Hi Denise,

To answer your questions, I have my drop bars set even with my saddle like blueberry, and I find that to be plenty upright. I am on the tops when climbing, on the hoods a lot, and also enjoy the drops when descending. All three positions are fine for me, though I think my cranky hip likes the more upright position the best. I didn't find that they limited me at all on our tour, and I didn't have neck, hand, wrist pain since the bike was set up to fit me (i.e, I sent measurements of a road bike I had at the time to be used while making the bike). I was able to look around just fine from the tops or hoods. If you have less back flexibility, that might be an issue. You can see my position on the tops in this photo that my avatar is a smaller version of:



I agree, the Bike Friday site is HORRIBLE to navigate. There is a ton of stuff on it, some broken links, and a mix of old-style and new-style pages. The old pages often don't link back to the new pages except to "home". They desperately need a talented webmaster. I actually have more luck sometimes using google searches like this "Bike Friday handlebar options" to get to their pages, rather than trying to navigate thru their site. I forgot to mention it before, but here is a review I wrote years ago of my bike for girlbike.com (now defunct as a cycling site, may still be a scooter site) that Bike Friday picked up for their site: http://bikefriday.com/press/2004/emily-smith-crusoe/

It would be cool if you could test ride the Tikit, but I do think a bike with 16" wheels is going to be twitchier than a 20" wheeled bike. I personally don't find the Crusoe twitchy -- just very responsive. But that may be because I'm a small-wheeled gal from way back. Have owned a long-wheelbase recumbent with small wheels, a Terry with 24" wheel in the front, and a road bike with 650c, as I am just too small to get a good fit with a 700c bike. My DH rides a 700c Trek but also loves his Crusoe for utility riding and just cruising around, though. He never complains about it feeling twitchy. When he wants to do really fast unencumbered rides, he takes the Trek, b/c he leaves panniers on the Friday for errands.

My Petite Crusoe, if I take off the rack, all bags, etc., only weighs about 19- lbs, but obviously with a rack and Tailrider and other accessories, she starts getting heavier. I think of the uses you mention, a Bike Friday would work well for you. If you could find a pre-loved one, you could definitely save some $$. I also covet that pre-loved Pocket Rocket Pro blueberry mentions (and it would probably fit me), but circumstances are not right for me to buy any new bikes right now since I'm moving out of the country soon.

Good luck and please keep us posted! If you have any other questions, just ask!