Folding Bike Top 10 Brompton Bike Friday Airnimal Mezzo Dahon Birdy Giant Halfway Moulton APB Strida Mark 3 Jango Flik This page ranks folding bikes available in the UK based on our reviews in A to B magazine. Each folding bike is judged by a star system, this can only provide a rough guide, particularly [...]
This page lists all non-electric folding bikes readily available from manufacturers, importers or dealers having a UK website which clearly states their UK address. The notes at the bottom of the page give information about the content and coverage of the information below. Please contact us with any errors / omissions / suggestions – we [...]
From our magazine reviews we’ve seen folding bikes come a long way since the early days and you can now expect a bike that has virtually the same performance characteristics as a full-sized bike. From folding mountain bikes to super-compact bikes, there’s practically a folding bike to fit every need. Advantages of Owning a Folding [...]
Leaf back through the A to B archives (on our web site at www.atob.org.uk) and you’ll see that we’ve come back again and again to the Strida. Designed by Royal College of Art graduate (and later lecturer) Mark Sanders, the Strida was produced from 1987-1992 at various sites in the UK, before moving to Portugal [...]
For decades, engineers have poured time, effort and money (usually other people’s) into designing a better folding bike. The Brompton broke radically new ground in the early 1990s by combining excellent rideability with a compact package, and this combination has remained the gold standard ever since. Just for the record, a Brompton can be ridden [...]
Most people would agree that if a significant proportion of car commuters were to stay at home, or commute by some other means, our transport problems would be largely solved. More easily said than done, of course. Our own delightful and multi-talented Teresa was headhunted by Bournemouth Borough Council a year or so ago, and [...]
‘The only folding bike that people fold when they don’t need to.’ This comment on the Brompton sums up the genius of the design. Created a third of a century ago, the Brompton still sets the bicycling benchmark for compact portability. Now, David Henshaw has produced the book that many have long awaited – a [...]
My word, we’ve been doing this a long time. Trawl back through the archives, and you’ll find a Frog test in October 2002, when Alexander’s Like-a-Bike was getting under the feet of security guards at the London Cycle Show. He’s now riding full-size bikes. Riese & Müller is a German company, set up by young [...]
Readers may or may not be surprised to hear that Dr Hon thinks A to B has something of a Brompton bias.Fair comment? We tend to find that those who adore the Brompton are happy with our coverage,and those who don’t are either suspicious or grudgingly accepting.For years,Dahon UK,fronted by Mark (son of Harry) Bickerton [...]
Moulton is unique in the history of cycling.Dr Alex Moulton’s suspended small wheeler kick started the small wheel revolution,made cycling fashionable in ‘60s Britain,and over 40 years later,the basic concept is still in production. It’s the great survivor:built first by Dr Moulton after Raleigh refused to do a deal;then by Raleigh when they saw how [...]
There was a time, not so long ago when you had to pay quite a lot for a light reliable practical folding bike. To be honest, little has changed, but the cheaper bikes have certainly improved. Some of the equipment may still be a bit dubious, but for £300 you can buy a Chinese bike that [...]
Why would anyone want to pay much, much more for a lightweight folding bike? We get asked this quite often by big burly types.There are two primary markets,the obvious one being smaller people looking for something light and easy to hoik up into a car boot for leisure rides.The other is much more interesting stuff,and [...]
Brompton Gear Range ‘Could the Brompton be ‘easily’ redesigned to take wider,more conventional hubs? The rear drop-out spacing is under 115mm,whereas ‘normal’ hubs are 135mm (with 145mm normal in the USA).As the Brompton folds to the right, the extra width might only be 10mm or so. Could the hinge be widened by 5mm? Are there [...]
Decisions, decisions, decisions… You know how it is, life’s treated you well, and you’ve settled on a Roller for best, and a Bentley for , you know, just pottering. But where do you find a matching folding bike? And what criteria do you use? Andrew Hague takes up the story, while Laila models the bikes… [...]
From my very first days of owning a Brompton I scoured the catalogues looking for desirable accessories that could turn a promising piece of ironmongery into a really useful piece of equipment. Eazy-wheels gave shopping tro l l ey roll-ability, while the B-Bag seemed to offer a defence against baggage handlers, but where was the [...]
Good ideas arrive on our doorstep almost every day. For all sorts of reasons, some are not quite as good as they first appear. Maybe too heavy, too fiddly, or not unusually, a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. But you can generally rely on Steve Parry of SP Bicycles to come up with [...]
‘It goes like the wind’: my initial somewhat subjective assessment of the new Birdy as I cycled across Westminster Bridge in London three days before Christmas last year. Would I feel as happy after the honeymoon period? The new Birdy was announced last September at various German cycling shows and a pre-production example was on [...]
One wonders what goes on in the boardrooms of folding bike manufacturers. Are board members instructed never to mention the ‘B’ word? Or do they ritually stick pins in plasticine models of the Brentford Folder? The fact is – and we might as well get this over with – the Brompton is more or less unassailable in terms [...]
