CHANGE bike mods: racing
Adventure
September 6th 2018
Off the shelf, a CHANGE 702 commuter bike features 3 x 8 Shimano Claris gearing, flat handlebars, a price of $1,180, and a weight of about 23 lbs. Now suppose you could start with just the frame, build it out with your own favorite high-end components. What kind of a racing bike would you have then?
This is exactly what Philip did.
Winner of the CHANGE 733 folding road frame raffle at the Seattle Bike Expo, he soon assembled a sweet collection of high-performance parts to build around this truly flexible frame.

Awesome bike. Some assembly required.
Philip’s components, part by part
When it was all assembled, this 19-lb racing bike looked so nice, he just had to send us glamour shots..

Campagnolo Veloce 2×10 drive train with SPD pop-off pedals from Flatbike. And yes, that’s the carbon fiber frame protector included for free with all bikes we sell.

Carbon fiber seat post with Selle Italia seat. And yes, that’s the Flatbike seat bag that comes free with all bikes we sell.

Carbon fiber drop bars, TigerALU stem, and Douglas carbon spacers.

Carbon fork, Campagnolo hub with DT-Swiss 1.1 rims and ZIPP axles.
Put it all together, and you get this—a fast, sporty bike that goes anywhere you do, whether it’s apartment-to-office commuting or putting it in a trunk for easy transport to great cycling trails somewhere else.
That’s just one customer’s mod. We’ve also seen wheel changes (26″ to 27.5″ on the CHANGE 609 street MTB and CHANGE 612 MTB) and stem/handlebar changes on the CHANGE 702 folding commuter bike that take it in the opposite direction from this.
What changes have you made to your CHANGE bike?
Bob Forgrave is president of Flatbike, an
ecommerce company offering full-size folding bikes
and kits to make any bike take up half the space.
2 responses to “CHANGE bike mods: racing”
So, why don’t you sell bikes with drop bars?
The manufacturer, Changebike, doesn’t yet have a drop-bar model. So to get there ahead of them, we’ll need to build it ourselves, off a CHANGE frame. That means we need to get the specs right, since we’ll have the initial time and parts for only one model–Sport bike? Touring bike? Gravel bike? Cyclocross?
Any opinions you or other readers have in this regard are much appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob