Folding Bike Bags

CTC Shop have folding bags listed in their sale. Link

February Origami Amendment

The start of the ride remains unchanged, however due to the time of year and possible weather conditions the ride has been shortened. Please see "Events section" for full details.

Stolen Brompton L5, with rear rack

Stolen from Greys Inn Road on Friday 20 January 2006. Frame black. Distinguishing features: BikeTrax Edinburgh dealer sticker, washers on rear spokes. Any info Tim Dawson 07984 165251.

Dahon 2006 range

Dahon's range of folders for 2006 is now on their web site in the USA - http://www.dahon.com. If anything, there is almost too much to choose from! There are some very interesting innovations, including the new compact Hammerheads - not true folders, but compact, small wheeled machines. We have had a 2006 catalogue for a few months now, and were allowed to show it to people at an Origami ride, but not cleared to release details here on the web. Our thanks go to Atif Waraich for pointing out that the new range is now on their web pages.

Swindon Smallwheels January Ride Report

Below is a brief report from Chop Rossiter on the Swindon Smallwheels Ride on Saturday 21st January 2006 - see the link for captioned photos of the event (rather hindered by the camera problem mentioned!):
"8 riders made this cracking 18 mile run on Saturday - 2 Dahons, 2 Bromptons, 1 Pashley Micro, 1 Moulton 'F-type', 1 New Street and my GoBike. Thanks for a great day.
A huge apology for the terrible hue of the photos (I've broken the screen on my digi-camera so I have little control over the settings!
Here is a PDF of my report.

Chop! The mad Welshman touring the urban jungle, somewhere between LLanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch & Vladivostok!"

TRICE QNT TEST REPORT

Our test report on the 2006 Trice QNT recumbent trike is now on line - you can access it HERE. Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE) now have the video of putting it in the back of the Smart in under 3 minutes on their web site, with the picture of it AND a Brompton in the car (with the passenger seat still in the upright posiion) at the end.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE - FIRST TEST OF THE TRICE 2006 RECUMBENT TRIKES

I'm just back from a visit to Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE) in Falmouth, where I tested their 2006 QNT recumbent tricycle. Recumbents, and especially trikes, are never going to be ideal for a daily train-assisted commute, and ICE make absolutely no claims to be aiming to do this. However, compact storage and portability in a small car are important to many enthusiasts, and foldability/separation and rear susupension as standard are the key features of the ICE 2006 standard range.

Recumbents are not for everyone (especially given that in the UK cyclists are painfully conservative). The brief test on Friday (20th January 2006), proved that the new rear suspension, which is standard on the budget trikes which ICE produce, is VERY comfortable, and that, with the new folding/separable design, you can fit one AND a folded Brompton into the back of a Smart car (just about the smallest car available) without folding the passenger seat. There is a video (I think ICE plan to put it on their web site) to prove this!

I don't make any claims to expertise in the subject of recumbents (read a lot, but very little riding), but I REALLY enjoyed riding the Trice QNT.

A more detailed report will be available in the next 2 or 3 days - watch this space!

Below: The folded and separated Trice QNT fits in the back of a Smart Fortwo with the passenger seat still upright, and room for a Brompton as well!

Pacy in Scotland

Kinetics have started importing another reasonably rare folding bicycle into Britain. The Pacy is a steel-framed bicycle that appears to fold in a similar manner to Airnimal's Chameleon. German speakers can investigate more models on the manufacturer's website.

NEW FOLDING RECUMBENT TRICYCLE

Velovision has just posted news on its web site of revisions to the budget range of recumbent tricycles (Q, S etc) made by Inspired Cycle Engineering (perhaps better known for their custom Trice models). The 2006 models feature rear suspension, and can be folded without the need for any tools. Details are thin at present - more information should be on ICE's web site very soon, and we look forward to hearing and seeing more of these exciting machines.

January Origami Ride Update

Paul has provided some more details of the January Origami Ride on
Saturday 14th - though of course details may still depend on the
weather on the day. At present, the plan is a figure of eight route,
with 10 miles before and 5 miles after lunch (which will be at The
Bull in Meriden).

Tragically several cyclists were killed last weekend during a club
ride; as cyclists, some of you may wish to mark this on Saturday,
Sunday etc by wearing a black arm-band, as I understand some other
clubs are doing at this time.

Folders, now a bike worth buying in Oz?

Bicycling Australia is a magazine that generally caters to the mainstream road and off-road market. In addition to their regular issues, they publish an annual Buyers Guide. The current Buyers Guide is the first one to include folding bikes and recumbents as seperate categories and a summary of the options follows.

