My Strida LT Likes To Unhorse Me In Potholes

I ride original 70th folding bikes with cheap 20" x 2,125" tires everyday and everywhere, summer and winter, and I’ve never experienced any problems riding on grit or diving through potholes.

But my Strida LT with its 16" plastic wheels always tries to throw me off whenever it just touches some grit or not that deep potholes.

So I’m on the mission to improve safe driving.

To be more cautious isn’t an option for me. I want to ride my bike relaxed. I don’t want to avoid gravel walks and I’m not ready to steadily watch out for potholes.

There are different causes that result in the bad safe driving:

1. The Strida triangle frame is instable instead of fixed like normal bike frames.
That’s a Strida special because of the folding mechanism. (The very wide touring handle bar that Chris installed for me helps a lot to balance the instability.)

2. The small diameter of the 16" wheels.

3. The narrow original Strida tires.
Broader tires, preferably balloon tires like Schwalbe’s “Big Apple” would also increase the diameter of the wheels.

Theoretically the LT plastic wheel is wide enough for tires with 16" x 2,125" like the “Big Apple”. Though the original Strida tire is only 1,5" wide.

But sadly the “Big Apple” doesn’t fit on the LT plastic wheel. (Personally I’m not interested in the reasons why it doesn’t fit. But of course Chris and other forum members have thought about things like this: https://www.stridaforum.com/t/marathon-racer-tyres-and-lt-plastic-rims/933/1.)

And I haven’t found other balloon tires yet.

The diameter of my classic 70th folding bike wheels with tires is around 51 cm.
The diameter of Strida’s LT plastic wheels with the original tires is around 38 cm.

So I have to find a way to draw the diameter of the LT wheels nearer to 51 cm. (And yes, I could simply exchange the plastic wheels against the 18’’ metal Strida wheels. Perhaps I will do that in the end.^^)

4. The short wheelbase and the center of gravitiy (depending on which height the saddle is fixed) may also play into the lack of safe driving. (Thank you, Markku, for this idea.)

Look what I’ll try first:



That’s my Strida wheel with the original 16" x 1,5" tire. The tire profile isn’t impressive at all.

Accidently I’ve got two of these guys at home:

The tire profile isn’t something special:

But the tires are at least a little bit broader (1,75 “) than the original Strida tires (1,5”). So I will try if they fit on the Strida rim.

Stay tuned …

Please is there any more lettering on theses tyres besides that 16 x 1,5??

Yes, there is. But it’s next to impossible to read it. Because parts of the letters and numbers are coated with the white reflexing stripe.

C (or G) - 7?0?J? - C? j?

dNd GB (in the circle),
the numbers besides the letters (at the right, hidden under the white stripe) 7 8? 7 0?

Is that any help?^^

Sorry for confusing you - what I actually meant are the ones you got accidentally, I wanted to write 16 x 1,75 :blush:

That “G 701” of above is the type of the original Taiwanese Gumonder tyres:

https://www.gmd-tire.com.tw/

http://live-k-life.blogspot.com/2012/01/stridagumonder-g701-16-x-15-100psi-tire.html

Ah, okay. Actually I was confused because I thought that you would know any aspect of ANY original Strida tire .

The two 16 x 1,75 tires I have are from two different brands and so have different numbers. The one in the pictures above:

  • Kenda
  • Then the same symbol I had mistaken as “dNd” at the Strida tire and the number 1220
  • Maximum recommended inflation pressure: 45
  • P.S.I. 3.2 kgf/cm(hoch2)
  • 320 KPa
  • K - 123
  • 16 - E - 116

The other tire:

  • Ralson
  • R - 3201, below: 2-3
  • 47-305
  • Inflate to 35-50 P.S.I. (2,41-3,45 Bar)

Do you think I will get in troubles when I install those two slightly different tires? (If I can install them at all. I haven’t tried yet.^^)

Yes and No.
On one hand you’re right, I should know them well.
But on the other please consider that I try to avoid the original tyres for a very long time - none of my four bikes has original tyres on :laughing:

You may have trouble while installing - or not.
I believe that exactly 1,75" is the critical border of this rims.