Folding Bikes - Bike Nerd Confession: I'm so ashamed!

So a professor asked me to help her switch out her tires on her dahon 20" folder. No prob, except for the new schwalbes she bought were much fatter than the originals and rubbed on the front fender no matter how I tried to adjust it. I offered to take the folder back to my place so I could heat up the fender on the stove and bend it a little.
As I was walking across campus (too crowded to ride) I suddenly grew very self concious, feeling every bit like a 14 year old going to class with a fat pimple on my nose. I realized it was the bike. After rocking the fashion-fixie and the ultra high zoot road and mountainbikes, I actually felt silly tooling a 20" folder (note: it was covered in political bumperstickers too). Then, I grew doubly ashamed for feeling ashamed about something so trivial, and was thrice embarassed for getting so worked up about what kind of bike I was walking across a college campus. Perhaps after so much saddle time on the hipster bike, I actually became one?
What has this city done to me!?

Welcome to NYC my friend. I'm a prof. at Fordham, and I have no issues showing up in the morning looking like a dork on my folder with helmet and white t-shirt. I guess that's not too consoling...

My dork-looking, 16" wheeled folding Merc is more responsible for starting conversation with hot women at the gym inside campus than my Mercedes or my 2007 Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra. That may be consoling. :)

Yea, I have to agree. Guys ignore me when I'm on a folder but the ladies all want talk about it and touch it. BTW - if this post gets back to my wife, I'm going to deny ever writing it.... ;)

I've only been using the bike for a week getting to work, but the receptionist here seemed pretty interested; not sure what it is (can't be the bike, its just a bland black thing), but it got her talking, maybe its more interest in a guy that keeps himself in shape?

while riding down Commonwealth Ave in Boston I had an attractive woman in pink cycling shorts on a very high end road bike catch me at a light and quiz me endlessly about the folder I was riding ( I had just flown by her- I was late for work) suddenly a second woman pulled up on a more standard commuter and she, too, began to quiz me. The two women began discussing my "cute" bike as one would a puppy. The light changed and off I flew hoping that they were impressed by my speed but sorry to break up the party.

I think I look like a total dork on this bike by the way. Especially in comparison to my road bike or my all black commuter. I was pounding up a hill the other day when a high school kid saw me coming towards him and said to no one in particular, "Dip Sh*t". I paid him no attention so he repeated, "Dip Sh*t"- I ignored him again, then just as I was passing him he said it even louder, "Dip Sh*t!" I looked at him and said, "I heard you the first time." Somehow this cracked us both up and we started laughing.

I think I look like a total dork on this bike by the way.

Just about anyone, on any bike, looks like a dork to the average non-bicyclist. Particularly if you're commuting to work, and they've seen "The 40-Year-Old Virgin".

When it's a folding bike, well, you've gone beyond even that, into a certain level of uberdorkiness. But that's just part and parcel of riding a folder. I've gotten used to it, and sometimes even relish it a bit. :)

- Jeff

Hey Jeff, I moved to NYC from Nashville!

Maybe it's just a consequence of being part of the NYC bike culture. My hipster bike has actually caught the eye of hot artsy hipster girls...
(or perhaps that's what I just say that to myself as I weep quietly...alone)

In truth I work at a bike shop here on the weekends, and am totally digging the dahon MU bikes. If they made the SL with the nexus 8 (or just ditched the extras off the XL), I would totally rock that.
If you search back on this forum a bit too, you'll see that I also bought my mother a helios 8 for mother's day.

I don't know how I found this thread, but it made me laugh because I need to add this:

I drive a Miata, and the effect you are talking about is EXTREMELY familiar.

It could be worse. A girl that I ride with (on road bikes, on the weekends) calls my folder a "clown bike." So I'm a dork and a clown . . .

Regarding conversation starters, my folder (DaHon Curve) seems to attract questions and admiration from black women and hispanic men. But this Los Angeles.

Rick / OCRR

I completely agree with clown bike. I consistently describe my folder as a circus bike and even add in "Entry of the Gladiators" emulating a pipe organ.

I'm 6'5", I DO look like a bear on a scooter. Every time I get on my bright orange tikit my schweetie starts humming the circus theme. But it's cool to have a personal soundtrack.

My wife calls my folder the "monkey bike." (I'm 6'2".)

I recently acquired a new folder as an upgrade: a Dahon Mu Uno, to which I added black fenders, a black rack and a black handlebar truss.

By itself, the bike actually looks pretty cool.

That is, until I hop on! And then, it's clearly the monkey bike... but I'm okay with that. Really. ;)

(For my first significant trip with it I wore pants with zip-off legs, a T-shirt advertising my university's physics club and running shoes -- she just shook her head and pretended she didn't know me.)

My wife calls my folder the "monkey bike." (I'm 6'2".)

I recently acquired a new folder as an upgrade: a Dahon Mu Uno, to which I added black fenders, a black rack and a black handlebar truss.

By itself, the bike actually looks pretty cool.

That is, until I hop on! And then, it's clearly the monkey bike... but I'm okay with that. Really. ;)

(For my first significant trip with it I wore pants with zip-off legs, a T-shirt advertising my university's physics club and running shoes -- she just shook her head and pretended she didn't know me.)

What if you were to get an original Bell Biker helmets? That would be awesome. That was my first helmet and I wish I still had it.


Guess I should add a smily face to let you know I was kidding, huh? Hmmmm.

Would you seriously describe these people as dorks?:
http://www.dahonbikes.com/index.php?id=101

No, of course not, they're overly made-up, contrived-looking people on bikes that have never been ridden outdoors.

But anyway, the Mu frames look quite space age and the hydroformed Dahons and Terns even more so. And stock Bromptons look pretty smart since 2008/9.

Heck you ride around a strida and they'll think yer a techie or geek automatically. problem is I'm a techie in real life and totally geeked over the weird shape of the bike and design. It was soooo significantly different from the normal folding shapes I had to own one. :)