Various models of Airnimal's Joey and Chameleon 24" wheeled bikes and the Rhino off-road bikes are available via recumbent specialist Flying Furniture.

Birdy has a range of bikes with minor variations to the standard European models.

All current flavours of Brompton seem to be available from Greenspeed, although the website still refers to the superceded C, M and T types. Incidentally they are listed in the Buyers Guide as Greenspeed bicycles rather than as Bromptons. Of course, Greenspeed's five types of folding recumbent trikes are listed in the recumbent section. Not listed on the website, but reported in a recent AtoB magazine, is Greenspeed's hub modification allowing a front drum brake to be installed to a standard Brompton fork.

Eleven varieties of 20" wheeled Dahons are available, together with a lone 26" model, via wholesaler Advance Traders and your local bike shop, although not all are listed on the website.

Ezyfold distributes a range of 14", 16", 20" and 26" wheeled bikes, similar to Oyama's offerings, for sale by your local bike shop.

The Giant Halfway is available through Giant dealers.

Giatex produces a 16" and three 20" 'stretching bikes'. Australian Cyclist's review of an earlier model is here (Note: wholesaler has changed).

The French-designed Mobiky is an interesting new option brought in by the Mongoose and Gemini wholesaler.

Four models of 26" wheeled Montague are brought in to Australia but the wholesaler's website appears to be non-functional currently.

The importer of Shogun bicycles brings in a basic Pacific 20" folding bike but it seems that no website actually shows it.

On a vaguely related note, I noted that two types of folding bikes and two types of folding electric bikes were advertised in the Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia journal, The Wanderer. Perhaps folding bikes are finally becoming a significant section of the bicycle market in Australia.

January Origami Ride

This is just a brief reminder that the January Origami Ride will be on Saturday 14th January, and will start from Meriden. We meet from about 10:30am, and the ride will leave at about 11:00am. We hope that many of you will be able to take part in this first event of 2006. There is a mailing list for regulars (not more than 2 emails a month!), and more details are included on this. Please send us an email if you would like to be included on the list - rides are genenerally in central England.

Tin Can Ten 2006

The date has not been set yet, expected to be in July. Check out the web site to find out more about the event. If you have hub gears take a look.

Here is a reminder of our previous competing members........ LINK

Read the excellent reports by Dick Hanson in the Event reports section for training and a report on the race Lycra is it still for sale?

Satellite View of the Origami Ride Meriden Start Point

Click here> Meriden Start to view a satellite view (google maps) of the Origami Phoenix Ride start point at the Meriden Tea Rooms. Click on the Satellite/ Map/ Hybrid boxes (top right corner) to toggle between the map views. PLEASE NOTE: The new bridge over the A45 is not shown on this map. Refer to directions
. The ride list is here

Netherlands folders

The Netherlands has not been well known (at least amongst the English-speaking world) for producing folding bicycles, despite their long history of practical bicycles.

Gazelle has been making bicycles in the Netherlands for over 100 years and produced the Quickstep folder in 1964. Currently, they have a couple of Dahon-based small-wheeled folders within their extensive range.

Fongers has been around for a similar length of time, producing their first prototype folder in 1909 (scroll down). Nowadays, folding bike options seem to be limited to this small-wheeler.

Sparta had a not very compact separable bicycle in 1970 but doesn't appear to produce a folding bicycle at present, concentrating on conventional machines.

Batavus existed pre-WW1 and currently produce several small-wheelers. The upmarket machines look quite impressive.

Koga-Miyata appears to be a 30+ year old joint venture between Dutch firm Koga and Japanese bicycle firm Miyata. Amongst bikes of all descriptions, they produce both small-wheeled solo and large-wheeled tandem fully suspended folding bikes.

Of course, many other folders are available in the Netherlands, either under their own name or 'badge-engineered', as this Ebay-like list shows.

Vincent Van Eerd has a worthwhile website with a larger-wheeled folding bicycle, some Brompton modifications and other interesting webpages.

Much of this piece has been drawn from Chop's folder list.

Moulton Bicycle Club Bradford on Avon event in September 2006

The annual event of the Moulton Bicycle Club will take place at Bradford on Avon over the weekend 9-10 September - campers can arrive from late afternoon on Friday 8th. For information on events of interest to folder enthusiasts, please see our Events web page.

Chop's A to Z of folders

One of the folder characters(!) featured in the latest issue of Velovision (Issue 20, Letters, page 44-45) was Chop Rossiter. Chop is in the process of creating an extensive A to Z of all the makes and models of folders; for more information, take a look at his web site at http://www.long-john.com/pagefoldlinks.htm.

Happy New Year

Wishing all members of the Folding Society best wishes for 2006