The most difficult part of frame building is getting the frame to be aligned perfectly. This has almost zero tolerance else your geometry is out. It will like those lorries we see on the road where their front tires are not aligned to their rear tires That's why those custom frame builders or reputable frame makers have special jigs to aligned the pieces and even with that they still need to re-adjust after the final weld.

Also important is where the welding is going to take place, ideally there should be no gap between two pieces, just a V-groove for the weld or brazing. Too big a gap, you actually will burn a hole into the steel pipes. Building a bike frame is not like welding up some 'pasar malam' tables. I actually have thought of scavenging old frames just to get the right diameter BB housing, headdset tubes and rear dropouts but it became too tedious. I was thinking of making a carbon fibre frame at that time. You know making a model out of wooden beads and pieces , then building the mold for it.

There use to be a custom bike builder somewhere north but he seems to fizzle out, I guess. He makes more of roadbikes and tourers. Wonder where he got his chromoly pipes?

Zero tolerance = no tolerance. Its only a figure of speech… In my 30+ years in engineering, there is no such thing. Everything has tolerance, for bike frame building it's +/- 1/8", or 1 Hun tolerance. That is the same tolerance I have to achieve in very coarse fabrication works… (Pasar malam table included)
Have no fear, you can always build a jig to assist your alignment. That is if you would spend time watch more YouTube lah.
Talking about geometry… if you are serious, changing wheel size will affect the trail angle and a whole list of geometry of the bike… but does anyone care?
Welding is a very easy skill to learn, practice, practice, practice. Blazing lagi senang. Don't forget there is always Pak YouTube to consult.
Head tube and BB shell taobao got sell, cheap cheap only…
Chromoly can import la, but too tedious. I found various oversea suppliers supplying correct 4130 tube… but I have too many hobbies liao… unless I really that bored lah… maybe I will build a bamboo frame…

This post has been edited by KenC: Jan 21 2018, 03:20 PM

i want to build a bike using PVC pipes. high quality thick pipes. can ar?

Use ice cream cone oso can, break or not another story lah!

I read a lot about bamboo frame, many owners claim it is like riding on magic carpet. Zero vibration… how I wish to test ride one.

I am interested in the Ultegra crank and also the pair of 406 Schwalbe Supremes. Message me please regarding price.

The assembling is complete



The FD adapter....the one that we can adjust the angle, incidently don't have a cable stop So, I changed to the other type but the FD was too far away from the seat tube and I tried putting spacers between the BB to get the chainring align but the spindle of the Ultegra was too short to accommodate the other side's crank. So, I use the old adapter (which was nearer to the seat tube) and then use one part of the new RD adapter as a cable stop. Now I can make the cable stop as low as I want it to be.



I also discovered another problem. I found an old used Ultegra RD ( 11 sp type version ) and fitted onto the bike. But I got a Tiagra 10 sp shifter for it. They work but somewhere in the middle, you cannot get an accurate adjustment. Then I changed an older version Ultegra , taken from my wife's velo ( 10 sp and grey colour ), it works perfectly. I asked around about it and the lbs says the same but if you get the newer version of the Tiagra shifters (black casing), it will work on the newer 11 sp Ultegra RDs.

I got them SLX 10 speed cassette 11/32T. Combined with 53/39T in the front will give 24 gear inches to 96 gear inches. Very wide.



The older version Tiagra shifter and the Avid FR5 brake levers.



The Avid SD3 s brake calipers.



The Wellgo quick release pedals.



Not much choice for wheelsets but this is quite OK. Sealed bearings and light Can get them around RM400.00, either 406 or 451 The Schwalbe Supremes, still available here at 110 bucks each here. My choice of tire for folding bikes. Last you a long time, enough grip with good and smooth rolling factors.



The most common seat post. The new owner wants a lighter seatpost instead of the Biologic. So, we swapped it. There are many fakes of this seat post though, got to be careful.



