Speaking of folding bicycles, as an experienced old (bicycle) driver, I want to tell you that if you are interested in riding a little, whether you are Wen Qing, Loser, office worker, equipment controller, Smart, Xiao Qingxin, or middle-aged uncle who wants to see the scenery and fitness, you should have a folding bike!

Of course, Uncle, I already have more than one. However, when I saw the recruitment post for the trial of the 700bike Galaxy discount, I was still attracted by its appearance and intelligent module, so I was careful Shortly after submitting the test application, 700 bike Galaxy was put in front of me. This evaluation will be conducted through a long distance ride from My perspective helps Everyone has a deep understanding of this 700 bike Milky Way.

City Travel

Unpacking

What I received was a red Galaxy, which was packed in an oversized hard carton (0.85 * 0.46 * 0.75 cubic meters) with a gross weight of 17.5 kg. It was a little laborious to carry. It is convenient to unpack, and the upper cover can be opened by gently pulling up along the edge. The Milky Way in the box is carefully folded and well protected. Without saying a word, move out the small folding book at once.

The newly delivered Galaxy can be opened normally after the protective sleeve is removed, and the angle needs to be adjusted according to the horizontal arrow on the handle. The tire pressure is not very high. It is to prevent the tire from bursting during air transportation. It should be OK to ride a short distance.

Also included with the car is a calfskin paper box. Inside the box are detailed lists, warranty cards, manuals, user manuals, etc., as well as a set of hexagonal wrenches. The hexagonal wrench can be used to adjust the handle cross, and adjust the angle of brake handle and finger according to your habits.

Galaxy folding is very easy to fold and open, and usually only requires three steps (or vice versa):

• Pull up the seat bar to a proper height and lock it.

• Lift the head pipe and put it in place, and lock the buckle.

• Open the girder, fold the buckle in place and lock it.

People who have been exposed to cycling will not have any difficulty in folding and opening the Galaxy. If you are inexperienced, you need to explore or give a little guidance from a friend. You can learn it with a demonstration.

The installed Galaxy is placed beside the aisle of the office card and starts charging. Yes, it needs to be charged. When I received the car, the Galaxy was completely without electricity. As for why the bicycle should be charged, because there is a set of intelligent modules in its head tube, which will be mentioned later.

There are only so many unpacking parts. In fact, there are many unpacking pictures and configuration displays on the Internet, and you may have seen them. I would like to talk about other different contents from my focus.

size

I am 184cm tall and used to riding 19 inch or 18 inch frame size L Mountain bike. When purchasing a folding car before Pay great attention to the size and geometric structure of the frame, and hope that the folding car can provide a riding experience similar to that of a large car to the greatest extent. During actual test run I have encountered the condition that the body size is not suitable for my height.

Galaxy's data introduction: "The frame geometry is more compatible with the customer population whose height is 1.55-1.90 meters". I always had doubts before I received the goods and saw the real Galaxy. 700bike official website The picture above deepens my concern:

This is the picture above (in fact, there are other pictures such as: ）Can you see my worry? Its front standpipe angle looks too far back, which may cause uncomfortable riding.

This concern lasted until the real car was received. The first time I rode on it, I knew, no problem, Perfect! After research, it was found that the inclination angle of the head tube of the mass production vehicle had been adjusted and the forward inclination angle had been increased.

The above picture shows the comparison between Milky Way and my 20 inch Shanghai bird soft tail. Anyone familiar with Shanghai Bird knows that it is a folding car that is ergonomically close to the experience of a cart. Look at this picture, Excluding the error amount of spatial perspective, it can be seen that the wheelbase, vertical tube inclination (73.5 degrees), cushion position, horizontal position, five way joint and pedal position of the two vehicles are almost identical. The head tube angle of mass production products has been adjusted to become more reasonable. The geometric position coordinates of its key components are totally no problem for people around 185 in height! I can use comfort to describe myself.

