Why a folding bike may be the right choice for you

Not all of us have double garages to keep our boats, cars and bikes in. Space is often a premium, yet people’s transport needs don’t change. You need to get to work. You need to get about town and to see friends. Let’s look at why you may need a foldable electric bike.

Transport

Our privatised railway network is all about profit isn’t it? They pack passengers on trains like sardines in a can, and anyone thinking of riding a bike the final few miles to work from the station is having a laugh if they think that their commuter train will let them on with it – unless of course it is folded.

A folded e-bike that you can carry across a station concourse perhaps the size of St Pancras or Waterloo needs to be light. Lightness isn’t always associated with electric bikes. How about the Emu Mini Electric Folding Bike with 16” wheels that we sell here at E-Bikes Direct? This can be folded very small – certainly small that the train conductor won’t whine at you for carrying it aboard.

At 16kg the Emu Mini is one of the lightest electric folding bikes in its class, and can certainly be carried a few hundred metres from the platform to the station door. It is practical with three drum gears and when you’re blasting downhill towards a junction its Shimano disc brakes can really put in the stopping power. It is enough range to cover the final distance too, with a manufacturer claimed 18 miles per charge. You can get to work (and perhaps then to lunch) as well as the charge back home at the end of the day with that. Not only is this one of the lightest electric bikes, it also packs its battery away in the seat post, so most would not even know it’s an e-bike! Genius Idea. 

People often take 3 or more modes of transport. A car to the Parkway station, a train on from there and the Tube may not get you the whole way / may be unbearably hot and stuffy in summer. If it can fit in your boot, on the train and on the Tube then you have quite a good machine there!

Small homes

My brother and I have similar value homes. Mine is a four bedroomed house with a double garage, office and garden in the countryside. His is a two bedroomed maisonette in Earlsfield, SW London. You don’t have to be broke to need to live in what seems to others to be a cupboard. His place would be double the price in the City.

Where space is a premium you could always go for a folding electric bike that weighs a little more, for example the Byocycle City Speed Electric Bike. At 20kgs you won’t be running across St Pancras with it under your arm, but with 20cm wheels it will get you a bigger distance per pedal stroke. You will be able to fit it into a cupboard at home without much fuss. 

Apart from the Byocycle and the Emu Mini, here at E-Bikes Direct we sell a range of different electric folding bikes, so why not have a look around to see what we have on offer?