Bicycles: Folding Bikes

Air Glide

Bike Friday Air Glide at Place de L'Odéon

My everyday bike is a 1999 Bike Friday Air Glide. Every Bike Friday folds up into a suitcase, which is particularly good for travel. Indeed, just months after buying it, I put it into a suitcase and took it to Paris. It was ideal for the narrow, curving streets of the 6th Arrondissement, and I could safely ignore the Prende Un Ticket signs.

My new Bike Friday, inside the suitcase/trailer. Photo by Dave Favello. The design is brilliantly self-contained: with some aluminum tubing and two little wheels, which also fit into the suitcase, the suitcase can be converted into a bike trailer and towed behind the bike. In fact, after I bought it, my girlfriend towed it home with her Bike Friday.

Unlike the previous folding bikes I'd tried, this one rides so well that I'm using it as my everyday bike. And, since it folds up, I've now got access to a wide variety of transit systems, allowing me to go on auto-free journeys, many miles away from home.

Bike Friday Air Glide, indoors, no rack. This bike does attract attention. I usually have a rear rack on my bike (as in the Place de l'Odéon photo), but when I don't have a rack on it, the suspended V-shaped frame looks especially striking on its own, and it attracts lots and lots of attention!

(Just in case you're wondering about the low-resolution ASCII art in the .sig at the bottom of this page, that's me riding my Air Glide.)

Folds Up! in San Francisco. Photo by Bill DiPaolo. In the summer of 1999, I joined the environmental group TIME'S UP! and we spent a few days biking around San Francisco and partying like it was, well, 1999. A number of us were riding folding bikes, so I dubbed us "Folds Up!" This later became the name of an annual folding bike ride organized by TIME'S UP! in New York City.

There are photos of me and my Bike Friday on other websites:
  • On Pender Island, British Columbia. {Aug-2001}
  • At New York City Critical Mass. {Jul-2003}
  • Critical Mass reaches Times Square (rear view). {Jul-2003}
  • With a cargo trailer at the Folds Up! ride. {Oct-2003}
  • One of many at the first Bay Area Folder Fest. {Jul-2008}

    • Friday tows Fridays. Photo by Katherine Roberts.

    After finding another suitable suitcase, I discovered that it's even possible to use my Bike Friday to tow two more of 'em! By stacking two of them, I have the means to fit four more. and so on, and so forth, to infinity and beyond.

    (I have more to say about Bike Friday and BicycleR Evolution trailers on my Trailers page.)


    Mystery orange Italian folding bike. Once upon a time I saw a great 1970s orange folding bike in San Francisco. I was very impressed with the way the rear rack was integrated into the frame, so I took a snapshot. As stylish and elegant as, say, any Italian motorized scooter. Alas, I didn't think to write down the brand name. The best I've got is a closeup that reveals a word ending in "-mica." It was years before I would see that design again, in New York City, and more years before I would learn that the bike is a Carniell Amica.


    Barbarellas

    Barbarellas Limonata and Aranciata

    Barbarella saddle. In New York I picked up two nearly-identical 1970s folders. Most of their decals are missing, but a few words were left behind: "Barbarella" and "Made in Italy". Both have white tires. I haven't found out much about "Barbarella" bikes, though the frames are an exact match with folding bikes made by Bianchi in those days.

    Nealeco Head Badge Most of the matching Bianchi folding bikes I've seen come in primary colors and have black tires, some of which have the word "Nealeco" on their head badges. One folding bike enthusiast pointed me to a web page devoted to a Bianchi Aquiletta, which has the same frame.

    Although these are not exactly high-performance folding bikes, I've become very fond of them. They're great! I've got a green one and an orange one, and in the spirit of a certain Italian fizzy drink, I've named them Barbarella Limonata and Barbarella Aranciata. I take them on short rides, ideal for single-gear travel, and on long rides, which are not. They're okay for riding in New York City -- at least in the boros that don't have a lot of hills.

    Legal observer on a bright green Barbarella folding bike. My little fleet (the "Barbarella Bike Bloc") came in handy during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. Some visitors needed loaner bikes (no, they weren't delegates). One visitor was a legal observer, and she arrived on the night of Critical Mass, too late to get the legal observer's bright green hat, but fortunately Barbarella Limonata is exactly the same color!

    The next day, bellringers for the RingOut event were supposed to wear orange, so I went all out and rode Barbarella Aranciata. After that, I lent her to another visitor.

    The TIME'S UP! Barbarella bike fleet. TIME'S UP! volunteers, myself included, organized or helped organize numerous bike events and provided many cheap or loaner bikes during the RNC, so I put our logo on the Barbarella bike fleet. I was eventually arrested myself for the non-crime of riding a bike in the vicinity of Republicans, and in the spirit of further violating the Constitution, the police impounded my Air Glide. The Air Glide remained a political prisoner for weeks, so I ended up using the Barbarellas as my primary form of transportation!

    With only one gear to work with, I guess I'm lucky that the steepest "hill" I encounter on a regular basis is the Manhattan Bridge.

    		 Barbarella on the Manhattan Bridge

    Finally, here's Barbarella Limonata taking her rightful place alongside a high-end Bike Friday and a high-end Brompton


    Safari: The Blonde. Woo! 

    Folder in front of teany, with original headlight, painted all-white. At TIME'S UP! we occasionally get folding bikes donated for our community bikes program, and I've fixed up a few of them. My favorites are, of course, the ones with this old Italian frame/rack design. Most of them are not Bianchis; they have a slightly different frame and names like "Safari," "Gazelle," and "Grazielle."

    Safari folding bikes: red and yellow. One time we got a pair of red and yellow Safaris, and my friend Jamie dubbed them "The Redhead" and "The Blonde." (The patina of rust on The Blonde's fender actually looks more redhead-like than the shade of The Redhead, which is perhaps a dye job.) I loved these bikes and would ride them eagerly, while Jamie made naughty insinuations about my relationship with them.

    The heyday of these bikes seems to be the early 1970s. Folding bikes from the late 1970s onwards have detachable racks, and just aren't as beautiful and elegant.

    Italy doesn't have a monopoly on this design. Someone on flickr uploaded a photo of a "Plume Vainqueur" (a French bike, apparently) which also has an integrated rack!


    Related Links

  • Bike Friday folding bikes.
  • Bike National Convention 2004 (organized by TIME'S UP!).
  • Folds Up! folding bike ride (also organized by TIME'S UP!).

    • All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
        -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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