Design, appearance and process

Galaxy adopts the design of crossbeam horizontal folding without rear lower fork. The whole front fork, beam and rear fork form an upper frame composed of broken lines. It seems to have a simple and lively geometric beauty, It is very attractive to people with science and engineering background like me. The red color is also very bright, so there is a high turning back rate in the street. Basically, everyone they meet will ask about Galaxy, Some girls saw the Milky Way and exclaimed, "This car is so cool!".

The most eye-catching process of Galaxy frame, I think it should be the so-called "3D integrated forging" ”The head pipe, the riser, the front fork, and the rear fork of the fork. That is to say, these parts do not use welding technology at all. On the whole frame, only the five joints have the traces of fish scale welding; Common welding process is adopted for the rear fork connecting stiffener and sitting pipe. The paintwork of the car body is very good. It matches the bright and simple geometric structure of the frame, It looks particularly smooth and smooth.

Please forgive me for sending these photos. Most of them are taken on the go by mobile phones. A small number of photos are taken by old DSLRs. In addition, the website watermarks and compresses the images, which leads to poor image quality. But believe me, the workmanship and paint of Galaxy can definitely be regarded as the best in folding cars.

Configuration and Upgrade

The above figure shows the detailed configuration of Galaxy Glaxy on the official website. In detail, there are still many highlights. For example, 1.75 Kevlar puncture resistant tire; For example, SRAM X5 transmission kit; For example, Yanhao mechanical disc brake. It can be seen that the configuration of Galaxy is quite sincere, and all the accessories selected are of good quality. of course, Parts are not the most important factor of a car, because basically all parts can be replaced and upgraded, so Soulful The parameters of the frame are particularly critical.

The front fork opening is 100mm and the rear fork opening is 135mm, which are standard parameters, indicating that the front and rear wheels can be upgraded freely; The disc brake seat uses Yanhao mechanical disc brake, which can be replaced at will with 140 mm discs; It is not a problem to turn the horizontal, brake handle, hand shift and rear shift gears. It's very convenient to upgrade and refit if you are willing to struggle. such as Change a rear flower drum with three inside and nine outside for Yinhe, and then change a tooth disc with a smaller number of teeth to increase the shift ability of Yinhe.

By the way, the aluminum alloy CNC hollow dental disc with ultra light integrated disc protector is also a choice of conscience. The main reason is that the frame is heavy because it is very thick, so I try to reduce the weight in other places.

The only part that is not a standard part is the sitting tube (above), which has a big impact. The reason why Galaxy wants to make the sitting tube in this shape is related to the rear fork. Since the rear fork is cast by the girder at the pipe seat, it does not adopt the traditional welded rear fork design, so the space left for the pipe seat to pass through is limited, and the pipe seat can only be made into this triangle when it is unavoidable. Some media reported that this is a drop shaped sitting tube how In fact, I think it is more accurate to use isosceles rounded triangle to describe. front During several days of city cycling, the riding tube often drops several centimeters after a certain distance. After analyzing the reason, it is speculated that the waist lines (straight lines) on both sides of the isosceles triangle can not be closely contacted with the outer sleeve after the folding button is buckled to increase the friction. If the sitting tube is designed to be in the shape of water drop or egg (arc), the contact surface will be larger, and the friction force is estimated to be greater, so it may not fall.

However, it was strange that when I was riding for a long distance in the back, there was no drop at all. I guess it is because at the beginning of a long journey, a lot of mud and water were thrown on the pipe sitting, and the fine gravel infiltrated into the interlayer between the pipe sitting and the casing with the water, increasing the friction and preventing the decline. This is to be verified.

Portability

I suggested that all people who are interested in cycling should have a folding bike because of its portability.

Galaxy can be folded easily. There are two ways to transport after folding: 1. Two wheels are pushed side by side; 2. Hold it (applicable to strong men). These two ways are not difficult for me. To make things a little more difficult, because I am tall, when pushing, I need to pull out the sitting tube slightly to facilitate the pushing, otherwise I have to bend down to catch the cushion. However, if the dental disc is pulled out too long from the sitting tube, it will be exposed to unprotected status, and the dental disc is easy to be knocked (although there is a guard plate) during the parking process, so pay attention.