As for the saddle, I can't choose for her wife, yes, he's getting for his wife. They will have to choose it as I don't have a reference of what will be suitable
The folded view,



This post has been edited by etigge: Jan 24 2018, 11:39 AM

Seem that building for own use take much longer that for others.
I have the same tendency too

etigge, you have done Busan to Seoul or Seoul to Busan? Which direction is 'easier'? I read that there's some climbing.....

both ways are quite evenly spreaded in terms on profile

http://www.mapmyride.com/kr/hanam-gyeonggi...route-155596999

however on a folding bike, you may takes a bit longer time, and with correct gearing i think folding is a capable climber, i climbed dragon back with my tern p24h, i think it climb better more tourque more low gear to play around with.

but with folding bike, you can actually bail out at some section by taking train.
hahahahaha

I haven't frankly. I just can't get myself to cycle overseas. Just that, if I travel other places and have to take a flight, I want to actually spend time at that place and not cycling. I have friends who did , many actually. Seems it is very cycling friendly, so friendly in fact that you actually miss quite a lot. It is the other way round. That's because their cycling lane ( 3 actually) are purposely built cycling lanes that stretches all over the country.
The one you mention actually starts from Incheon where the airport where you will land in. From there, they are mostly riverside lanes as most of their cycling lanes are situated. There's only one or two major climb and even that it is short as I have been told. You can see my friend's blog here. He did the Seoull/Busan first and then came again another time for Jeju island alone.

http://jotarofootsteps.blogspot.my/2016/07...title-page.html

The Tern P24 is more than enough to tackle most hills. I have used the Dahon Speed with 2 x 9 speed for the Jerantut/Kuala Tahan and there's no a single place where I need to TnT. Actually if I would have done that at some climbs, it would have been less tiring, especially the last climb nearing Kuala Tahan. Some ladies in that group can do that even on their 6 speed Bromptons

It's never about how many speed, it's your gear inch, your legs and your lungs.

This post has been edited by KenC: Jan 26 2018, 01:00 AM

Incidently, I was just calculating the exact options to choose. I was pondering on 1 x 11 speed, 1 x 10 speed or the usual 2 x 10 sp or 2 x 9 speed.

If you look at the chart carefully, as I have done so, I am going for the 1 x 10 speed for the Birdy that I am building. Having changed to 20 inches, it will be possible now. This will eliminate the fussy FD installation. It also makes maintenance easier, cheaper and lighter cranks with single chainring. From the chart, you can see that the difference between 10 speed and 11 speed single chainring is almost negligible, maybe the space in the ratios is slightly further but most of the settings is there, regardless if it is 11 speed or 10 speed. This makes the 11 speed not worthy to install, actually., even more if you choose SRAM as SRAM needs a different freewheel hub to accommodate 11 speed cassettes.

you see many people worried about not having MTB kind of gear on their foldie. for christ sake our wheel is 16 or 20 inches you don't actually need that kind of gear if you are fairly fit.
small wheel more torque.

Your key word here is 'fairly fit".Some riders can do with just 11/25T cassette and be done with it. Most riders cannot. Some riders like myself needs the gears because I don't want to sweat too much on my rides. I don't want to play catch up on high gears and then arriving , panting like a dog! I am not a commuter and I don't commute with my folding bike. I use the folding bike, like many I have seen many too ; for leisure, socializing and maybe for some tours within the country. For some of my rides which I think many will do so if they are confident, you are going to suffer if you are not fitted with enough gears.

Some can thrash it hard with single speed as I have seen too but my rides usually last 6 hours or more. Can you really say you can ride 53T with 28T rear for 6 hours with a ride going to say,......Fraser's Hill, Intan Soraya or even just Genting Peras. I do admit some can BUT I can't. I need the low gear to slowly trudge my way uphill even if it takes 3 hours to do so. If I do not have enough easy pedalling low gears,, using only high gears, I have to give up at the dam if I am going Fraser's Hill. There are 2 ways to sweat, one is intense pedaling the other slow pedaling but long. Too intense it becomes boring for me. My usual speed is just 18 km/h on flats and this I am already using 53T/15T rear.Like the Kuala Tembeling/Kuala Tahan road, it is not just one or two climbs or three. There are about 45 climbs with 6 of them taking 15 minutes on the lowest gear I don't think I want to ride with naked foldie on this kind of ride.

There's two way of riding, some do it hard like roadies do and some do it easy like tourer's do. Whichever way you choose, you need to select your gear ratios setup right at the beginning to get used to it. Some change the whole setup after realizing they can't cope.

