Originally Posted by
feijai
This sounds like apologetics to me.
Sure, the torque involved in lifting a bike, and its unwieldiness, are all interesting issues. But at some point this becomes an excuse for a poorly designed bike. The Mobiky, notionally "aluminum", is thirty pounds before you even begin to add gizmos. I have hefted one before at College Park Bicycles. It is heavy. And not particularly convenient to carry about in the many situations where you can't roll it. For a bike in the (and I mean this with love) clown bike category, this is totally unacceptable.
This thread started with someone asking about 15 pound bikes: weight mattered to them. Folded rolling is not everything if you have (for example) three flights of stairs to walk. And this thread is now devolving into suggestions that they get just about the heaviest folding bike on the market (that I am aware of -- maybe a Montague is heavier, I dunno). I say they've not been well served.
No, it's not apologetics. It is simply a statement that the
ergonomics of toting a folding bike--the bike's (un)wieldiness when being rolled or carried--involves much more than its dead weight: how it is carried, one's posture when carrying it, its shape and size when folded, and whether it stays in that shape or you have to hold the parts in with your hands and arms, are all much more important than dead weight.
Of course the OP asked about
weight. But sometimes one must question the assumptions in the question itself. The
underlying question has to do with a search for a folding bike that's easy for a woman of average stature to carry. Before you pan a bike for being "poorly designed", and before you label a focus on
ergonomics rather than gram-shaving as a "devolution", consider carefully whether removing several pounds from the bike will actually address the real question.
Typically women have more lower-body strength than upper-body strength, so bikes that must be lifted and held out beside the body with one arm, no matter how light they may get (within practical limits), are likely to be harder for a woman to lift and tote around than a bike with a carrying handle that can roll, or a bike that can be held high up on its narrow, vertically-oriented, stroller-like frame so there's minimal lifting off to the side to do.
In any case, I suggested to the OP that she actually carry some bikes (some she might not have been aware of) in their folded states rather than focusing abstractly on weight, and I stand by that advice. There I believe the OP was very well-served. Reality trumps everything. If they work out for her, they work out. If they don't, they don't. I have no vested interested in either Mobiky or Strida.
Regards
T
P.S. Your comparing the Mobiky to the Montague actually underscores my argument about the importance of ergonomics. Are you really suggesting these two extremely different designs would be equally difficult to carry given their closeness in weight?
