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Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

kwigglebike.com

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Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#341

Post by zeagle »

ridehelix wrote: post #168
laurieg wrote: post #24

I've spent a long time with folding bikes over the years. My advice: bite the bullet and buy a Brompton[1]. Yes, Bromptons are expensive. But they ride like a bicycle, have gears, a stiff enough frame, luggage racks etc. There's very little compromise. The fastest I've done on mine is 45 kph and I've ridden 70km in a day. I carry it on and off buses and trains multiple times a day without issue. In the past I had an…

A discussion about folding bikes would not be complete without mentioning Helix. Helix folds almost as small as a Brompton but has 24” wheels and standard bicycle components such as disc brakes, Shimano/SRAM drivetrain etc. Also the fold is the most compact possible, even more compact than Brompton in terms of maximizing the use of space. It also fits in a standard airline luggage without any disassembly which few ot…

I think it is great you have managed to ship this but as another poster pointed out there were quite significant delays and frustrations with your backers. Some years backI looked it up again and saw forum discussion with further frustration.

If you have not already done so: you should transparently write up the lessons that you have learned and how you are going to address this for your electric launch to build up confidence. I remember your kickstarter and in retrospect continue to agree with my decision to not participate (I'm the happy owner of a Brompton that I can check in airline luggage instead).

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#342

Post by ITWarrior »

bambax wrote: post #304
globular-toast wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that price, if you are regularly commuting by train it would be cheaper and more convenient to have two bikes, one at either end. And you could have two pretty nice bikes. I guess the appeal of the folding bike is more for irregular or infrequent trips. Totally agree on the freedom aspect. Bicycles are ideal for inner city travel. Cars should be banned. I often use public bicycle shares when I travel now which is…

> I guess the appeal of the folding bike is more for irregular or infrequent trips Yep, this is how I use it. I have another ebike for everyday use. Not sure about the two-bikes concept though, because long-term bike parking is still a huge problem, security-wise, esp. for ebikes.

This depends on where you live of course, here in the Netherlands most big/well trafficked train stations have one or more secured bike parking.

The NS (Dutch National Railway) sells a secured bike storage subscription starting from 75 euros a year. And you can do it cheaper if you use your bike frequently because at some stations the first 24 hours are free.

And if you have a cheap bike that you use just for your commute you can also just put it in the free bike storage and only move it secured if you know you will be gone for >2 weeks or whatever the limit for free storage is.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#343

Post by yonaguska »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #253
markdown wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be why there's so little innovation going on there.

For a small island with a very British habit of regular, unnecessary self-crippling, there's quite a lot of innovation going on here. Just not a lot of self-congratulatory "disruptive" internet BS innovation. e.g. ARM, Dyson, the RepRap project, the Raspberry Pi, the Oxford/AZ vaccine, Rolls-Royce jet engines. Graphene. The micro-satellite. Vantablack. The genuinely trailblazing .gov.uk project. Quorn. Cloning! And m…

Don't forget Triumph motorcycles!

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#344

Post by zeagle »

laurieg wrote: post #24

I've spent a long time with folding bikes over the years. My advice: bite the bullet and buy a Brompton[1]. Yes, Bromptons are expensive. But they ride like a bicycle, have gears, a stiff enough frame, luggage racks etc. There's very little compromise. The fastest I've done on mine is 45 kph and I've ridden 70km in a day. I carry it on and off buses and trains multiple times a day without issue. In the past I had an…

I would wholeheartedly agree with this. I've tried Dahon, Tern, and one other frame I can't recall after pining for a Brompton for years but eventually bit the bullet and purchased one for myself. No comparison. It's my favourite bike for non-snow/slush conditions. Bike Friday was also on the short list but I didn't have the opportunity to try.

Good on you for doing 70km! That's about the limit of my comfortable endurance on it too. My record is~100km plus two ferry rides touring on the west coast but I admittedly walked it up the last two hills in the dark and I started to wish I was done around 85km.

What do you use for checked airline travel? I have the B&W hard case but haven't tried anything else. I think it is a linear inch or two over regulation if measured but nobody has ever stopped me or charged overage.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#345

Post by MrKwiggle »

unicornporn wrote: post #333
MrKwiggle wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my comment to "but I suspect the overall ride experience to be a bit bouncy and flexy". Kwiggle is a new movement for a flexy human being. Humans have been accustomed to putting their natural flexibility into a rigid posture on a bicycle for 200 years. If you are thinking the bicycle from the anatomically view, you should invent a bicycle, that could be ridden upright with your flexible natural movement similar…

My biggest question is the combination of an extremely short wheelbase, small wheel diameter and, perhaps more importantly, the negative fork offset and the steep head tube angle. It seems it would be extremely easy to get thrown over the handlebars when hitting an obstacle... What's your reasoning behind this geo? Is it only space saving?

