Folding Bikes - the tikit for real commuters

bike friday owners, eat your hearts out:

http://www.utopia-fahrrad.de/Fahrrad_Html/Kapitel_Html/258_Gecko_111.html

Available in your choice of five different internal hubs. All with fully enclosed drive trains.

It's a nice bike. I wonder if they enclosed the chain or is it a shaft drive? An enclosed chain is quite unique in my opinion. It's looks like a 7/8 speed Nexus/Sram drive with a folding rear wheel similar to the Brompton. I like the fact put roller wheels on the rear rack like the Brompton which had a lot of influence on this bike. Very well designed.

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Gecko 14-G. Rohloff Grundpreis: 2.599,00 €

That's about US$ 5K.

You can have a twinky Brompton featuring a Rohloff for that. You may not have the fully enclosed drive train, but you do get a nice, compact folded bike that will impress women (lol).

Nice bike though.

It's a nice bike. I wonder if they enclosed the chain or is it a shaft drive? An enclosed chain is quite unique in my opinion. It's looks like a 7/8 speed Nexus/Sram drive with a folding rear wheel similar to the Brompton. I like the fact put roller wheels on the rear rack like the Brompton which had a lot of influence on this bike. Very well designed.
It's an enclosed chain. Click the link. There are lots of pictures that show all the details. I just posted that one picture because it reminded me of the tikit...except this bike looks like it could cut it in holland.

And you're right about enclosed chains being unique. A good full chain case is hard to get and, for those of us in the US, a bad one is hard to get too!


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Gecko 14-G. Rohloff Grundpreis: 2.599,00 €

That's about US$ 5K.

You can have a twinky Brompton featuring a Rohloff for that. You may not have the fully enclosed drive train, but you do get a nice, compact folded bike that will impress women (lol).

Nice bike though.
Brompton. Pfft. We're talking German engineering here. This has got to be worth something:


Martin Kuhlmeier der Konstrukteur des Geckos und frühere Inhaber der Firma Bernds-Fahrradbau ist heute bei uns Produktmanager und führt als Utopia-Partner ein exklusives Fahrradgeschäft in Hüllhorst. :p

Well, I can't read German, but I can read "13.5 kg." :D

And it looks as big as an XBox.

I'm sure it's a decent bike, but it looks like a tank to me. Where are the treads? ;) Regardless, Brompton still pretty much rules the roost in the "commuting folder" category, imo.

I wonder if cost is the main reason why you don't see a lot of German bikes in the US or on the ProTour circuit.....

Brompton. Pfft. We're talking German engineering here. This has got to be worth something:

:p

See...I am not a big fan of stereotypes, but I am affraid cars must be from Germany, money must be (unmarked, non-sequential) American Dollars, women must be from Brazil, cell phones from Japan and...pfft...bikes must be from England nowadays! LOL

14R

PS: This is a joke. 14R is an equal opportunity kind of guy, will date any nationality.

The Alfine 8-speed version is 15.1 Kg. No thanks, too heavy.

2599 Euros is about $3460 right now. No bargain, considering a Bike Friday or PBW Rohloff could be had for less and would weigh less as well.

I'm sure it's a decent bike, but it looks like a tank to me.
Well, yeah, but at least it's a proper tank with a fully enclosed drive train.

The rolling when folded mechanism does not look as good as tikit. The chain system looks interesting.

PS: This is a joke. 14R is an equal opportunity kind of guy, will date any nationality.

Date, but not ride.... :D

See...I am not a big fan of stereotypes, but I am affraid cars must be from Germany, money must be (unmarked, non-sequential) American Dollars, women must be from Brazil, cell phones from Japan and...pfft...bikes must be from England nowadays! LOL


+1

Surely, this is only a partial folder, it is too big to do the sort of things that I do with my GoBike, Stridas & Brompton, such as :-

Put them under a table in a restaurant

Put 3 folders at once in the boot (trunk) of my car!

Put in the front basket of my Long-john

Stash in any of the small lockers in my bus

Carry in my YakBob or Ibex trailers

Carry in a supermarket trolley with my shopping

Also quite a large proportion of the weight when folded is above the centre of gravity, it would be difficult, ungainly and tiring to push that lump around IMHO

Not that the Tikit would fare much better with it's 'French Horn' folded width LOL! :p