Talking about wheel size, in theory, smaller wheels is easier to ride with less effort. In actual, I can ride faster and more comfortable with my mtb because of the range of gearings even with the 2.1 inch tires with big knobbly treads. A few of us actually gave up folding bikes in exchange for mtbs even preferring shodding it with tarmac tires. I think the cause is the geometry of a normal bike with maybe a bad purchase of a foldie in the beginning.

Heck, the carpet seller can ride a 29 inch jalopy with single gear the whole day, right? It is all a matter of personal experience, what you intend to do the ride with and where you intend to ride. If it just from Kelana Jaya LRT station to Section 17, I would suffice with just a Dahon Dove, single speed and 14 inch wheels. Like I said, your personal preference. Although I might not use the 53T/40T rear settings much or not at all, it;s good to know that I have them onboard if I need it.

The point here, this is just a discussion and some knowledge to others, what kind of bike they like to choose. What kind of riding they intend to use the bike with ultimately. The wide spectrum MTB trend was started by Tern, a simpler and cheaper way of getting more ratios from folding bikes. It's actually good too as it is cheaper to road bike components and wider spectrum. Sadly they wanted the rear cogs to start at 10 cogs which makes the darn setup too expensive, as only SRAM offers it, hence their 1 x 11 speed 12K Tern Verge offering. SRAM needs different hubs unlike SHimano which uses the same hubs as their 8,9, 10 speeds. If you omit the 10T , like Shimano, you can save a bundle even for 11 speed which offers 11/42T cassette. It simplifies many complicated moddings. That's because 'goat links' are easily available nowadays. Parts are more easily obtainable. But if you omit another speed, it's even more cheaper.

To be fair on my discussion some will say just get an electric bike. They do actually now, even on mtbs on offroad sessions. Many don't know that for those setups, even with electric bikes, if you don't push the pedal, the electric motor don't work. It turns when you push but stop when you stop. And then comes the modders who instal electric motors without this circuit and they just switch on all the way uphill

for me the perfect gear for folding would be 52t front and 36t behind. if got double crank that would be good and perfect.

but in terms of good idea, my tern p24h would be very good. 44t front behond 11-32t, plus internal hub gear that can get really low ratio.

however implementation of the IHG is half hearted i would say, coming from the rear IGH gear cable routing design.

if they focus on it more, it would be damn fine.

Hi, where can one buy Schwalbe Supremes tires nowadays?

They gone out of stock here already. I ordered another set but they ran out. I think they OEM from Dahon dealers. Try any LBS shop theat sells a lot Dahons and ask them to see if they can order.

52T/36T rear is also an mtb setup right? Double it with 36T chain ring, you get another 4 gear inches lower. That's why I opted for a single chain ring to simplify the set up. No front double chain ring is less work and maintenance. No extra cables to change later, no adjustments and a whole lot lighter and cheaper as well. No doubt though, the shifting won't be as crisp as a road bike setup. So far, for a foldie, the widest gear range are the KHS. They are triple chain ring and they are original but the whole setup becomes heavy. they have 27 speed and later a limited 30 speed models. Initially they were sold for over four thousand bucks and then slowly after changing distributors twice, it went down to almost 3K. I modded my Dahon Speed after them but nowadays, it is very, very, very hard to find triple road bike cranks. Even if you find them, they are mostly Octalinks, I think that was the last of the triples manufactured by Shimano. The trend was shifting to double with bigger rear cogs and now even less chain ring and even bigger rear cogs.

The SRAM IGH dual drive with the 8 speed setup will give a range from 19 gear inches to almost 100 gear inches. That's why it was shodded on the Dahon Speed TR as a tourer. I don't think it was half hearted, it was meant to be that way. The Dahon MU also have a model with the same setup but it was not popular. Many other bikes in the west uses the same setup. Just that the LBS here don't really like to push them. The older generation LBS says 'mafan' while the newer generation don't really like un-conventional gear systems. Takes too much of their time, they say, " How much can I charge? " they always complain. That's why there's only a handful that do modifications. Modifications takes a lot of effort and time.

This post has been edited by etigge: Jan 26 2018, 11:01 AM

Since you have a p24 and running a 44t front plus a 32t rear, no wonder you are not missing the lower gears that others may be chasing for their foldies. Im running a 54t front on my Sram dual-drive and it is still low.

What's wrong with the IHG design? How else can the cable be located when the movement of the hub is horizontal? As it is, the cable or chain is already pulling at 90 degrees. Half-hearted? Lol