Tuesday, 23 December 2008

Tikit Hyperfold Upgrade

Jan-2007

I had my first serious hitch with the Tikit, when I managed to pop open the head clamp when starting off. The clamp is sort of pac-man shaped in cross-section and it has become more opened out. In this case one of the twin cable also failed. The bike was still (very gently) rideable because of two sensible design choices: one being the use of twin cables, the other being the direction of the hinge, so that ones weight the handlebars (particularly when braking) tend to keep the hinge closed.





One of the nicest things about Bike Friday is that you can always get hold of someone who really knows what they are talking about. In this case I emailed over some photos and a phone call got me Tim, who immediately said that what was needed was the new, upgraded head clamp, hinge and cable. They are now calling this really cool folding arrangement the "hyperfold" to distinguish it from a simpler (but slower) arrangement they call the "Model T".

I had the new parts on my front door in Australia four days later. You can see below how much the hinge has been beefed up (the new version is on the right).




Note the "P56" serial number on the old head arrangement: they've changed where they put the serial number on the newer bikes and I'm kind of sorry to be losing the original serial number - "P" for "prototype" or "pre-production"? 56 would be about right for it being the 56th Tikit.

You can also see how much chunkier the clamp on the hinge now is:

2 comments:

Huibees said...

Hi Paul,

Thanks for writing about your experience with the Tikit. I just got one recently.

Was the new upgraded head clamp covered under the warranty or do you have to pay for it, if so, how much does it cost?

thanks
weisan

Paul said...

The upgraded head clamp was covered by warranty. Bike Friday volunteered it as soon as I rang them.