Alright, it's done, i bought a goddamn foldie. There's millions of them here in Asia, although almost all of them are the bi-fold type that are still pretty large. Bi-folds (Tern, Dahon etc) are definitely small enough to casually chuck into a car boot or in the luggage compartment of a long-distance bus, which could be quite useful cycling around a country attached to a large continent, but i live on a tropical island where all travel starts with a plane flight, so couldn't be sold on a cheap folding bike that i would anyway have to check as oversize luggage/sports equipment or else dismantle entirely just to fit it into a suitcase (that's the dirty secret of the Bike Friday). All that extra faffing about, you might as well just put your full size bike on the plane or buy/rent on the other end imo.
But there are bikes that are small enough to be wrapped up in an Ikea bag and checked as regular luggage, ready to immediately unfold and start riding on the other end. The keyword to search for is tri-fold, or 三摺車 (TW/HK)/三摺车 (CN/SG). Used to just be the Brompton and the Birdy that did it, both of which cost a fortune. I looked at the Tern BYB since it's a local brand and would prefer to support local business, but although it's smaller than the standard bi-folds, it'd still be awkwardly large to put on a plane imo. There's a hard-shell suitcase you can buy to go with it, but what's an unconventional traveler going to do with a hard-shell suitcase? Not like you're tipping a porter to keep an eye on your bag while you pootle around the resort or whatever.
The good news is that the Brompton patent expired a few years ago, and now there is a flood of clones that are all much, much cheaper and use the same folding mechanism to get really tiny. There are lots of brands - 3sixty, Pike, Mint, Litepro, Royale, Cranston... A guy in Singapore called Liaoge has tested a bunch of them and then commissioned one of the factories to build his own branded ones that look to have all kinds of useful tweaks. Check him out on YouTube - he's a salesman, but he also comes across legit excited about having fun with folding bikes.
All these folders come in well under us$1000, some of them are us$500, which sounds like a lot of money until you look at how much Bromptons and Birdys go for. Looks like you can pick them up in bike stores all over SE Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan) plus probably also in China too, but if you're not traveling in this part of the world then Aliexpress/Alibaba is your friend.
Today i bought a 20" tri-fold with disc brakes and a 9-speed on the back, everything is standard parts. Took it for a 40km ride straight out of the shop and it goes pretty sweet. I replaced the pedals immediately with metal ones instead of the plastic ones which looked a bit flimsy, but most of the other components look alright.
I'll update more over the next little while as i take it on longer adventures with more stuff. I'm housed up now so won't be full-ass living on a bike, but i still travel pretty low-end even when it's only a few weeks at a time so hopefully will have some interesting tips for the StP bike gang.
But there are bikes that are small enough to be wrapped up in an Ikea bag and checked as regular luggage, ready to immediately unfold and start riding on the other end. The keyword to search for is tri-fold, or 三摺車 (TW/HK)/三摺车 (CN/SG). Used to just be the Brompton and the Birdy that did it, both of which cost a fortune. I looked at the Tern BYB since it's a local brand and would prefer to support local business, but although it's smaller than the standard bi-folds, it'd still be awkwardly large to put on a plane imo. There's a hard-shell suitcase you can buy to go with it, but what's an unconventional traveler going to do with a hard-shell suitcase? Not like you're tipping a porter to keep an eye on your bag while you pootle around the resort or whatever.
The good news is that the Brompton patent expired a few years ago, and now there is a flood of clones that are all much, much cheaper and use the same folding mechanism to get really tiny. There are lots of brands - 3sixty, Pike, Mint, Litepro, Royale, Cranston... A guy in Singapore called Liaoge has tested a bunch of them and then commissioned one of the factories to build his own branded ones that look to have all kinds of useful tweaks. Check him out on YouTube - he's a salesman, but he also comes across legit excited about having fun with folding bikes.
All these folders come in well under us$1000, some of them are us$500, which sounds like a lot of money until you look at how much Bromptons and Birdys go for. Looks like you can pick them up in bike stores all over SE Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan) plus probably also in China too, but if you're not traveling in this part of the world then Aliexpress/Alibaba is your friend.
Today i bought a 20" tri-fold with disc brakes and a 9-speed on the back, everything is standard parts. Took it for a 40km ride straight out of the shop and it goes pretty sweet. I replaced the pedals immediately with metal ones instead of the plastic ones which looked a bit flimsy, but most of the other components look alright.
I'll update more over the next little while as i take it on longer adventures with more stuff. I'm housed up now so won't be full-ass living on a bike, but i still travel pretty low-end even when it's only a few weeks at a time so hopefully will have some interesting tips for the StP bike gang.
