cjp87

Hi all, I just made a post on the general biking forum yesterday asking about a few bikes in general, and thought I would ask over here for a bit of clarification on the folder I'm considering. Does anyone have any experience with the Tern Joe C21? I can't seem to find any reviews online, and a search of this forum didn't really turn much up either.

I'll primarily be using the bike to commute to and from school and around town a bit (I have a car, but want to get away from using it for short distances). The ride to my lab at school is only about a mile and a half, and Norman, OK isn't a very spread-out city, so a lot of stuff I could get to within just a couple of miles either way. I also would want to use it to get some general exercise in, riding around backroads and longer distances like that (not offroading, just not on main streets). I'm 6' tall and about 210lbs (the Tern says it can handle 254).

The reasons I'm considering a folding bike are because it would be convenient to ride to my lab and just fold it up and keep it in my office throughout the day (I tend to start and end days there) rather than having to find a bike rack and chain it up, and because standard bikes would require a rack for my or my wife's cars, and even 2 26" folders could fit into the trunk of either.

Outside of that, I'm looking at standard bikes such as a Trek 7.1/7.2 or 7100 or a couple of road/cyclocross bikes on Bikes Direct (although local support from a bike shop would be preferable, or so I'm told). I'd like to keep things as close to $500 as possible since I'm a poor starving graduate student, and that's already quite a bit to plop down at once.

Thanks for your time, any help is appreciated.