Originally Posted by
erintomatoes
Hi there,
I've been looking at folding bikes lately as I travel quite a bit, and I like the idea of keeping my bike in the office so it won't get stolen (hopefully). I'm a beginner biker, but I'm interested in biking around the parks and whatnot - for fun, not for commuting.
Are there good quality folding mountain bikes out there? I've been looking at reviews and whatnot, and I still don't have a clear answer - but the answer is teetering to a 'no'. Foldable bikes seem to be more appropriate for the road & commuting, not for biking to parks and long distances, but I wanted to hear some thoughts before I just went for a mountain bike and ate the extra fee on the airplane when travelling with it.
I'm rather short (5'2) so I'm going to go to a local bike shop for a fitting.
Price Range: ~$400-600
Many thanks!
ET
Being 5 foot 2 is going to severely limit your choices in buying a folding mountain bike with lots of standover clearance. I am assuming that you want to do some XC riding in the park, so 20" wheels are out of a question unless you have excellent trials riding skills. Your only option would be to buy a small sized 26" mountain bike and have the dealer install S&S couplers. This breaks the bike in half for travel. Something like that is going to cost you at least $1600 to start with, but worth every bit. For $600, you can buy a decent 26" mountain bike hardtail, but it will not fold. The Dahon Matrix may well be a bit on the large side even for a small, which is 15". They dont have small sizes than that.
Do not compromise on standover clearance especially if you fall and a safe way to bail.