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The Joy of Folding Bikes
21–30 of 199 posts
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#22I ride a Reise & Mueller Birdy Mk3 mostly because I think folding bikes are neat and the Birdy has my favorite fold. The other rationale was that I wanted a nice bike I'd never have to lock up outside in NYC. The intention was to use it as a commuter since not spending on the subway would pay for it pretty quickly but shortly after I got it I started working remote so I've only done commutes on it for a couple weeks of gig jobs and it's mostly a recreational bike.
I went through an extended project to make it faster and wound up with a loop handlebar for body position, replaced the wheelset to move from 355 to 406 for tire selection and did the drivetrain at the same time to accommodate a 9-32 cassette. Between the wheels and the sub-11 tooth sprockets I can pedal up to ~26mph instead of ~20mph on the stock setup (good enough) and the low end is about the same. It doesn't perform like a race bike but it's pretty close to an endurance road bike. I do 20 mile rides a couple times a week on it and I've done a couple centuries.
The Birdy is my main bike but I'm a folding and recumbent enthusiast in general. The addition of the fold or moving the cranks in front of the rider means the obvious solution diamond frame doesn't work and I like seeing the creativity of the solutions. I've also owned a Xootr Swift that I gave away to my nephews, a Bike Friday Sat-R-Day folding recumbent for riding slowly in the parks, and a Baron Optima lowracer recumbent that I prefer for rides over 90 minutes.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#23I don't fault OP for this, but it's pretty frustrating to me as someone who's quite attached to his non-folding bike that the main benefit of folding bikes is that, unlike regular bikes, they aren't banned from pretty much all public transport
I understand the frustration but also bikes take up a lot of space. When someone brings one on the NYC subway at rush hour it’s definitely an inconvenience.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#24I don't fault OP for this, but it's pretty frustrating to me as someone who's quite attached to his non-folding bike that the main benefit of folding bikes is that, unlike regular bikes, they aren't banned from pretty much all public transport
This depends on the metro. NYC generally doesn't care for the trains/subways so they only make a difference on buses.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#25I ride a Reise & Mueller Birdy Mk3 mostly because I think folding bikes are neat and the Birdy has my favorite fold. The other rationale was that I wanted a nice bike I'd never have to lock up outside in NYC. The intention was to use it as a commuter since not spending on the subway would pay for it pretty quickly but shortly after I got it I started working remote so I've only done commutes on it for a couple weeks…
[deleted]
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#26I'd like to try a folding bike but (1) bromptons around here are filthy expensive and cheaper options (that can be found around 1/20th the price of a brompton) are really low quality, and (2) none of them come with big gears that I'd need to get home, with sections that can reach 22%
Expensive? I bought mine for 1200 or so in 2006. Still use it daily. It is a steal.
A quality bike can last a really long time.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#27I don't fault OP for this, but it's pretty frustrating to me as someone who's quite attached to his non-folding bike that the main benefit of folding bikes is that, unlike regular bikes, they aren't banned from pretty much all public transport
I remember one time on the bus a commuter had his full sized bike in the bus. This was a full sized with plenty of space bus, so it wasn't really in the way at all. The bike rack was full and it was a summer day. So probably the guy figured he may as well just try bringing it on instead of waiting another hour for a bus and hoping there's space.
Anyway one busybody got all uppity. But the driver and rest of the passengers didn't care. So it was fine.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#28I have a Tern Eclipse P18 24" folding bike which I like a lot. Tern and Dahon are related. Wasn't cheap and is hard to find. I literally drove to Vegas and met an IT sysadmin in a casino parking lot at 2am. He was coming off shift. It was legit (found it on EBay and he had the manuals) but it looked+felt like a drug deal. I have upgraded the Tern. The original FSA crank would come loose and so I replaced it with a Sh…
If somebody told me they knew an SRAM.com on this website, I would not expect a bike parts company.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#29I know it's not for everyone, but it is also a reasonable touring bike if done within its constraints. I've probably done closer to 40 days on my 16" Brompton, longest was a two-week 1000km ride. On the topic of leaving the bike out-of-sight: In those 40 days I've left it locked a total of 20 minutes, otherwise it comes with me into restaurants, supermarkets, public restrooms, hotel rooms.. The biggest downsides are…
> "a reasonable touring bike if done within its constraints"
Yes; for example, YouTuber Susanna Thornton does bikepacking and wild-camping on her Brompton: https://www.youtube.com/@susannathornton/videos
and Darin's Adventure Chronicles: https://www.youtube.com/@darinsadventurechronicles/videos
Many other one-off videos exist too under searches for brompton bikepacking and brompton wildcamp.
Re: The Joy of Folding Bikes
#30I don't fault OP for this, but it's pretty frustrating to me as someone who's quite attached to his non-folding bike that the main benefit of folding bikes is that, unlike regular bikes, they aren't banned from pretty much all public transport
I understand the frustration but also bikes take up a lot of space. When someone brings one on the NYC subway at rush hour it’s definitely an inconvenience.
I feel like the failure here is that it gets so packed that there isn't space for a bike. Because it's not just bikes impacted here. If you can't fit a bike, you can't fit a wheelchair, you can't fit a pram, you don't have space for someone who needs to sit down, or someone who can't handle being pressed in at all sides by other passengers.
It's a wrong allocation of resources where we decide everyone can have 4 empty seats to drive to work but we can't fit 1 person and a bike on PT.