Combing my hair….

Just under a year since I got it, I’ve reached a 1000 miles on my Alfine Tikit. It has been a cold, icy winter and at times it has felt like you were cycling along the beach with the amount of grit and salt that has been spread on the roads. The bike has been out in the salt spray then back into a warm office and then back in the spray and back into a warm house on a daily basis since mid December. Ideal conditions for corrosion. Let’s start from the road up.

Since the original motivation to get disc brakes was to preserve the rims from wear I was concerned that the problem would be transferred to the tyres. As you can see, this doesn’t appear to be the case. The Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres haven’t punctured once and have retained significant tread. This is the front tyre, but the back tyre has a similar amount of wear.

Next is the transmission, which with the small wheels of the Tikit runs pretty close to the ground.

You can see the salt spray gets everywhere and is aggressive – the chain was cleaned and oiled on Sunday and by Friday lunchtime the oil has been washed out and surface rust has started. The chain could probably do with a bit of tensioning, but the gears are still running and shifting like on day one. I had wondered how the bottom bracket would hold out under the spray, but to date I’ve had no problems.

Now to the frame itself and I am going to concentrate on two areas which have been the cause of debate with other Tikit owners. Firstly the seatpost latch.

Although you can see a bit of surface rust on the latch arms above, the seatpost assembly still clips in with a reassuring clunk. I don’t fold the bike on a daily basis but I don’t seem to have experienced the wear and sloppiness that others have found concerning.

The story at the front end is not so positive. A few months ago, the headset seemed to be becoming pitted. Since it is a Chris King expensive job I was rather concerned. A quick email to Bike Friday and Jordan pointed me in the directon of the cable swivel bearing at the bottom of the head tube. Sure enough this bearing, which is put under a lateral tension by the hyperfold cable, was not behaving. A further email to Jordan and a free replacement was in the post. It is a relatively simple job to replace the bearing. Take the front wheel off, remove the front mudguard, undo the cable, bash the bearing out from the top, Loctite the new bearing into place, replace the cable, mudguard and wheel and yo’re on your way.

Rather more irritating, and possibly a design flaw, is the way the headset is kept in compression by the Problem Solvers adjustable spacer.

This consists of two threaded pieces which are turned in oppostition to each other to press down on the headset. The lower piece is split and can be tightened on the upper piece using a 2mm allen bolt. The problem is that the disc brakes and long head tube result in heavy stresses on the headset and the allen bolt works loose. Since it is only a 2mm bolt and there is no recommended torque setting for it there is always the fear of over-tightening it and the bolt shearing – leaving the bike un-rideable. So I retighten it, carefully, about every six weeks. Not ideal.

Finally there’s a rubber loop around the hyperfold cable

Not sure exactly what this does, but it broke at some point and it doesn’t seem to matter. It joins the front mudguard that fell off un-noticed one evening.

Overall Assessment

For a 16 inch folding bike, the Tikit rides well – far better than a Brompton. Stuff breaks if you use it, that’s to be expected but the headset issue is a pain. The Alfine internal hub gear and front hub dynamo are fabulous, perfect for the daily commute. The SLX hydraulic discs have incredible stopping power, modulate well and stop the bike getting covered in black gunk. So all told the bike has worked out well for my commute.

The key thing is do you need a folding bike for the daily commute. Ironically for me that need has pretty much evapourated due to the lassez-faire attitude of Northern trains. Officially their policy is two bikes per train, in practice I have seen six bikes stacked in with no questions asked. If you don’t need a folding bike, with the inevitable attendant compromises between rideability and foldability then a standard bike will always win out in terms of value for money.

Since buying my Alfine Tikit a number of other manufacturers have started using the gearset with disc brakes to produce all weather commuters. With 700c wheels there is the Charge Mixer although you would have to budget for mudguards and a rack, neither of which come as standard. With 26 inch wheels (probably a better choice, given the wider range of poor weather tyres) there is the Tout Terrain Bulevard.