Dahon Speed Pro TT, 2008

Me and Chutney (a Dahon Speed Pro TT, 2008) on the top of Tourmalet.

Description: (From their site) The Speed Pro TT is the bike for the serious roadie who wants it all: a bike that can take on a century as easily as it can pack into a suitcase for travel. The SRAM DualDrive gearing delivers 27 gears for anything from the steepest hills to hammering on the flats.

As seen on the blog: Label : Dahon Speed Pro TT

I have now had this bicycle for a little over a year now and I have collected all the blogs I have done into this review, and will update as time permits.

I have ridden it in London, the Pyrenees and on a long hilly ride, and it is one of the best rides I have had.

After a little getting used to that everything happens so low to the ground, and the twitching handling, it just flyes. I have never ridden a folder before and it have been many years since I was on 20″ tyres.

Cycling in London’s traffic it is fast, responsive, comfy and light. It comes in at 10.4kg, but I do not feel it at all. Because of the 28″ to 125″ gear range, that just changes double fast, nothing different with the 3 hub gears that are like the 3 front rings. With it fancy handle bars and stem you can easy find a position that suit you.

It have a longer distance between the wheels, which makes the ride much more like a “normal” bike. Climbing up on the steepest part of the Tourmalet the front wheel never came off the ground, and I never had the twitch that you can have with a smaller wheel and going up hill at low speed.

Descending is fast and fun, I can’t say that there is anything different compared to a “normal” bike. That is off course when you have gotten used to its handling, but that is the same with any bike.

The only things I had to change on it …

Handlebars: I had to add some Bar Phat as the handle bars that is on it is too thin for my liking.

Brake pads: The ones that comes with it as a standard don’t even bite, so I put some Koolstop and they have stopped me on the fast descents in the Pyrenees.

Seat post: Since I’m 6’4″ with an inside leg of 35″. The seat post that come with the bike is not long enough even though the web site states that it fits a 6’4″ person. So I got a seat post from a Dahon Vitesse which also have the normal seat clamp and not the new seat railing thing, and that is just the right length.

And of course riding it in France you will get of plenty of people looking at you and asking you questions about it.

Now that was all the good news about the Dahon Speed Pro TT, here comes the bad news …

I got this bike in August 2008 all being a very brilliant bike to ride. But compare to the amount of miles I have gotten out of the “Dahon Special Edition Schwalbe Stelvio, Mango/Black, 20″ x 1″, foldable Kevlar bead, DualCompound Silica casing, RaceGuard anti-puncture protection” I can only display my disappointment.

This bike has only touched the Queens highway, never been off road or on dirt track/canal/towpath. Though I have ridden it in the rain and the tyres have a brilliant grip and roll very fast. I have had 3 inner tubes on it and the tyres are now falling apart, click here to read my open letter to Schwalbe about this.

Total count of visits = 8 or was it 10 vs 1780 miles, now that is just not on, compared to the tyres on my other bicycles.

And in an attempt to get better braking on Chutney, I cut down the generous Dahon cable routing. Front brake by 2.5″ and the back nearly 6″. And I got much better bite on my front and back brake now compared to before. Though while fettling around I found out that my front break cable was a little bit frayed.

And when I pulled out the cable it was like a cork screw …

Never seen that before in my fettling career, after a little looksee I think I figured out what caused it. The cable outer is coming out of the handle bar and is going into the shifters at an sharp 90 deg angle with strait lines, not a rounded/smooth/curved angle. Which I also think is the reason for the fraying and some lack of braking power, I have to do some more fettling to see if I can get that routing in a softer/smother angle.

Rating

A brilliant, fast, fun ride. But what was Dahon thinking about when they put the tyres and brakes on this?