11/20/2023 0 Comments Slidepad brakesThere’s also a wheeled bag for the entire bike. You can even leave the bag clipped to the frame when folded up. A clip on the front of the frame holds any of a wide variety of bags with capacities up to 1890 cubic inches. You can leave the handlebars extended while folding up the bike and wheel the compacted bike behind you like a rolling suitcase. The folded bike is the most secure of any we reviewed, so there’s no risk of it unraveling as you maneuver it into place.īut what really set the Brompton apart was that provided for the details beyond just folding up the bike. The drivetrain folds between two halves of the frame so you’re much less likely to touch the greased chain or have it brush against your aircraft interior. It’s the smallest and most secure when folded, while still being the second easiest to fold. To test, we ran each bike multiple days on our hilly, six-mile daily commute, and brought together a group of pilots to try the bikes on the tarmac and in their airplanes.īrompton has been in the folding bike business for a long time, and it shows. So we asked manufacturers to send us their best choices for this mission: Small and lightweight bike to travel three to 10 miles with a light bag. There are literally dozens of compact folder models out there. There are also full-size folding bikes that we may look at in a later issue. We’ll just look at compact folding bikes-small wheels and frames to minimize space and weight. The good news is that the recent surge of interest in biking has brought several more folding bike options onto the market. A bicycle small and light enough to carry with you could make all the difference in multiplying your aircraft’s utility. Dahon’s Mariner may be the best overall value.ĭahon’s Mariner is light and small enough to heft into the back of a Cessna 152.Īs terrific as on-airport cafés and crew cars are, there are plenty of times a few inconvenient miles separate the airport from your real destination. Here is my attempt at a cut and paste of the article:Ĭompact Folding Bikes: Brompton Our Top Pickīrompton and Bike Friday offer the easiest, cleanest and most compact folders, but they ain’t cheap. First Look: If you've ever gone over the handlebars of your bike (or known someone that has) then you will immediately get this product.The story is in the July 2012 edition of Aviation Consumer. Bikes are fitted with a front and rear braking system controlled by your right and left hand. But if you need to stop suddenly and you panic, braking with the wrong hand can send you flying over the handlebars into traffic or worse: public embarrassment. Slidepad Technologies based in Palo Alto has spent the past four years refining a patented system to solve this problem and require only one hand brake for a bike. Co-founder Andrew Ouellet came up with the idea while mountain biking as a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2008. This humble and soft-spoken mechanical engineer, built a heavy and bulky prototype that won Design and Business Plan competitions, but lacked market viability due to the cost and size. It was during one of these product competitions that co-founder Brian Riley saw the product for the first time and wanted to join the team. One great story about the company's founding is that Andrew learned to machine parts in the student shops at Cal Poly. This led to summer jobs in machine shops which led to requests for machine work while back at school. With orders in hand, he convinced his parents to front him 21 of the $38k needed to buy a machine himself, stuck it in his garage in SLO, and got to work in between classes, nights, and weekends. After cranking for a few months with his machine in the garage at college, he was able to pay his parents back. That's the machine they use today to prototype new designs molds quickly. See the head of sales Kyle Jansen describe their four year iteration cycle in the video below: Iteration after iteration got them to the slickly designed and lightweight offering they have today. Last year they really had a breakthrough scoring a contract with Jamis Bicycles to have their brakes featured on several 2013 models releasing in late 2012. With it they've been able to partner with a couple brake manufacturers in Taiwan to help with the mass production and attend trade shows to showcase their product.Ī Jamis representative said "having a single shifter and using the Slidepad system for a single brake lever works really well both functionally and aesthetically.” The team also secured about $400k in funding.
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