The folded Galaxy can follow me to almost any place in the city, including buses, subways, restaurants, night stands, offices, trains, high-speed trains, supermarkets, banks, cafes, and friends' homes. In some places, after consulting the security guard Not even folding It can also be pushed in directly. Not tried for the time being: cinemas, hospitals, police stations, schools. Slightly special: trains and high-speed trains must be packed into a loading bag as luggage before they can be taken to the train through security check.

Image above: On the bus, the camera in front of the mobile phone takes a self portrait, which is too complicated.

Above: Guangzhou Metro, please note that the seat management is not completely decentralized, so as to facilitate the implementation; But it is just enough to protect the dental disc.

Above: Diu's friend's house

Above: Night Stop

Above: The girls will certainly have a hard time carrying 12.5 kg

It is the most basic requirement to ride a bicycle. When you don't want to ride or need to use other means of transportation, the convenience of folding cars in urban commuting is fully demonstrated. In a few days of trial, Galaxy, as a folding car, gave full play to the characteristics of the folding car, that is, portability!

Smart module and mobile APP

Of course, almost all folding cars will have It is portable, So let's talk about something different.

The 700 bike series is characterized by intelligent enhancement functions. Galaxy's intelligent system consists of two parts:

• 1、 The intelligent device on the head tube includes a GPS module, a GSM module and a circular OLED screen with a diameter of 128 pixels. The module will collect GPS data and upload it to the server through the mobile network. The screen displays some runtime status information.

• 2、 700Bike mobile phone APP software. It can manage the status of Galaxy, display the riding history data and map path, and has certain social functions.

The above figure is the screen of the intelligent module. The top shows the GSM network signal, GPS positioning and star searching status, and battery capacity. The middle is the current time (through GPS satellite timing), then the current speed (calculated by GPS), and the bottom is the distance of a single ride. The intelligent module on the car only displays data, and all interaction and management functions are completed through the mobile phone APP.

700Bike has its own mobile phone software. After installation, it needs to register an account, set relevant information about the owner, and link Galaxy to the mobile phone APP by scanning the activation code on the manual. There was also a small episode in the process: there was a small fault during the connection, and then the customer service was contacted through the 400 phone number to solve it quickly. After Galaxy is linked to the mobile phone software account, the software will display the information related to Galaxy.

The first thing to get a new car is to brush the firmware to upgrade the intelligent module.

Before the upgrade, the car's power needs to be higher than 30%. The upgrade process is very short, as if it was completed through the Bluetooth interface, to be confirmed.

In the previous riding experience without 700Bike, I used one Able to work continuously for more than 20 hours A dedicated GPS track recorder records the route taken. Naturally Want to know the battery life of the built-in module Galaxy. The test results are recorded as follows:

• The charging time is very short. The 2A mobile phone charger can be fully charged within one hour.

• After fully charged, you can cycle about 30km intermittently within a week, and leave it on the balcony at leisure. After about a week of parking, there is still about half of the power.

• After fully charged, it will take about 15 hours for a long-distance ride of 115 km (including rest and train). In addition to module sleep during rest and parking, the whole journey GPS positioning+screen display will help you get home It shows that there is about half of the power left.

• Four days after the long distance ended, use APP to query and display 26% of the remaining power.

• Five days after the long distance ended, use APP to query and display 21% of the remaining power.

• Six days after the long distance ended, use APP to query and display the remaining 14% of the power.
  

In my impression, GPS is a big power consumer, while Galaxy There is no pressure to recharge the battery for a day, I am very satisfied with the result. Curious about the master control scheme and GPS chip used by Galaxy's intelligent module, What is the battery capacity 。

Another function of the intelligent module is anti-theft and location recovery after loss. Since I rarely put my bike in an unsafe place or out of sight, this function is skipped directly. Interested friends can see other evaluation articles.

By the way, if you can upload the planned path to the smart module for navigation through your mobile phone, it is simply Just Great. I hope the official can hear my voice and consider meeting the needs of an outdoor long-distance enthusiast.