First of all: The fork offset is needed to obtain the same trail as with a normal bike. Large wheels need to bend the fork forward in order to reduce the natural trail for easier steering. Small wheels need to bend the fork backwards in order to get the same effect, because the natural trail of small wheels is to small. Just look on a shopping cart. The fork of the steering wheels is bent backwards too.

On Kwiggle you ride upright with a small wheelbase. So you have to adjust a little bit and you should pay a little bit more attention to the road. We have so many customers who have mastered that with bravour, so we stopped worrying about it.

Only with this small wheelbase it is possible to get a bicycle folded to handluggage size.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#346

Post by bambax »

ITWarrior wrote: post #342
bambax wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess the appeal of the folding bike is more for irregular or infrequent trips Yep, this is how I use it. I have another ebike for everyday use. Not sure about the two-bikes concept though, because long-term bike parking is still a huge problem, security-wise, esp. for ebikes.

This depends on where you live of course, here in the Netherlands most big/well trafficked train stations have one or more secured bike parking. The NS (Dutch National Railway) sells a secured bike storage subscription starting from 75 euros a year. And you can do it cheaper if you use your bike frequently because at some stations the first 24 hours are free. And if you have a cheap bike that you use just for your co…

Yeah well Paris is much less bike-friendly than you would think reading all the English-speaking articles about it. There are more and more bike lanes but very few dedicated parking spaces for bikes, and almost zero secured ones. There was an attempt to build some near train stations, but they are always out of order (and you need a valid subway card to access them!)

Paris is also not flat, so unless you're super in shape it's difficult to use a non-electric bikes (depending on the journey, of course), and ebikes tend to be stolen much more than regular ones.

In other French cities, I don't know enough to have an opinion; I think Strasbourg is a little bit better.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#348

Post by MrKwiggle »

veltas wrote: post #289
japanuspus wrote: post #242

I am puzzled by the choice of derailleur gears over intra-hub gears. The motivation must have been that it allows the integrated rims and hubs, which are probably much easier to manufacture than spoked wheels at this size. The downsides seem significant though: A derailleur with gears this small is going to wear very quickly, and when it is time to replace it, you just have to hope that Kwiggle is still around to sup…

Okay less maintainable if it breaks but ... will it really break? I've done loads of miles on my bike with derailleur gears and that's not shown any sign of wear or failure.

Each chain and sprocket are subject to wear. Each sprocket of any bicycle must be replaced after a certain time. And the chain elongates and must also be replaced at some point. The chain also elongates on the Kwiggle, but the sprockets adjust to the elongation. Therefore also with the Kwiggle, the sprockets and the chain must then be replaced at some point. One of our first customers drives already 8,000 km still with the first chain and sprockets. This is quite much for a bicycle.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#349

Post by ridehelix »

carabiner wrote: post #285
ridehelix wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A discussion about folding bikes would not be complete without mentioning Helix. Helix folds almost as small as a Brompton but has 24” wheels and standard bicycle components such as disc brakes, Shimano/SRAM drivetrain etc. Also the fold is the most compact possible, even more compact than Brompton in terms of maximizing the use of space. It also fits in a standard airline luggage without any disassembly which few ot…

Looks like some of your kickstarter backers have been waiting seven years for their bikes. Are your production issues ironed out yet?

We were on track to complete Kickstarter deliveries by end of 2020. Still very late by all measures but the challenges of staring a manufacturing company from scratch cannot be understated. It's very hard. Even so, our backers for the most part supported us and anyone that didn't want to wait was offered refund. The pandemic threw a huge wrench into our plans and the last two years have been an incredible balancing act of managing run-away lead times, rising costs and other critical details. As an example, if you place an order for saddles right now, you're getting them late 2023/early 2024 and it's 30-50% deposit up front. Titanium costs just went up 20% and lead times increased by another 30 days due to recent world events.

As another post here mentions, it would be good for me to write about the lessons of our journey as it is unique and becoming more relevant as hardware startups seem to be on the rise. I will do that soon.

Re: Folding bicycle small enough to fit in hand luggage

#350

Post by dagw »

kohlerm wrote: post #339
laurieg wrote: post #24

I've spent a long time with folding bikes over the years. My advice: bite the bullet and buy a Brompton[1]. Yes, Bromptons are expensive. But they ride like a bicycle, have gears, a stiff enough frame, luggage racks etc. There's very little compromise. The fastest I've done on mine is 45 kph and I've ridden 70km in a day. I carry it on and off buses and trains multiple times a day without issue. In the past I had an…

Sure Brompton has the most experience with these kind of bikes, but a steel frame on a bike that is supposed to be carried around? If I would spend that amount of money I would probably go for https://www.r-m.de/de/bikes/birdy/ with additional benefit that it is a German manufacturer ;-)

Brompton have both steel and titanium frame bikes, depending on your budget.
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