Originally Posted by
tennisplyr3
It's interesting that you mention that. My first bike was a Kent mountain bike, which was really stable because of the wide and heavy tires. My current bike is a road bike, which I remember being really responsive to turn the first time I rode it. When I test rode the Brompton, it was ridiculously responsive, but I adapted quickly by just resting my hands on the bars. Do the tires wear out faster because they're smaller, e.g. smaller tire --> more revolutions for the same distance --> faster wear?
Theoretically, yes, the tires, hub bearings, etc. will all wear out faster, because they're doing a higher RPM for a given speed than a bike with normal sized wheels. A 20" tire will wear out 1.35 times as fast as a 27" tire, even if you don't take into account the effects of the higher RPM, simply because it has 74% as much road contact area as the 27" tire.
Unless you have a tiny apartment, a tiny office, or some other storage constraint for your bikes...don't get a folder. I have a pretty damn small apartment, and I fit three and a half full-size bikes in it. All about priorities I guess.