The Adaptor is billed by Koga as a touring bike that can be made more compact, for travelling. It doesn’t fold, but can be made slimmer and shorter.
As well as this useful property, it has a high quality rear rack, SKS mudguards, Gates belt drive, Shimano Nexus Prestige internal gear rear hub, 20in wheels and more, all mounted on a well made aluminium alloy frame.
To perform the bike’s diet, there is a sleeve on the handlebar held in place by a small quick-release lever which can be slid along the middle of the bar to allow it to separate in the centre and be folded backwards. This takes the 600mm wide bar down to just 245mm.
In conjunction with folding pedals, that 245mm becomes the widest point on the bike – ideal if you need to store the bike in a hallway, or for tucking the bar out of the way on a train, for example.
As well as the folding bar, the seatpost and the large diameter and rather stiff stem (the large diameter is thanks to the 1.5in headset system) can be slipped right down, taking the highest point of the bike down from a maximum of 1,005mm to just 890mm from the ground.
All of that seems great: a well made Koga that you can make a little smaller. But you can’t make it much smaller than that. Taking the front wheel out will lose you a little more length, but without removing the ‘guards (faff) and the rear wheel (belt drive = more faff) the Adaptor is still a sizeable machine at 1,540mm long.
There is also the bottom bracket height. In standard setup, at the bottom of the stroke the pedals are just 58mm from the ground and every tester who rode the Adaptor grounded the pedals at least once.
For more experienced riders it was something they noted, compensated for, and then enjoyed the otherwise excellent performance. For less experienced riders, it was a royal pain in the butt and spoiled what could have been a very good, albeit expensive, bike.
Compensate for the bottom bracket and this is a nice bike to ride, and is typical Koga Miyata in quality and detail – which are both excellent. Our advice on this one would be not to buy until you’ve had a ride. If you get along with the limited pedal clearance you, like some of us, will probably like the Adaptor a lot.