not new, but indexed. 9sp Ultegra/DA with Capreo 9-26 cassette. I’ll give them a fair shake. We’ll see if with a little practice shifting them from the drops on the local rollers is do-able or not. I plan on riding it no differently than my normal road bikes, so I don’t want to be shifting my right hand from the hood to the shifter constantly if I can’t get comfortable with this from the drops.

Friction is cool too. I retrofitted my gravel bike with Gevenalle cyclocross shifters and, although indexed, I run them exclusively in friction mode.

Keith

pinholecam

Congrats on the bike!

The Pocket Rocket is one of the best mini-velo (that breaks up) for fast riding.
I have/had a few folders and my PR super-pro is certainly the fastest and best riding one.
I also ride it like a regular road bike and often enough in group rides with roadies.
Its will give road-bike users a run for their money for sure.
The only 2 situations where a road bike has the clear advantage are when the roads are less smooth (more loss of traction on the smaller wheels ) and when there is a slight decline and the PR runs out of gearing.

rhenning

Just for information I own your bikes grandfather Pocket Rocket number 2 which I bought from Bike Fridays traded in bike program in I think 1995. I hope you keep yours as long as I have. Roger

trainsktg

Number 2, wow , looks good!

So I have a lot of nice road bikes including the TCR seen above and even a Cervelo S5 team bike with full DA DI2, but I don’t believe I’ve even been as tickled with getting a new bike as I am with this one. I even started looking at deep dish carbon wheels for this thing and I haven’t even brought it home yet 😂. Crazy.

Keith

velojym

When we got our tandem (and later, my Surly LHT), I was on the fence about the bar end shifters... but I got used to them quickly and like them well enough not to bother switching.

Tourist in MSN

I started using bar end shifters decades ago before indexed shifting existed, so I have some obvious bias.

That said, I have a brifter for the rear on my rando bike and brifters front and rear on my road bike. But my touring bikes and folder are bar end shifters. I like them all.

Since I can tell by feel with my hand on the lever about where my chain is on my cassette with a bar end shifter, I rarely cross chain my bikes with bar end shifters. But I do not get any feedback from the brifters on where I am on the cassette or which chainring I am on, thus I often am cross chaining my bikes with brifters. For that reason I find some clear advantages to bar end shifters.

If you always ride on the hoods, you might consider bull horn bars. A friend of mine switched his touring bike to bull horn bars because he never used the drops. His bar end shifters now are up on the ends of the bars where a time trial rider would have them. I use the drops whenever I have a headwind, thus that is not for me. But I know a lot of people that ride drop bars because the bike came with them but they never actually use the drops.

Fentuz

I use current "all in one" brake shifter lever: Sora 9x2. I like it, easy to use and pretty much the same as mid 2010's ultegra kit.

Have a look @ the tern x18T as it is fitted with capreo cassette too. It might give you ideas of what works with a similar set up to yours.

trainsktg

Yeah I’m going back and forth between the Microshift R9 (external shift cables, so presumably easier to pack) vs the Sora (‘internal cable routing’ and adjustable reach, but a little more expensive).

I’m sticking with the bar ends for now tho’ regardless...if nothing else they are helping me (even after just one ride) with improved handling in the drops for other than just going low and fast in a straight line.

Keith

12boy

Once dialed in I would bet you somehow wind up riding it more often than your other bikes. Small wheel bikes are a lot of fun.

Fentuz

yes, that's what happened to me...

trainsktg

Well, second ride and I am already comfortable enough with using the bar ends both from the hoods and the drops to have decided to leave them as-is, other than cleaning up a little excess cable. Solo ride of a little over 50 miles and 1,600’ elev, even split zones 2&3, 17.3 mph ave...pretty much comparable to the same effort on my TCR when riding alone. Even with the excess cable hanging out, I think the lower body position and the tiny wheels are responsible for a whole lot less drag. It’ll be interesting to see what it can do when I really start hammering it.

Its a keeper .

Keith

Nyah

That's a beautiful folding bicycle and I know exactly what you mean. Once Coronavirus came onto the scene, my inspiration for a folding bicycle took a siesta. You're right, might as well have a folding bicycle, ready for when it will be handy.

I've been trying to get drop-bars on my prospective first folding bicycle. Industry and the retailer ecosystem have not been making it easy to do this. Bike Friday and Airnimal seem to be the only ones interested in offering folding bicycle with drop-bars. Since Airnimal is not easy to get in the US, I will probably go with BF. Drop-bars are the only type that I'm interested in. And bar-end shift levers are already my go-to controls for gearing.

trainsktg

Mentioned by another above, Tern also has drop bar folding bikes.

From my reading, I believe all PRs are custom builds to your specific measurements. Which is also the explanation why mine sat on Craigslist for as long as it did...except for a little more upper body mass on my part, the original owner and I share the same relevant body dimensions (height, inseam length, etc) and it didn’t fit any of the test riders before me. Luckily

Keith

Schwinnsta

Really, what models and when?

trainsktg

It looks like a bunch....X18, x22, x30. Dahon too apparently. I Googled ‘Tern drop bar folding bike’ and a bunch of hits came up. I didn’t research past that tho’.

Keith

Schwinnsta

You may get a lot hits but they appear to
from people who swap their stock bars out. I doubt they were sold that way, originally.

trainsktg

Ah, I see, yes.

Keith

Jipe

Tyrell has fast folders with drop bar (the limited series titanium XF, the FSX and some versions of the FX).

joey buzzard

Personally I like bikes that are simple. Originally when I bought my Swift I had planned to put drops on it, but I came to love riding it with the stock flat bars lowered down; I even love the cheap Sram grip shifter which came standard. I find that this set up is easier to store and transport as the straight handlebars don't hook things. Also, it came as a revelation to me just how much money I was saving by not throwing hundreds of dollars into brifters. I think that the flat bars gives the bike a very clean no-nonesense aesthetic. The bike is seriously fast and comfortable as a road bike. I took on a 140km spin from where I'm staying in La Alpujarras to the coast and and back the other week that included slightly more than 3000 meters of elevation gain. I'm not even sure I could've done that on my conventional road bike. Maybe some food for thought for anybody else reading this and thinking about how to set up their fast folder?

Fentuz

Yes they do, Tern verge X18T is drop bar and they was a dahon. It does sell in the UK even among cyclocross rider ...
Tern did the X27H which was a copy of the speed pro TT.

P.L.Jensen

On my Zizzo I went this way...

(above) The height adjusting stem is nice when there is a headwind... The clip-ons work fine with elbows on the Ergon pads... Running a single 9 speed on friction... Lever angle tells me what I need to know...


(above) Might not be what a Hard Core Roadie might want, but it works for me...