Summer has passed, leaves are falling and cool autumn weather has arrived. Rather than looking ahead to the approach of winter, I’m consoling myself by retreating into memories of this summer’s rides. Since I was a terrible blogger during those months, you can come along for the review.
I did pretty good job of showing all the bikes some attention (I love you ALL, my bikes. I really do). Today’s post looks at my late 70s Raleigh20 3-speed folding bike. The R20 is a really fun little city bike. It’s sturdy, maneuverable and (with the stock gearing) surprisingly fast. This year, I treated the bike to a set of MKS Lambda pedals that came in as a donation at BWN and rolled those 20″, 451 wheels through many kilometers.
Sheltering from a shower.
The low height of the Pletscher rack on the R20 makes the bike stable even when carrying a fairly heavy load and I loaded it up on a number of shopping trips. The rack only has two supports, not as sturdy as most current racks, and it swayed a bit under the heaviest loads. I may have been skirting the edge of destructive testing on a few occasions.
That’s more than 40 pounds of water – destined to become homebrew.
At the Downtown Farmer’s Market with a heavy load of foodstuffs.
Back in June, the R20 had as chance to spend an evening in the company of its peers. The Raving Bike Fiend organized a group ride on folding bikes and there were 4 people riding Raleigh 20s of assorted ages. In fact, as nobody at all showed up on a modern folding bike, it turned out to be a vintage bike ride as well. 
The whole group.
There were two 80s era Dahon V bikes, as well. I have one of these in the garage at home, but I rarely ride it. Although they do fold up into a considerably small and tidy package, I was never fond of the ride quality and the general creakiness of the folding connections. The steering is twitchy enough that I was sometimes nervous to take one hand off the bars to signal a turn. By contrast, the R20 is very solid and feels much like a regular sized bike.
The RBF demonstrates the fold.
This is good advice, as if you do press this button the bike steering will be free to fold. In fact on two occasion, this happened to me while riding my Dahon V, without me even touching the button. Another reason I’m leery of these bikes.
There were three other old folders, each with interesting features.
Evillerider’s Portabike, converted to fixed gear and a veteran of more than one winters riding.
Also from Evillerider’s fleet, this one with a two-speed kickback hub.
This one has the best name. I forget where it was made. Eastern Europe?
My camera stopped working just after we started riding, so I don’t have any pics from then on. We cruised around the edge of the river valley, stopped at a pub for a beer (where the manager asked the RBF to remove his folded Dahon from the table), stopped at my favourite local playground in Borden Park where we enjoyed a spectacular sunset, and finally did a bit of parkade exploration downtown.
I’d say my R20 has no reason to complain of lack of attention this summer. We commuted and rode recreationally, through fair weather and foul, by night and day. I will include one parting photo, taken on the soon-to-be-replaced downtown pedestrian bridge on the way home from a friend’s birthday party. In the instrument case is my resonator mandolin.
tuckamoredew 