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: