The Fauxtrino Pt2!

 

A while ago I posted about picking up a cheap semi folding bike to kind of develop into a fake Velo Orange Neutrino, or as I dubbed it at the time, a "Fauxtrino". It's been a few months and I've made some changes to the fauxtrino, maybe less than I imagined, and I've used it a fair bit. 

First things first I swapped out the tyres for a pair of second hand Schwalbe Billy Bonkers, this was really a bit of a vanity job as the cheap Kenda tyres on it were pretty fit for purpose. 

The tyres were very lightly worn but can't have had more than a mile on them, they were a little grubby so gave them a bit of a scour and a dry before fitting them. They are a nice tyre and the added width is welcome in terms of smoothing out the bumps a little. 

For a little while I ran it on a set of flats I'd borrowed off a different ride as the fauxtrino had arrived with a curious pair of unmatched pedals, one that folded and one that didnt! My original thoughts were to not worry about the folding aspects of this project, and indeed I was going to swap out the folding handlebar system for a converter stem and a set of BMX style bars. However, it's SO handy to have the folding handlebars especially in terms of being able to sling the bike in a car boot. So I made the decision to go back to folding pedals as these dramatically reduce the storage footprint of any bike. 

I've a few folding bikes and I've run cheap dahon style (clones) on many of them, and whilst they are plastic and cheap they have worked OK. However if you have a little bit more to spend on a pair of folding flat pedals these Rockbros pedals which are built around a nicely machined aluminium chassis are really nice. 

The keen eyed and observant of you will see it has a frame bag that I sewed myself. It's not bad for a first go! It's a custom pattern made by taping a big piece of cardboard on the bike frame and making a rough sketch! I should really have lined it and many other improvements but all the seams are triple stitched and it's a good fit. Perfect for a spare tube, small tool kit and a pump. 

I didn't like the saddle on the original, it was massive and it used the old style seat clamp fitting which I find a pain. Ever since I bought my Charge Cooker Maxi which came with a Charge Spoon saddle I've ended up amassing a collection of them as they are really comfortable. To get a better more modern clamp set up I've added a gusset lofty seatpost. 

So that's pretty much the small amount of mods I've done. I've got a fair few miles under my belt on it now and it's a fun little ride for sure. I'm still prepared for the drive train to fail and be replaced but so far it's still working fine, shifting and indexing well. I would like to get a little more reach and handlebar angle options and so I think I might swap out the bars for a Brompton M style set. The other random little idea I want to add is to make a little velcro "portage" handle from some webbing as it's slightly awkward to lift the frame when it's filled with the frame bag!