Frog Leaping Long Distance Chapter

Route

Before I got the car, I planned to use Galaxy to complete a long-distance ride—— Because the parameters of Galaxy seem to be very suitable: GPS track recording module 20 inch wheel diameter, 1.75 Kevlar puncture resistant outer tire, riding experience similar to a cart, and thick and solid beam. Even Not suitable for long-distance climbing The 53T tooth plate with 11-28T rear flight failed to dispel my idea.

The plan is as follows: take the high-speed railway from Guangzhou South Railway Station (Leaping Frog) After arriving at Shaoguan High speed Railway Station, you can start to ride along the Beijiang River, pass Yingde and Qingyuan, arrive at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, and then transfer to the subway to go home (about 240 kilometers, completed in 2 days). However, due to the typhoon during the Dragon Boat Festival, the action time was delayed and compressed for one day, and only 113 kilometers from Shaoguan to Yingde were completed - but it was enough for me to have a complete judgment on the Milky Way.

Above: The complete track of riding is recorded with a special track recorder

The left and right sides of the above figure are two sections of cycling tracks. In the middle, you can see that the total mileage of the day is 115.1 km, which is listed in the APP The user mileage of the whole network ranks fifth. Because of the lightning and thunderstorm in the afternoon, the parking time for sheltering from the rain was more than 30 minutes, and the program recognized that this was two rides, so the track was divided into two sections (the official engineer replied that if the interval was more than 30 minutes, it would be two rides).

On high-speed railway

There is no need to talk about the traffic in the urban area. It is necessary to introduce the experience of high-speed railway.

I knew when I was riding Shanghai Bird before that I had to fold the car and put it into the loading bag Get on the train (high-speed railway) In fact, the most strict control is the security check. Because Guangzhou South Railway Station is too large, After the security check It's too troublesome to walk with the car bag. I took Galaxy out of the bag and folded it with two wheels, which saved too much effort.

The Dahang 20 inch folding car bag bought by Taobao for tens of yuan is free of pressure when it is loaded into Yinhe.

After the high-speed railway, there is a storage place for large items at the connection of the carriage. Put the Milky Way directly, perfect!

Road conditions and passing conditions

After arriving at Shaoguan, the real test begins.

When planning the route before, in order to see more scenery and avoid the roaring big trucks on the provincial road, most of the selected routes were county roads or even village roads. Some villages have roads, which are mostly paved with cinder and gravel, and a few roads are loess roads. After the rain, the loess road will become a nightmare for cycling after being crushed by vehicles. We entered this section less than 10 kilometers away.

Seeing the mud behind the car, this section of road has become a nightmare due to repeated crushing by passing cars. After carrying the car for tens of meters, I found that the next road could not see the end. I tried to ride on the muddy ground for a while, and then the wheel immediately got stuck.

This is my first time in this Riding a hard forklift without shock absorbers on poor roads , due to lack of experience, I immediately hung up. It can be seen that the gap between the front fork and the tire is very small, and the yellow mud stuck on the tire scrapes onto the front fork as the wheel rotates. Unable to move forward , decided to carry the car, turn around and walk out of the muddy road, abandon the previously planned route and look for other routes. Therefore, if riding the Milky Way meets the yellow mud road above, my advice is: Don't go! (It used to be worse to use mountain bikes, but mountain bikes are not afraid of it)

Simply clean the yellow mud on the wheels and move on. With the previous experience, even if we walked on the ridge of the field, we didn't get entangled in the yellow mud.

The following legend can be referred to for the road conditions that can be used normally:

Above: Normal urban roads, no pressure for cycling. Just got off Shaoguan Station, the bus is still clean.

Above: It is a shabby hard paved road that can be used for cycling.

Above: Every village has a hard paved road, which is perfect There are few cars and people riding on the road, Good road, good scenery, Good air.

Above: Car ferry section, You can ride.

Above: Power plant beside provincial road, provincial road You can ride. You need to pay attention to big trucks.

Part of the road conditions need to be considered as appropriate, and riding or promotion should be selected according to the actual situation, as follows:

Above: The tractor road paved with gravels beside the field is selected according to the actual situation, and can be ridden at a slow speed.

Above: The dry forest road can be used for cycling, and ponding needs to be treated according to the actual situation.

