Consumer Reports tests folding bikes
 

It's all behind a pay wall. No idea if it's insightful or misses the mark.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bikes/?

Fairly high level overview. Brompton scores highest of the tested bikes (Brompton, Zizzo, Dahon, Montague, Schwinn).

Reviews of the individual bikes are short and to the point. Two or three sentences, maximum.

Did they just compare specs,or were they actually ridden by folks who know bikes?

They reference how testers felt about the ride... so it's not just comparing specs. They break things down to five broad categories and grade the bikes on 5 point scale in each category.

Folding, Portability, Braking, Hill climb, Cruising

Pretty good list. Ride quality would be another, but is more subjective and also very dependent on tire size, and maximum fit range for the given bike.

I'm not paying to see the results...

They judged that Zizzo Euromini Urbano offered the best value among the tested bikes.

These consumer tests for bicycle are most of the time useless and its even more the case for a folding bike for which there are so many different features that cannot be compared.

What is the importance of "best value for money" if the bike cannot be carried because its too big folded or/and too heavy?

What is the importance of "best value for money" if the bike doesn't ride well enough to do the required distance with a decent comfort and in a decent time?

What is the importance of "best value for money" if the bike requires too much time and effort to be folded to fold it several times a day for commuting?

These are just some examples of some of the requirements for a folding bike that have nothing to do with the usual customer tests best value for money estimation (I do not mean that what I wrote is the case for the Zizzo Euromini).

When I know little about a product area, I find such tests and opinions a good starting point, either as a basis for further exploration or to be followed directly, when I have no interest in further exploration for one reason or another, e.g., because the product is far from critical to my life. When I am an expert, I can be critical of consumer tests, but I can also be just as critical of advice on forums. I wish I had heard a Brompton advice when buying my first folder, rather than trusting a forum recommendation of picking a bike that rides like a full-size one.

These tests from Consumer Reports are North America based and have nothing to do with the international market. You may not like what they have to say, but oftentimes how you feel is irrelevant to how Americans/Canadians see it. Unfortunately, our way of life revolves around gas powered vehicles, as our towns and cities aren't walkable, unlike quite a bit of the world. Our usage is oftentimes just "fold & go", because we don't usually have such space limitations. We're not better off, we're just different in our needs. I don't need to worry about taking a folder on a train or bus. I don't like to do it because I'm the type of individual who doesn't want to inconvenience others. It's the same with my electric scooters. I can bring them aboard the train, but someone would lose a seat because of me. I feel it would be an a*****e move on my part, so I don't do it.

There are many different manner to use a folding bike that have (very) different requirements, some examples:
- folding bike to travel by air, train...
- folding bike for multimodal commuting bike+subway+bus...
- folding bike to be transported in a small car like the Miata mentioned by several forum members, folding bike to be transported in a small private airplane, a boat.
- folding bike for short distances
- folding bike for big distances
- only on paved roads or on trails
- folding bike that must be carried by hand over relatively long distances

Such a best value for money is just meaningless because it doesn't take into account the use of the folding bike.

BTW., such consumer test reports exists also elsewhere than in the US.

Really, you don't say... I didn't specify JUST the USA, and I stated that CONSUMER REPORTS is North America geared. I said different criteria for different geographic locations will mean different priorities for reviewing. It's usually more simplistic for our needs. Didn't you UNDERSTAND that? Americans are usually more concerned about price point, and Consumer Reports has ALWAYS been an America first BARGAIN for the value magazine. Unless you know this personally, like I do, you can't actually have an opinion on the rag (magazine)...

Consumer Reports is (and has been for at least 50 years) the monthly hard-copy publication of Consumer's Union. For the last 15 or 20 years, they also sell on-line access. They take absolutely no advertising revenue, and they subsist on subscriptions and donations. They have litigated hundreds of pro-consumer lawsuits, including the famous Bose vs. Consumer Reports, where the infamous sleazy speaker manufacturer sued them for libel.

You can purchase as little as one-month access. It goes to a good cause.

I would never buy a car or a large costly household appliance without consulting their reviews. I never thought about bicycles, but it is probably a good idea.

Good points. For the generally suburban, middle-class subscribers of Consumer Reports, their primary use case for a folding bike will be to simply take up less space in their SUV or RV. They're not likely multi-modal travelers, and even if they were, they'd be (hopefully) doing more research than just this single Consumer Reports article.

