Silver Case

A few weeks ago I bought a Dahon Mu Xl folding bicycle. Sort of on impulse. But wow, it has been money well spent.

Although the bike looks like a cross between a young giraffe and a clown bike, the angles and distances between seat, pedals, and handlebars is very similar to my Trek Liquid 20 mountain bikes. I find it comfortable and endurable, but still quick enough. It feels very solid at low speed splitting traffic and still feels confident on faster descents (25mph?). On the way home tonight I tried to pedal it without hands, something I can do on all my bikes. It seemed to jump away from me, but I think it’s my fault, a combination of: carrying 20lbs in a messenger bag, being tired from a fast sprint home, and not really concentrating. Maybe also because the pedals don’t have clips.

“Pedals don’t have clips?” That sounds like a problem, but surpisingly it’s ok and I’m getting along alright without them. On 20 minute rides, the efficiency losses aren’t that huge anyway. The reason these pedals don’t have clips is that they can fold up. I’m sure I could upgrade or replace them, but I’m satisfied with them. The other accesories on the bike are superior. I’ve got used to the feel of Cane Creek elastometer shock-absorbing seat post. The little dynamo+Hella front light do goo duty at night and, I think, catch a bit of attention. The shifting of the 8-speed hub gearshift is flawless. The range between high/low gears gives good coverage of the shifting spectrum. I love having a hub, rather than derailleuers. Can shift whether I’m moving or not (good for setting up to dash from red-lights) and I never miss a shift. For urban biking, definitely worth the weight tradeoffs. Speakng of weight, this bike weighs about as much as a normal, generic mountain bike. I find that good enough. The V-brakes are sufficient too. Tonight I came to a very hard stop and actually pushed the seat post down the center tube an inch or two. (clearly I hadn’t tightened it quite enough)

How have I been using this bike? Commuting to/from work every day (except last thursday because I was hungover) and riding Little Boy around the neighborhood on the weekend. The commute is great. Oddly, the commute time is the same, whether biking or driving (some perfect storm of distance, traffic density, and signage), and I still have a lot of the thrill of freedom and elements on a bike that I had when I was a kid, so I WANT to ride to work. It’s not like forcing myself to goto a dull gym or to do calisthenics. (As an aside, I think a bike is probably the most wonderful object in the world. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, it’s liberating. )

So, in conclusion: I think the Dahon Mu XL is a wonderful urban commuting bike. I will be interested to see how it functions for me trying to commute from my new house. My current route is something like 5.5km. I do it in 20 minutes (averaging 10mph I guess… I stop at lights). My new place, depending on the route will be between 15 and 20km. So I guess I’m looking at a commute time more like one hour. Hmmm. Well, presumably I’ll go faster then 10km because I’ll have longer stretches of uninterrupted pedaling, but still, that means it’s a struggle to commute both ways (2hours a day pedaling?!).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Dahon Mu XL Folding Bicycle, Health and Fitness.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.