Above: The dry gravel road can be ridden at a slow speed, and the ponding needs to be treated according to the actual situation.

For the sections recommended to be promoted or carried, refer to the following:

Above: Look at the satellite image take a short cut The path we take must be promoted, and we must pay attention to safety and be afraid of snakes.

Above: Look at the satellite map It is recommended to implement or carry the ridge road taken by shortcut.

Above: In the village, it is recommended to ride slowly or promote it.

In fact, more than 95% of the roads on this long-distance ride are hard paved roads, and Galaxy has no problem riding. A small number of unpaved roads should be selected according to the actual situation, or they should be avoided or promoted, or they can be ridden slowly. In extreme cases, I push and carry carts when I walk across ridges and ditches. Please turn around on the muddy road.

Another safety precaution: lightning and thunderstorm happened when approaching England and Germany in the afternoon. Don't ride a bike in thunderstorm days regardless of the road conditions. Pay attention to safety.

Riding experience

As I said before, Galaxy is my first hard forklift. Compared with mountain bikes or folding bikes with front shock absorbers, the riding difference is still obvious:

• The frame is rigid, and the hard fork has direct force. It is very light and fast to ride on the hard pavement after sufficient air. Less effort than seabirds.

• The road feel is clear. When the speed exceeds 25km/h, all kinds of bumps on the road can be clearly felt on the handle. After a long time, you can shake your hands.

• This is my first car to use the speed linked transmission system (previously it was a Shimano M410). Speed Link X5 shifts accurately and simply, very good.

• I don't know what brand of Houhua Drum is, or how many bearings (the official website shows that Galaxy Pro is Sipeilin). The sound is pretty good.

• The cushion is slightly narrower than the Weile 3147 which is equipped by seabirds, but I don't feel particularly uncomfortable after 100 kilometers.

• Braking curve horse of Yanhao mechanical disc brake careless Tiger, my friend thought the second half was a bit fierce after trying. The hand feel is better than that of Yan Hao on my mountain bike, and there is a gap between BB5/BB7.
  

A friend asked how fast the car could ride? The answer to this question is generally: it depends on how thick your legs are and the road conditions. This long ride, They didn't rush or accelerate, The average speed calculated by 700Bike software is between 17-19 km/h, and the maximum speed is 37 km/h. There are some riders with average speed of 25+km/h on the Internet, and we can't compete with those with thick legs.

Do you have any shortcomings—— yes! The summary is as follows:

• Isosceles round corner triangle sitting tube may be a BUG, to be observed for a long time.

• The leg brace is a little short, the car is not easy to stand, and it may be more suitable if the leg brace is 1 cm longer.

• The pedals are a little poor. In fact, I don't care about folding them. It's better to replace them with better quality ones.

• There is no installation hole for the kettle holder, so we haven't figured out a solution yet.
  

• There is no mudguard - this is not a disadvantage, but after passing through the muddy water road, there is mud on the car and on the body (see the previous photo). The second half of this long journey I was drenched silly, and my clothes and pants were full of mud and washed half of the sand.
  

summary

Most articles on the Internet define 700Bike Galaxy as an urban commuter bus, but I didn't think so when I first saw the Galaxy parameter table. Urban commuters will make many specific choices, such as using small wheel diameters and trolley frames, with the weight controlled below 10 kg or even less. Galaxy has several obvious features: 1. 20 inch wheel diameters; 2、 Strong frame and 12.5 kg net weight; 3、 The riding feeling close to the big car shows that it is not designed for lightweight and miniaturization.

Combined with the personal riding experience of 700bike boss Zhang Xiangdong, I can guarantee that the design goal of this car is not so simple as commuting in the city - Zhang Xiangdong, I understand you!

As a folding car integrating commuting, leisure, leapfrog long-distance and other functions, I have my requirements, Galaxy is undoubtedly the one that satisfies me. Finally, send a picture of the beautiful countryside on the long road as the end of this article. Pay attention to the air dried mud thrown on the seat pipe and the mud marks on the wheels ” The feeling of being driven off the road.

Picture: Township Road Scenery along the Beijiang River