The ROUND UP USA 5th Annual Folder Bike Fest

The ROUND UP USA 5th Annual Folder Bike Fest
JUNE 8-9-10, 2007 Philadelphia

Rides, rallies, workshops, time trial, fast fold competition and more, FREE to all riders and fans of Brompton, Dahon, Birdy, Swift,Strida, Bickerton, Moulton, Mezzo, and more. The ride is held the same weekend as the US PRO CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS, America's biggest
one-day road bicycling race.

This year should feature a new folder book, and quite possibly the world debut of a new, US-made folder which quite possibly may fold faster than a Brompton!

more info will be posted soon at www.trophybikes.com

Michael McGettigan

UK Cycle Show moves to Earls Court New date 11-14th October 2007

Bike Biz have announced the change of location and date for the 2007 Cycle Show. 13:30, Jan 29th by Carlton Reid

Cycle Show moves to Earls Court

The UK bike industry supports the show move. And as well as moving from ExCel there's a date change, too. The Cycle Show will now be staged 11-14th October 2007

More information on the Bike Biz website

January Sunday Origami Ride

12 Cyclists enjoyed the good weather today cycling though the Warwickshire lanes. Meeting at Berkswell Station, there was a draw between the 3 Moulton owners and the 3 Dahon riders. The other bikes were 2 Airnimals, 1 Brompton, 1 Birdy red and 2 large wheelers.

Riders outside the Temple Balsall Church,

From here we headed to Packwood House where we saw many walkers basking in the sun.
Next stop the Lapwoth canal junction where we were able to listen to the history of the canal through "wind up speakers".

A short ride along the Stratford canal found us in the Tom o The Wood Pub for lunch.

On the way back to Berkswell we passed the moated house at Baddersly Clinton which has been noted for a visit on a future ride.


3 new members, who joined us today, have offered to arrange the next Sunday Origami ride, which will be on the 18th March 2007. We will post the details on the website as soon as it has been finalised.

Next Origami ride will start from Hagley on the Saturday10th Feb 2007.

Dahon 2007 model range now on their web sites

The full details of the 2007 Dahon model range are now on their USA web site.

Tikit to Ride

Rumours of Bike Friday bringing out a new model have been circulating for a while. The Tikit looks like being the first Bike Friday aimed at commuters needing to fold their bikes several times a day and comes complete with mudguards and a rack.

A Bradford Date

The Moultoneer website has listed the 2007 date for their annual Bradford on Avon gathering as the second weekend in September.
To avoid a clash, the September Origami ride from Didcot has been combined with Swindon Smallwheels, and moved to September the 15th.

Santa Cruz Folding

Folder Fanatic has noted on BikeForums that Santa Cruz, California has a Bike to Work programme. This one is more interesting than most, encouraging the combination of folding bikes and public transport with significant savings in purchasing folding bikes.

Bickerton joins world tour

Folding Society member and Bickerton spares supplier Derek Baker has donated a Bickerton folder for general and emergency use during a family world tour by bus.To get all the latest news and subscribe on line to follow the tour visit http://www.welcometotheworld.org.uk; for more information on support for Bickertons please use this link.

Dahon 2007 range update

The Dahon 2007 catalog which was recently put on their web site is a very impressive production, but a bit short on technical detail. However, if you are a member of the Dahon forum (which you can access from their web site), you may have seen that they have now posted a link there for access to a pre-release version of their 2007 web site, which has all the technical details you might wish for. There are lots of new models - not just shark-named mini-bikes, but some very exciting new folders as well.

Dahon: Supporting Global Research into Shark Preservation - the link

Velovision notes that Dahon is sponsoring the World Conservation Union's Shark Specialist Group to the tune of 1% of their 2007 20" minibike sales. The bike names are the link (the models in the mini bike range have the names of different sharks). You can view the Dahon Press Release as a PDF file here.

The Origami Ride diary for 2007 has been updated - view it here. All are welcome on these usually easily paced rides.

Origami Ride Update

Follow link for update information

Two rides to check out.


Thank you to the 22 riders who joined the Rugby Origami ride. We appreciate the fact you travel so far to join us for our shorter winter rides.

Bromptons in Barcelona

Folder enthusiast Bob MacQueen recently visited Barcelona, and has sent us a very interesting report on folder, and in particular, Bromptons, in that city. You can read his report on our web site here.

