SLO front wheel alignment

Hi, Strida Forum! :smiley: I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina. There is no official Strida here yet. Because I want to use it here, a very congestionated town, I recently bought one SLO :confused: in Santiago (Chile).

Sorry for my bad english. :mrgreen:

The manufacturer is this (MingTai), does anybody knows about their quality?:

Idem for the manufacturer of the chain:

The bike is according the price I payed. But there some concerns: :neutral_face:

First of all, is the missalingment of the front wheel: do you see the wheels and magnets doesn’t fit parallel? How can I solve these? Perhaps dismantling the front wheel and inspect the fact? How is attached the front wheel to the frame? Do you note that both wheels doesn’t have the same lenght at all?

Wheels:

Magnets:

Another concern: what do you think of that welding point (to the right) in the rear frame wheel? :open_mouth:

Thank you very much in advance to take your time and effort in responding me :wink: I would appreciate a lot!

Regards,
Daniel

Hello Daniel,

I would like to let you know first, that some members here (including myself) do not really appreciate that our Stridas are rebuilt as cheap fakes.
But, I guess you knew that before, so you will not be surprised to hear some critical meanings.
And you are also some kind of brave to join us…

However, for my personal meaning, as you have now an SLO and you want to ride it, I will gladly try to help you as far I am able to do that.
Please feel

at our small community!
There is no need to be sorry for your English, I think we will understand each other (mostly) :smiley:
Please note that most of the thoughts below are just guessing, I have no SLO available for exact technical analysis.

On a original Strida the magnet is bolted onto the axle of the rear wheel, it cannot be moved sideways.
The round plate vice-versa the magnet at the front wheel is in contrast moveable, it can be moved a few mm’s towards or backwards to the wheel diameter line.
Usually, the wheels of a folded Strida are not parallel to each other, they are standing together in a (very pointed) “V” shape.
The above mentioned movability does make sense to achieve good contact between magnet and the (non-magnetic) front wheel plate.
Why do you want to solve that?
Do you have a problem with the magnet force (too low)?

The front wheel is attached to the front axle through the non-magnetic plate (and some washers) via a hex (Allen) key bolt.
You might use the Strida drawings of the Strida manual here
http://www.strida.com/upload/Image/catalogue/STRIDA%20manual-0617%20revised.pdf
or refer to page 18 (reassembling wheels).
Of course, you have to assert yourself if the construction of the SLO is done similar/equal to that of the original Strida or not!

I am sorry to say that, but I mean that the different length of front and rear wheel is caused by bad manufacturing tolerance.

The welding point might be a failure of the welder, maybe he has touched accidentally the frame before meeting the correct point for welding the seam. As said above, I am just guessing.

Best wishes from Austria!

Chris

Dear Chris:

Thank you very much for the welcome!

I do not mean to despise anyone, in any case is in the proud owners of original Stridas not feel despised by my own SLO… :wink:

Is a common practice rebuilding frames of original Stridas? if that were my particular case, I’d be very happy to have an least original 50% Strida and not a 100% SLO!

Let’s go to the matter:

Reading your post with attention, the problem with the magnet was the excess of displacement between the centres of the wheels, about 3 mm or more. This caused that the head of the hex bolt from the magnet, touches the inner border of the iron plate. I could fixed filing the inner border a bit with my dremmel (I love this tool) and now the “magnetic union” is strong!

Looking at the manual for dissasemblig the front whell, identically to the instructions manual that came with my SLO, I could not figure it out how an small and tiny bolt could fix the wheel and axis. Perhaps you could tell me the steps for disassembling?

Thanks for the other advices, I appreciate a lot.

The phrase “might be a failure of the welder” causes me some concern… Would be the welder drunk?:shock: :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

Regards!
Daniel

Hi Daniel,

thanks for the kind reply,
I’m happy that you could solve the magnet problem.
There should be no reason for everybody to despise someone, I mean.

Sadly it seems to be a (maybe mostly Chinese) practice to fake Stridas.
The problem of these bikes is the poor quality, there are no spare parts available and there is no warranty, as far I know.
And naturally, Ming cycles, the original Strida manufacturer, also does not like that practice.

The disassembling of the wheels is relatively easy, maybe you misunderstood the function of the little hex bolt:
The bolt’s function is to secure the wheel on the axle, nothing else.
The axle itself is screwed into the frame, your weight is transferred into the frame via the much bigger thread of the axle.
It’s not necessary to unmount the axle if you want to remove the wheel.
At the photobucket album of the Russian Strida fan “4092546” you can take a look at Strida axles:
http://s1064.photobucket.com/albums/u372/4092546/
Please let me know if you need further information.

Maybe the welder was a beginner :laughing:

Sorry, I’ve seen your posts very late today, the forum post notification email did (again) not work properly. :confused:

Kind regards,

Chris

Perfect, Chris!

I am very surprised that little allen screw is responsible for maintaining the wheel set. I thought only held firm by the magnet and the metal ring on each wheel.

Looking closer at the manual on page 24, says the use of “Loctite”. My SLO does not bring the Loctite placed as it can very easily remove these screws. I will review the fixing screws with Loctite.

See you later!

Don’t worry about the notifications… I’m not in hurry.

Regards,

Daniel “Loctite” :wink:

Dear Daniel,

you see, both of us are not perfect in speaking English, but we do understand :smiley:

Using Loctite seems to be a good idea at these bolts…

I’ll try to…and it is good if it’s not urgent.
However, this forum function is highly appreciated, just a bit annoying if it doesn’t work.

Cheers!

C.

Hola Daniel: estoy en Chicago y estaba evaluando llevarme a Buenos aires una Strida LT o una tern link D8.
Veo que sos un usuario que le gusta comprar con conciencia y conocer la herramienta.¿Si compraras ahora que comprarias? Gracias por allanarme el camino. Atte. Marta