Two Folding Electric Bikes Offer Twofold Urban Mobility Solution
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They call it the first and last mile, an urban planning issue that has only recently crossed the threshold of collective consciousness, thanks to the ZipCar and bikeshare programs alike (Audi’s “A0” doesn’t count). Cliff Kuang neatly summed it up in GOOD back in 2009:
You know it, intuitively. Let’s say you’d like to commute on public transit. But if you live in a suburb—and ever since 2000, over half of Americans do—it’s unlikely that you live close enough to a station to walk. The same problem arises once you get to your destination: You probably don’t work anywhere near the closest bus or train station.
The bicycle is an obvious solution, though it remains stigmatized on several accounts, including portability and hygiene—specifically, carrying them on trains and elevators during rush hour, and the telltale perspiration of physical exertion. Thus, a pair of (independently designed and produced) folding electric bicycles represent a noteworthy step towards a viable solution to the ‘F&LM.’
Los Angeles-based Gabriel Wartofsky’s “Conscious Commuter” is easily distinguished for its ‘U’ shape—an arc that circumscribes the 20” wheels when the bike is folded—and shaft drive. It turns out that the vaguely parabolic frame is a contortionist: the frame twists on two axes that are parallel to the frame at two attachment points, such that the wheels overlap in the middle.
The “CMYK 2.0” folding e-bike by Manuel Saez, on the other hand, consists mostly of straight lines: the oversize aluminum tubing has a single angle at the seatstay cluster, set on appreciably smaller wheels. In fact, its length is fixed; the handlebars fold and the seatpost retracts in order to cut its total size in half, but the frame and wheels do not shift. This means that the basket (above the rear wheel) doesn’t add much bulk at all, but the reduction in moving parts comes at the expense of its size on both accounts: the folded “CMYK” is bigger than other folding bikes (it looks like it’s roughly the size of a golf bag), while the unfolded e-bike is smaller than the “Conscious Commuter,” for one.
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