Bridge to Bridge and back

A classic Audax UK brevet ride is the Bryan Chapman Memorial, 600km from the Severn Bridge to the Menai Straights Bridge and back in a weekend. {classic = 'hilly but pretty' in AUK-speak} Here is Vorsprung's photo page (dial-up friendly) of riding the permanent version last year with a couple of friends, one on fixed wheel and another on a Pashley TSR30.

Folder al dente

Italian folding bikes are rarely seen nowadays, Di Blasi excepted of course. Alessandro Belli of Tecnologie Urbane looks to have devised an interesting compact thermoplastic folding bike with guywires. You can see it here.

Folding Bike Information on Wikipedia

There is a growing amount of information about folding bikes on the free online encyclopedia called Wikipedia. Click Here to view. Anyone can add information to the "wiki" to find out more about entering your information Click Here

A Fixed Wheel Airnimal

Fixed wheel (no freewheel) bikes are pretty rare nowadays, and folding ones must be even more unusual. Andrew Stewart rides fixed on an Airnimal Chameleon. You can read his report on this fascinating machine here. We'd like to thank Andrew for providing this excellent report, especially as he supplied it ready formatted for the web.

Folding Bikes Reviewed at Metaefficient

Metaefficient - A guide to the most efficient things in the world has a review on folding bikes on their Blog Click Here

FS on FT

Just spotted this very informative and funny article by Dominic Sword on FT.com with an excellent folding joke at the end. He has kindly made reference to the Folding Society. Take a look to see which bike is likened to a Swiss Army knife and which is given the Rolls-Royce prize. Click Here.

CC and SFS

The hunt for the Secret Folding Society continues in citycycling 19

It is worth noting that the entire citycycling subscription mailing list was lost recently and that list members should re-subscribe.

Another Far-Eastern Folder

The Peninsula Online has an article mentioning a folding bike we've not come across before. One sentence caught our eye, "The contraption is actually a fold-up bicycle, which Wa designed to look like a shopping cart so he could take it through the many prohibited zones in the city state." More details regarding the 'jz88' bicycle can be found here.

Catch me I'm falling

"Arellcat" from the Dahon forum recently linked to the first report we've noticed on the Fallbrook NuVinci stepless hub gear, courtesy of Swiss bicycle manufacturer simpel.ch.

The Truth about Cats and D...

Dahon has released their 2007 catalogues, both North American Domestic and International, with details of their extensive range of bicycles, accessories and luggage on their US website.

Sunday Origami Ride Berkswell Railway Stn in Balsall Common 28th Jan 2007

We have been approached by some folding bike enthusiasts who, due work commitments, have been unable to join us on our Saturday Origami rides. In order to give them the opportunity to ride with us we are running a ride on Sunday the 28th Jan 2007. The event is designed to complement the Saturday programme and all riders on any bike are welcome to join us.

We will be starting from Berkswell Railway Station in Balsall Common (South of Birmingham) at 11.00 on Sunday 28th Jan 2007 with a ride length of 20 miles approx, passing through Packwood House Gardens. More details to follow once we have finalised the event details.

Remember all riders with an interest in folding, separable and small wheel bikes are welcome to join us.

January Origami Ride Information

The information for the January ride Saturday 13th January 2007 from Rugby Railway Station has been posted on the Origami events page. It is a short ride level of about 15 miles which can easily be extended if individual riders wish by adding extra laps of Draycote Reservoir with the option to spectate in the warm with a coffee if you prefer!

Choosing a folder - updated at last!

The section of the web site which deals with choosing a folder is really in two parts - firstly some general comments on the factors involved and the importance of understanding your priorities, and secondly some general comments on what is available. While the first part does not date, anyone who has looked at the section on what is available will know that it had become horribly out of date. In fact I re-wrote it about 2 years ago, but somehow the update never got loaded onto the web site at the time, and at some point the updated version got deleted. I really hate doing a job twice, so I've not been able to bring myself to repeat the update before now. At last though there is a revised version available, which more accurately records what's available now.
A few other minor updates have been made elsewhere on the web site, as regular readers may have noticed.
Best wishes for your cycling in 2007.

The Dahon Jack

The Dahon Jack is a very modestly priced folder with 26 inch wheels. We now have a report from Michael Alan Jones on the 2006 version of this machine.