Tikit One-Year Update | Back to Review |
Summary | The tikit is, of course, a bleeding-edge bike, and I like well-engineered technology! But this summer saw some frustrating repairs. Still, Bike Friday put a lot of work (and their own money) into making sure the bike worked well this summer. This one-year update will largely focus on modifications, upgrades, and repairs made to the bike over the year. But first... | ||||
Usage | ![]() As I've become a stronger rider I've gotten to the point where I'd really like another 10 gear inches up top. The “right way” to do this would be to upgrade the hub, cassette, shifter, chain, and maybe derraileur to Capreo. But that's perhaps $250. I've been thinking about instead trying a 60T front chainring, but I doubt I could find a chain guard that big and would surely miss it. What I would give for the braze-ons for a front derailleur. I'm now spending the fall in Rome, and have though I have taken my Tikit with me, unexpected personal circumstances dictated that for the past several weeks I could only ride my Dahons, and for good long distances. And boy did I miss the Tikit. It fits better; it's more forgiving on the derriere; it's less squeaky and flakey; it's a rather better caliber bike. But most of all I have noticed the folding convenience difference. The Dahons are enough of a pain to fold that I never fold them to go inside places; instead I lock them up, unfolded, outside. But I always fold the Tikit and take it with me, and indeed it's never actually had a lock. That's a fundamental difference: the Tikit's fold is for me part of the natural usage of the bike, whereas my Dahons' fold is an occasional convenience for long-term storage or putting in the back of a car. Okay, now on to the repair and upgrade record. | ||||
Aardvark Safety Upgrade |
I think the fix was a rushed job. The safety brace obscures an inch of the rear handle, providing less handle to hold when rolling the bike folded. Bike Friday could have fixed this (and still could) by providing an insert to lengthen the rear handle (there's room). Second, the brace edges are sharp and abrasive on the knuckle when grabbing that handle. I fixed this by adding some left over vinyl aquarium tubing from my experiments with the hyperfold cable. Third, the brace had burrs which I had to file off before it'd rotate cleanly.
But fourth and most importantly, the fix revealed a flaw in Bike Friday's approach to custom-manufacturing the tikit: the hand-made aardvarks are not quite all the same size. The replacement aardvark was several millimeters longer than my old one, and was longer than the brace as well. Nothing fit right. Without the brace, the new aardvark would cause a significant gap between the rear cup and the frame. If I jammed the new aardvark and brace onto the bike, the new aardvark would torque as the brace pulled it in on one side but not the other, resulting in the rear latch pins (where the rings are) twisting about a three degrees. As a result, the rear cup wouldn't impact on the frame properly, so most of the stress now rested on the latch pins (a bad idea). And popping the rings into the latch was no longer smooth: it went in with a ker-chunk because a part of the aardvark, slightly twisted, would rub against the latch.
One minor gotcha: with the brace installed, the seat is angled ever so slightly when folded. As a result, the seat doesn't properly engage with the seatmast tab any more (this is the thin piece of metal meant to hold the seatmast in place when folded). This is fixable by adding some washers between the tab and the frame on its topmost screw to angle the tab out a bit. I added three washers. | ||||
Hyperfold Cable Guide Bearing | ![]() Will this be an annual thing? The part is not expensive, nor will be the repair (now out of warranty), but the part is underengineered: the bearing's not designed to take the lateral force of the hyperfold cable. We'll see next year. While replacing the cable guide bearing, Bike Friday also found that the headset bearing was shot, and replaced it very inexpensively ($20). My headset had gotten loose, and I'd probably interpreted the resulting handlebar play as the standard play that happens when the hyperfold cable needs to be tightened a bit. Tightening the cable in this situation will the stem stiffer but also puts stress on the loose headset bearing. If you're experiencing stem play, make sure that your bearing screws are properly tightened down before ruling out a loose bearing and going ahead and tightening the hyperfold cable. | ||||
Tires | ![]() | ||||
Seatmast Latch | ![]() The Fix. After talking with Bike Friday, I've applied a simple repair: carefully but firmly tap the latches with a hammer to close them in ever so slightly. Some important cautions. First, don't rely on me: call up Bike Friday and talk to them about it. Second, you want to make sure that you apply the taps to both latches equally. Third, you want to avoid knocking the latches out of alignment—only tap horizontally in the direction towards the rear of the bike. I've applied the tap while insulated by a block of wood. This fix works fine for about six months at a time: but it's a band-aid. The latch is welded to the rear triangle of the bike frame: so if it wears out, Bike Friday will need to replace the whole rear triangle under warranty. I think the company needs to figure out some kind of replaceable liner on the inside of the latch, or replace the rings with a softer material, perhaps aluminum. | ||||
Rear Cup | The rear cup wears out the paint on the frame. Applying frame-saver stickers to the frame doesn't work (they slide around under pressure and start squeaking). But applying them to the cup seems work pretty well. | ||||
Hyperfold Cable | ![]() Bike Friday (on their own) replaced the hyperfold cable while my bike was in the shop. They said there was some wear. I didn't see any. | ||||
Handle | One of the grommets on the bike's red nylon handle ripped through. I'd expected the handle to wear out sooner than later, so no big deal. Bike Friday threw in a replacement, but I also found that the replacing the grommet with a sandwich of two extra-wide washers worked fine too. | ||||
Fenders | The Planet Bike fenders on the bike will occasionally start squeaking due to crud wedged between the fender plastic and their metal supports. Removal and washing clears things up. Still, I've more than once wondered if Brompton's nice metal fenders would fit on the tikit. |