Quote Originally Posted by Ered_Lithui
I have been talking with a salesperson at Bike Friday about getting either a petite New World Tourist or a petite Pocket Crusoe. He's pushing the Pocket Crusoe, but given that it's more expensive I'm hesitant. The main difference as far as I can understand seems to be that the Crusoe is marketed as being more "rugged". Is that perception right, and does this translate to better off-road handling? Or...? Would there really be that great a difference in performance between the two?

Looking at the New World Tourist, he sent me a design for a NWT Capreo 27, which is towards the high end of the price spectrum. If I went to a less expensive model (say, the NWT 24 or 27) do you think I'd still be getting the kind of bike I need?
Leila -
I just took a look at the Bike Friday web site to check the two bikes you are looking at. It's hard for me to tell the differences between the NWT and the Crusoe, but given that the Crusoe is a newer design, I assume that there were some improvements built into that bike. You could ask them if there is a customer you could talk to who has experience with both bikes, but that might be a long shot. I'm sure there are happy customers of both bikes. My own instinct would be to go with the Crusoe.

On the Capreo vs. not Capreo... it appears that the Capreo cog set (Shimano) has a wider range of gears (9 - 26) than a typical cog set (11 - 24). This would allow the bike to be built with smaller chain rings. Where this makes a difference is in packing the bike. When I pack my Pocket Rocket (which folds in a similar fashion to the NWT or Crusoe) into its suitcase, I have to remove the right side pedal with chain rings attached. I think that with the Capreo cog set (which didn't exist when I bought my bike) that the bike could be packed without removing the chain rings.

Hope this helps some...
--- Denise