Overall, I think it's good exposure for folding bikes in general to be in a general consumer publication like Consumer Reports.

I agree. My question would be, when they evaluate cars, do they limit it to the test facility track? Or do they also take them home for a week and live with it daily? Some of the car mags would do a "long-term test", like a YEAR, and man did that expose issues. Someone I knew preferred to buy a car that they could rent for a long weekend and drive a couple hundred miles, you see things that you would not see in a 10 minute test drive. I saw old Packard print ads inviting customers to do that (Packards generally had affluent clientele).

My point being, I'd respect a folding bike review more if it involved extended use, and notes about how and why it was folded, and rotated around the staff with different use profiles, such as RV or boat use, train commute, bus commute, etc.

A big part of their car evaluations includes insurance industry and government crash tests, their own crash tests, and reliability and repair records (which includes their own customer feedback).

I may have to get a subscription now. I forgot how much good they actually do here... Thank you. :beer:

Bose sleazy? The fact is that in the Bose vs Consumer Union case, CU lied in their speaker review and got away with it.

The Bose Corp. versus Consumer Union case decision boils down to this: CU published false statements about the Bose 901 speaker system, knowing them to be false. The Supreme Court said yes, the statements were false, but Bose hadn't proven that the false statements were published with intent to harm, and so CU was off the hook.

The equivalent in our world would be Bicycling! magazine publishing a review in 1984 stating that bikes built with Columbus SL tubing were invariably more comfortable than those built with Reynolds 531. Reynolds sues. The case winds up in the Supreme Court, where the decision goes to Bicycling! on the grounds that, while the statement that bikes built with Reynolds 531 are less comfortable is false, the Bicycling! review was not written with the intent to harm Reynolds and thus was protected per the First Amendment.

From this page:

'After an extended trial on the liability issues, the Court ruled that the plaintiff [Bose Corp.] had failed to prove allegations of unfair competition and Lanham Act violations. Accordingly, the Court entered judgment for the defendant [Consumer Union] with regard to counts I and II of the complaint.

'With regard to the claim of product disparagement, the Court ruled that the plaintiff had proved that the defendant published a false statement of material fact with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Id. at 1277."

Consumer Union then appealed, asking for a reversal of the latter ruling, and the Supreme Court found that, while the magazine had indeed published a false statement about the Bose speakers, Bose had not proven that the false statement was published with the motivation of "actual malice."

In short: the cork-sniffer would-be audiophile who wrote the CU review had described the stereo imaging of the Bose speakers in unflattering terms (e.g., the violin sounded as if it were "10 feet wide"; the instruments "wandered between the speakers"). The editor of the review then decided that the description was insufficiently unflattering and reworded it here and there to, e.g., "wandered about the room"). The Court found for CU only because, as they said, Bose hadn't proven that the bad review represented "actual malice" on CU's part.

Nothing like that exists for folding bikes.

And the only common point between all folding bikes is that in a way or another they fold.

But there are huge differences between folding bikes, comparing for instance a Change Bike and a Strida (or a Kwiggle or a Carryme) looking for the best value for money is meaningless, for car it would be similar to compare a Dodge RAM Charger and a Ford Ka ending up that because the ford Ka is much cheaper its a better value for money.

Yeah, whatever.

One additional note - the Bose lawsuit was from a review published 55 years ago.

As an aside, the Bose 901s are a bucket list item I may never get

It has meaning for me, and many readers of Consumer Reports, if they continue to use the term. If I wanted a folding bike for occasional use that I didn't want to spend too much on, I would go with Zizzo.

Wait, why is Bose sleazy?
(I'll admit it... I'm out of the loop)

They're not.

Cute story about the popularity/marketing magic of Bose:

Anthony, who at 16 worked in a bike shop I managed, lived in a wealthy section in Baltimore, where a lady in a nearby house gave him her pair of Klipschorn AK7 speakers because she'd bought a tabletop Bose Wave Music System and didn't want the Klipschorns cluttering up her living room.

Evidently you missed a recent TV commercial for Subaru, where they quoted CR's high ratings.
Somewhat shocked by it, and leads me to believe CR got paid.
Possibly their first of many ventures into revenue generation, which, in my estimation, damages their impartiality.