Folding bike owners?

[shootingstar]

Thanks for responding.

Did you ride your folder before purchasing? I've never seen any folders in our area except for a Giant Halfway. What features do you feel are most important in terms of quality?

I'm average height (5'5") and weight (142), so don't need to worry about being too big, tall, tiny, etc.

We have gentle hills where we live, but nothing too extreme.

Sounds like you are doing primarily recreational cycling, maybe couple times per week or month?

Regardless of your height, the best fitted bike is customized to your body measurements. Otherwise you may be unhappy once you do alot more cycling. You may never know...you might fall in love with cycling alot.

My partner has 3 bikes and one of them is a Dahonfolding bike. We don't have a car so his folding bike had to have features which included more gearing (ie. 24 speed, not 8 speed or whatever for tooling around town). He probably has over 5,000 kms. on the bike which includes 2 European trips, Quebec, 2 Toronto trips and he has used a few times at home as a substitute bike whenever one of his bikes is in for repair. We live in an area with sufficient hills within the city.

You might also want to think about the weight of bike when it folds and how you can lift/transport it around...not just into your car but if you should ever want to take a part biking trip overseas or elsewhere in the U.S.

A friend has a 24-speed Bike Friday and she loves it....now bikes it ...as her commuting and touring bike. She was a regular cyclist (was a bike courier, also did lots of bike touring and commuting) with a road bike but she lost her enthusiasm for cycling for about 5 yrs.

Her cycling love was revived when she abandoned her road bike in favour of her Bike Friday. She doesn't have a car. She also does multi-day bike tours on her own with it. So manageable, light portability of folded bike is important for her to get onto trains, buses, etc.

I visited Bike Friday's factory outlet just 1 month ago when we were vacationing in Eugene, Oregon. They are nice bikes, if you can afford it. I got my specs. after cycling a Bike Friday that fitted closest to me .....when I feel comfortable later to plunk down money.

Brompton's design was out on the market for many years before Bike Friday started up. I understand they are also excellent bikes but can be expensive.

[KnottedYet]

Downtube folding bikes are great bikes. Lots of fun to ride, and I love how easy they are to fold and unfold. (and how easy it is to store and transport!)

Here's their website: http://www.downtube.com/

My mom loves her Downtube bike. (thanks, Uforgot!) She has one with the Sturmey Archer internal hub. If I ever get a folder for myself, I will also get an internal hub. Those puppies are nice!