Originally Posted by
OldiesONfoldies
This reminds me of a line in the movie "When Harry met Sally". Asked to describe a not so pretty girl, Harry said, "She's interesting".
From an aesthetic point of view, Ori's achiles heel is its strange goose-neck stem. A pretty girl with a crook neck, but with such promise. The folding seems interesting enough. However, the necessity of a front wheel removal seems like a pretty messy affair, unless gloves are included.
You don't have to remove the front wheel - and the fold is a 10sec job. very easy and straightforward. See
here for demo (albeit rather more violent than my usual folding routine. Gloves aren't necessary. Since buying, I spent a fair part of a year on a mad multimode commute that at times involved multiple (packed) trains and had to fold and refold, and had no problems at all.
Originally Posted by
OldiesONfoldies
Hope to get a chance to ride it but on first glance, its an "interesting" bike. My bet for the best 16" folder is still the classic Brompton or the brilliant Tikit (I have both). Its always hard to give an unbiased opinion without first test riding the bike. But on first impressions, the Ori has got to try harder or be priced sharper to take on the top dogs with such proven credentials.
Definitely worth having a ride. A quality bike, that is well priced for what you get - manufacturing standards are high, finish is pretty much unscratchable (anodised, not powder coated), luggage system that is more elegant and more practical (I think) than the Brompton. All together very well thought out. Could do with an extra top gear, but I sorted by replacing the rear hub with a Capreo hub and smaller Capreo cassette. The bike as been around for about 3 years now, and has been slowly upgraded, so is a fairly well tested concept, with a fair few around in London. Although the stem looks odd, its practical and well engineered - providing a better fold and more space in the cockpit. Again, worth trying out before criticising.
As I've said in other threads, the comparator here is the Birdy, not the Brompton - its like a hard tailed Birdy,which is not a bad thing. Indeed a Birdy riding friend (who grew up on road bikes and) prefers its ride.
Originally Posted by
OldiesONfoldies
The A to B Mezzo report sums it up; "It has some advantages over the Brompton, but does not clearly surpass the Brompton. "
I generally discount A to B on the basis that they overate Bromptons and their reviews can sometimes be a bit um unreliable. Peter Eland was incredibly generous in his review in
Velovision a couple of years back. (For those who haven't subscribed yet, Velovision is by far the best cycling mag out there by some way)