My Bike Friday NWT
I rec’d my Bike Friday New World Tourist folding travel bike in early Jan 2009. So It’s not really a year old, but I’ll be gone to Baja over it’s birthday so I thought it would be appropriate to share my thoughts so far about this bike:
- This bike has lived up to the hype on the net about Bike Friday’s travel bike line up. It’s a time proven design that is stiff and fun to ride with the obvious benefit that it folds when you need to store or transport it.
- Does it ride like a full size bike? Mostly. I was impressed how stiff the frame is. When I’m cranking out of the saddle from a stop sign or up a hill I don’t think for a second about the fact I’m riding a folder. I just hammer and the bike goes forward. The smaller wheels and short wheel base [for a touring bike] make it very maneuverable without any hint of instability.
- My Tikit is a folding bike that’s awesome – my NWT is an awesome bike that folds.
- The NWT fold is very useful for storage and travel, but unlike the Tikit I wouldn’t want to have to fold the bike multiple times a day. The NWT’s fold is not effortless, but as a result you get a stiff frame which seems like a fair trade.
- I haven’t toured on this bike yet. 2009 wasn’t much of a touring year for me. Hopefully I’ll get out on this bike in 2010 for some loaded touring action. I have ridden the NWT around town on utility rides with loaded panniers and it handles very well with some weight on the frame. My friend Amy bought a Bike Friday Pocket Sport [similar to the NWT] and went on her first ever bike tour [Lake Louise to Vancouver] a couple weeks later. She cannot stop raving about how great her Bike Friday is.
- The 8 speed Nexus 8 IGH drivetrain has been flawless. I have it geared really low for touring and I should probably swap in a bigger chainring for about town use. OTOH I can do 30kph+ on it at the moment and that’s pretty good for a city bike.
- I should make special note of the JTek Shimano IGH bar end shifter. This works very well and has been a great addition to my NWT. I started with a gripshift attached on the end of a HubBub drop bar adapter. It worked, but nowhere near as ergonomically as the JTek unit.
- I’ve got the front derailleur and shifter on the bike even though I only have 1 chainring. I’ll be dropping this extra gear, but I just haven’t been motivated to strip it off the bike and wrap the bars again.
- Dynohub and LED headlight are a great addition. I always have light without thinking and even run the light during the day as a daytime running light.
- The Greenspeed Scorchers TR tires I love on my Tikit have proven to be a good choice on the NWT as well – fast, comfy and no flats so far.
So what’s not to like?:
- a custom NWT isn’t cheap OTOH neither is a custom frame from any other US builder.
- the Bike Friday front rack uses some plastic spacers to achieve the correct offset when mounting the rack. This puts the mounting hardware into a bending moment situation vs. shear where they would be stronger. This rack has been used lots by other people without issue so perhaps I’m just being picky. I haven’t had any issues carrying groceries and such. Time will tell.
- small 406 wheels are strong, but you feel rough pavement more than you do on larger 700c wheels. The Greenspeed Scorchers TRs go a long way to evening out the score on this issue.
- the folded bike does not stay together very well unlike the Tikit. Bike Friday does include a velcro strap that you can wind around the folded frame which does help a lot. This isn’t an issue as long as you bought the NWT as a travel bike. If you want to fold the NWT 5 times a day+ you’ll get frustrated.
I have quite a few nice bikes and it’s always interesting to see what sort of riding I end up doing on which bikes. Since I didn’t get up to much bike touring the NWT mainly saw action as my about town bike when I wasn’t doing lots of errand stops. It’s a fun nimble bike to ride and with fenders, racks and a dynamo light it’s always ready for whatever the day may throw at me. If I was going to stop lots I’d take my Tikit instead for the hyper fast fold.
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yay! a bike post!
i’m wondering when the lazy sup boarder blog is going to start…
but i’m enjoying all the posts.
Hahaha…for the record I went back and looked at my last 10 posts:
- 6 were directly bike related
- 2 were general [tent and camera] and could be bike touring related
- 2 were SUP or kiteboarding related
20% isn’t too bad!…=-)
Nice review! It’s very helpful to me. I was hesitating last spring between a Tikit and a NWT. I got the Tikit but I found it a little too flexy for my taste, and by the time I ended up disassembling it for packing I don’t think it was any faster than the NWT would have been. I think I’ll try a NWT next spring and then keep the one I like better. (I already have 4 bikes and I think my wife would balk at a 5th….)
BTW I think there’s a missing “not” in the 4th “not to like” bullet point: “the folded bike does stay together very well” [sic].
I agree that for travel the Tikit will take as long to pack into a suitcase as a NWT. The Tikit is much better for fast folding during errand runs or commutes though. The NWT is more like a full sized touring bike that packs into a suitcase. I should also point out that the NWT’s fold is great for putting in the trunk of a small car or storing in a closet.
Thanks again, this time for confirming my hunch about packing time. I had my Tikit in Paris last summer and I found that I only needed to fold it when storing it out of the way. (I tended to fold it while carrying it up and down the 5 flights of stairs to my apartment, but that was only because I could.) There were a couple times when I folded it for train rides, but that wasn’t necessary either. Next summer I’ll be in Oxford and I won’t need to fold much, if at all.
Interesting review. Your comment on the hub gear confirms my feelings about the Alfine hub – looks like Shimano are onto something here
Beautiful bike Vic… a quick question for you-
My commute involves unfolding my bike at home, folding it when I get to work, unfolding for going home and then finally folding when I get home at night. I don’t have to carry the bike anywhere.
Would I get frustrated with this amount of folding with a NWT? It’s not exactly multiple folding.
At the moment I’m commuting on a Dahon Vitesse with the 7 speed Nexus… nice bike but I’m looking for something portable I can do multiple miles on at the weekend too. The Airnimals look nice but so does the NWT!
Any thoughts?
Cheers, Mark
Hey Mark,
I have a Dahon D7…the NWT actually folds as easily [maybe even easier than my Dahon] and the unfolding is great because there is nothing to adjust the bike just goes back exactly into the same configuration as before. The downside is the Dahon is an easier package to move around because it stays together better. If you are just folding to put under a desk or in a closet at the start/end of each day’s commute the NWT will be fine. I don’t think you’ll get annoyed.
The one thing that no one commented on… even you, Vik, was the freakin awesome black and white scheme the NWT is rocking. It’s a quality bike… but the great look of yours specifically is worth mentioning!
Derrick… you’re not wrong.. it’s a really beautiful lookin’ bike!
I’ve also seen the BF midnight blue colour on a NWT and it was stunning too.