Lifestyle - general
Social trends of one sort or another are always a good source of lifestyle articles. Even folding bicycles
Spin City
(TheWeekend Australian magazine
11 October 2003)
Story and photographs by Phil Dickie
Not so long ago, finding a folding bicycle in an Australian bicycle shop was a rare occurrence. Finding one worth buying was rarer still. Now a bicycle shop near you is likely to be allocating a corner of the floor - or even the window - to these bikes of strange appearance and unfamiliar brand. Scratch a bit deeper and you will find some of the brands developing their own fiercely loyal fan clubs.
All over the world, commuters are increasingly setting off to work on bicycles that can be slipped into a bag, carried on to a bus and kept under a desk.
Hang around too long in an Italian piazza these days and you are likely to be bowled over by American cyclists on Bike Fridays which not only pack into a suitcase for the flight but then tow the suitcase along behind them.
In Australia, shops report, the gathering surge in sales is being driven by a surprisingly broad cross section of customers. John Pittendreigh of Brisbane's Epic Cycles counted off recent sales to professional women wanting something light and manageable for commuting, international travellers wanting something packable for planes and hotel rooms, an injury victim wanting something comfortable, yachties wanting land legs, greypower members of the motorhome set wanting something more manageable for errands and apartment dwellers wanting something they are less likely to trip over.
Sydney institution Wooly's Wheels allocated some space to folding bicycles in both their physical and virtual stores about 12 months ago. Six months ago, according to manager Colin Liddle, they started “doing it with devotion” because of the interest it was generating.
While distributors are coy about their exact sales figures, a common complaint is the difficulty of prising more folders from the manufacturers. The better bikes invariably arrive in Australia well before they are being distributed here anyway, with overseas travellers bringing back all sorts of exotica and Australian buyers putting in internet orders to London, Amsterdam and all over the States.
“It is a practicality thing, not a fad,” said Vince Atree from Melbourne's St Kilda Cycles, reporting that there is little in common between the buyers of folding bicycles and the buyers of those skate wheeled collapsible scooters now found mainly in Trading Post advertisements. “People are discovering options for bicycles that they didn't know existed.”
Some of the interest comes from the one-size-fits-all possiblities of the modern folding bicycle. “I was always sceptical about folding bikes, but the Birdy rides like a real bike,” says Liddle. “I'm nearly six foot and I can get the same sort of seating position as I usually do. And then I adjust it and my eight year old daughter rides around as comfortably as I do.”
Portable bicycles have long been around on the fringes of cycling. No-one has ever won the Tour de France on a small-wheeled fold-up and no one is ever likely to, but in an urbanising world having serious second thoughts about its love affair with the car, the lightweight portable bike has come into its own.
Rapidly disappearing is the memory of heavy clunkers that didn't fold too well and rode even less well. Taking their place are “folders” by innovative boutique manufacturers such as Germany's Birdy, America's Bike Friday and British pioneers Moulton and Brompton.
Meanwhile, the world's largest bike maker, the appropriately named Giant group, now features a folder line as a permanent fixture in its catalogue.
Typical of the new breed of commuters using folding bikes is research scientist Dr Barry Manor, who fills in 120km a week of gaps in his rail journey from Epping to the University of NSW on a sleek aluminium Helios from Californian-Taiwanese folder manufacturer Dahon.
“I hate sitting in traffic, and I think Sydney's traffic is a nightmare,” says Dr Manor, who used to catch the bus from Central rail station the rest of the way to the university. “But,” he says, “buses are just part of the traffic problem. I think my bike cost significantly less than a year's bus fares - although I do not know what a bus fare is now.”
While Dr Manor might be in the vanguard of bicycle-enhanced public transport in Australia, he is pedalling a path that is well-travelled across Europe and in American cities. Dahon, the world's largest specialist folding bicycle manufacturer, reported a 40 per cent almost overnight jump in sales when congestion charging was introduced in London earlier this year.
In The Netherlands, the trend to folders is so widespread in that one man, using the nom-de-plume Website Willie, has started an Anti-Vouwfiets (folding bicycle) movement devoted to bumping Bromptons off buses and Peugeots off pavements. The Dutch railway lets folders travel for free and Willie claims that “folding bikes threaten to overflow the Dutch trains and platforms like a plague of biblical proportions”.
Public transport policy is not always so tolerant of two-wheelers. Bicycles generally are only sometimes welcome on Australian trains and almost never welcome inside Australian buses, but folding bicycles face many fewer objections from officialdom. When officialdom even notices them, that is. Most folder manufacturers also sell or provide bags or quick and easy “slip covers” clearly intended to disguise bikes about to board buses.
Airline staff can be notably disrespectful to cyclists. Being boarded without her bike in Zurich in 1991 was the last straw for well known international bicycle tourist and activist Margaret Day, of Adelaide.
First stop on her next American trip was Eugene, Oregon, where Day invested in a Bike Friday that can front up to airline check-in counters as a suitcase. But out of a Bike Friday suitcase or two can come bikes with titanium beam suspension, tandem bikes, bikes that convert between single and tandem modes, and sit-in armchair-comfort recumbent bikes.
Day, still cycling exotic locations into her seventies, now has seven Bike Fridays and heads an ever-growing band of local enthusiasts offering hospitality to the increasing trickle of overseas adventurers pedalling their suitcases around Australia. Asked how many kilometres she has clocked up on her journeys around four continents, Day laughs and says, “I don't know. I don't care. I don't have one of those little gadgets.”
Lynette Chiang, author of “The handomest man in Cuba” (Random House 2003), admits to just pedalling off into the sunset from the “decent job, three-bedroom house, fastish car and nice bloke in Sydney” soon after buying her Bike Friday on a whim in 1997.
At the time Chiang had all the experience of the occasional Sunday afternoon cyclist. Now she is eminently qualified to answer the question that always comes up about cycling large distances on small wheels: “No, you don't have to pedal more – the gears are designed to make it equivalent to riding a regular size bike.”
Bike Friday – custom made two wheeled travel system complete with tow along suitcase. www.bikefriday.com. Australian Bike Friday Club, GPO Box 792, Adelaide 5001.
Birdy – fully suspended flourescent aluminum folders developed by two German engineering students previously noted for their line of bicycle helmet ear muffs. $1400 to $2400. www.birdy.com.au
Brompton – 20 years on and still winning the fold up small and neat award. Inquire at Trek bicycle dealerships $1300-$2299.
Dahon – commuters to tourers from $499 to $1695. www.advancetraders.com.au
Halfway – a notable design exercise that found its way into the product line-up of the world's largest cycle company. Inquire at Giant bicycle dealerships, $945.
KHS – a dabble in folders by another bicycle conglomerate has produced a stylish Cappucino $950 and a rugged Westwood $1049. KHS Australia 03 - 95861600
Moulton - Dr Alex Moulton pioneered high performance pull-apart small wheelers and bicycle suspension in the sixties and is still at it. $1995 and up (and up) Moulton Bicycles Australia, PO Box 516, Daylesford, Victoria 3460
Note: Prices should be regarded as approximate only as bicycle prices are heavily affected by variations in exchange rates.