Folding Bikes - The B'Twin B fold

A folding bike at a ludicrously low price, the UK B'fold has 14" wheels, and '1' gear. A cult single-speed.

b'Twin are a French outfit who sell worldwide through the Decathlon sports superstores. They make a great s/speed 26" town bike for just £69.95 and the B Fold looks like one for the collectors. The French version comes with a 7-vitesse dérailleur.


http://i50.tinypic.com/28b9vue.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFEackT8_B0

I've seen several of them tooling around Paris, and b'Twin is probably the most common bike I see here by a good margin. Looks like a neat folder although not sure how it would manage my 100kg...

I saw the video and the bike looks very neat and different from a standard fold but:

- the fold only folded the bike DOWN but not in length.
- even though it folds to a long hunk of metal it seems like you cannot really roll the bike around (like a strida, you can even roll dahons and bromptons around)
- it seems very awkward the way he had to carry this long piece of metal lengthwise while it didn't really shrink the length of the bike it just made it a little easier to carry.
- looks like you are around going to hit people swinging around that long thing around in crowded places from the way they are carrying it.

Still i'm going to have to check this neat bike out to see how it is. It still would fit under my cubicle though :)

The UK price is very tempting, but the lack of gears on the UK bike a grumble. But next year, who knows? And are 14" tyres easy to come by?

B Twin are the Halfords of mainland Europe, their good bikes are expensive & their cheap bikes are heavy.

You can get tyres for the 14" Moultons from the likes of St Johns Cycles, but they are intended for kiddies bikes so i doubt there is much of a selection.

hmmm yeah just realized 14 inch tyres would really limit what you can choose from. mostly low pressure stuff. 2 more inches and at least you can get some 16 inch high pressure racing tyres.

Does anyone know what's the gear inches that bike is running on?

Looks like the old Bridgestone Picnica.

154367

^^^^

Gadzooks! It does.

Looks like the old Bridgestone Picnica.

154367

wow good eye! you found where the bike originated from. I was thinking this was a original design but now we know it's from another company.

The Btwin bfold is actually a Bridgestone Picnica the which patent expired few years ago. It has been now shanzhaied freely. http://www.foldingcyclist.com/Bridgestone-Picnica-folding-bike.html

Here's one on UK ebay, they just keep getting cheaper :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NIKO-FOLDING-FOLD-UP-BICYCLE-MADE-ITALY-/250646180053?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item3a5bad30d5