If you are rocking a Swift Folder through the city, one day you are going to find yourself in the rain.  If you got a custom Swift (as opposed to the stock Xootr one) you might have gone the fixed gear route, as I did, in which case FOD to the chain (such as your unrolled pant leg) can be exceedingly dangerous.  There is a solution to these problems – a chain guard.  Neither Xootr or Peter Reich offer a chain guard option for the Swift.  However, one time when I was at bfold (my local folding bike dealer, whom I strongly recommend) , I recalled that David Lam had an unused guard laying around.  Once I jogged his memory, he found it in short order and I no longer suffered from torn pant legs and unexpected drifting.  You can find the part here. 

Now the biggest problem with the guard is not its fit over the chain, but securing it to the seat tube.  If you are riding a Swift Folder, you probably know that the seatpost alone is a solid 34mm (as this is the means for locking the rear triangle into place) and the seat tube is even larger.  I still have not found a a clamp that will properly secure it to such a diameter.  The current method is to use a smaller clamp with the right tab, place it over a rubber shim (this is very important, especially on the powder coated frame, as the clamp will rotate and cause the guard to hit the chain) and zip tie the balance of the space.  If you do find a proper clamp, let me know…

I should mention that Velo Orange sells a guard with which I have no experience, but may experiment with in the future.  If anyone’s tried that on a Swift – or a SS BMX bike for that matter – I’d love to hear about it as well.

For now though, the jury rigged clamp and guard serves my purposes well, and the translucent guard allows me to eyeball the clearances around the chain.

This entry was posted on ‍‍ט״ו כסלו ה׳ תשס״ח - Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 22:46 and is filed under crank-city, hardware, product, tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.