Folding Bikes - Interesting Birdy Prototype on Flickr

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rench123
12-27-08, 12:02 PM
looking at wadacycle.jp's flickr site, I came across this cool prototype bike:



(Photo belongs to wadacycle.jp -- Just posting for bikegeekery's sake)

looks like it was a smart way of evaluating the handling characteristics of a small-wheeled bike. The headtube angle, fork rake, seatstay, and stem length could all be altered.

The flickr page could be seen here: http://flickr.com/photos/30482172@N04/2863124748/

Wadacycle's got a lot of folding bike goodies posted on his site!

Amuro Lee
12-27-08, 12:37 PM
Here is the foldable prototype on Riese und Müller's website:

http://www.en.r-m.de/company/r-m-story/gruenderjahr/
pm124
12-27-08, 10:51 PM
Looks like they used that to get the frame geometry of the Birdy correct. Funny way of doing it since they are engineers. But I guess paper and reality are two different things. Still, the frame has undergone a lot of geometric alterations over the years. They will never conquer the dual-suspension, small wheel hands-off shimmy problem, but not really an issue.

Yesterday, I did the Pai-Maehongson bike trip (110 Km with the most killer 25km climb I have ever done) on a 2006 monocoque Birdy. It had no problems on the 40-45 MPH decent. Could have gone much faster if it didn't have a giant chicken riding on it. (There is no medical care here in the mountains.)

I did the same trip 2 years back on a decent mountain bike. On the Birdy, I was a lot more comfortable and much faster. I beat my old record by 5 hours. I was expecting to get in around 7-7:30 PM, but rolled in around 2:30PM. What an amazing bike they've made.