Since May, our old web address a2b@onetel.net.uk has remained in use on our web site, but only accepting mail with the word MAGAZINE printed in the body, effectively screening out all automated mail. Our primary email address, for magazine subscribers only, changed to atob@onetel.net.uk and this remained unrestricted.
Onetel is now making its own anti-viral arrangements, necessitating a change to @onetel.com, so we’re changing again: a2b@onetel.com for casual web enquiries and atob@onetel.com for you lucky lot. Please wipe out all other addresses and use this one in future, because after 1st September the old addresses will cease to exist. No code words needed. Dead simple, eh?
Enough tedium – we thought it would be interesting to reveal which of our test bikes we’d most like to keep each month.This time, it just has to be the Helios SL. See what you think.
Those wishing to take advantage of the Eurotunnel Cycle Service might wish to note that the closest railway station is actually Folkestone West, not Central, as carelessly printed in the press-pack, and that the cyclists’ rendezvous point is not at the terminal at all, but south of the M20 near the Folkestone branch of Tesco’s. One trusts this information will spare other cyclists the ordeal of joining the M20 motorway for the final approach to the terminal and being apprehended by security guards on the premises. Eurotunnel, it seems, has procedures to keep cyclists out of the tunnel.
Next year, an altogether better option might be to join one of the World Naked Bike Rides, which tend to be urban events, and thus more easily accessible. Strangely, WNBR has received zero coverage in the cycling media, something A to B hopes to correct, with contributions from Spain (mainly bottoms), The Netherlands (rather formal, and exclusively male), and the USA (exuberantly uninhibited, as one might expect).
Er, yes. In 2005, they’re hoping to organise 1,000 rides. Perhaps they should hijack the London to Brighton? A bit more entertaining for railway staff, anyway.
But nothing is simple these days. National rail posters have to be cleared by the Strategic Rail Authority, Association of Train Operating Companies and each of the 25 railway companies, reducing even the most inspirational design to a committee-inspired shell, and the artist to a quivering wreck. Sure enough, the first draft was deemed ‘insufficiently off-peak’, the second contained ‘too many bicycles’, as did the third.The fourth had ‘no visible safety fencing’, the train ‘didn’t look like a real train’, the station – you guessed it – wasn’t a real station and there were too few pedestrians. Finally, and most ludicrously, ATOC felt the poster was putting too great an emphasis on ‘touring in the countryside’ – the raison d’être, surely? The great names of British railway poster art must be turning in their graves.
But for ‘worried . mum of Surrey’ (Letters, A to B 42), don’t think of buying your 14 year old an electric bike. Offer him a decent sports tourer with a reasonable rack/pannier/saddlebag arrangement. He’ll be fitter, stronger and more independent… never did me any harm anyway.
“The current issue of Modern Railways magazine has an interesting article by Roger Ford on car, train and plane energy efficiency (June 2004, pp30-31). Ford’s analysis, ‘suggests, and I expect that this will generate some howls of protest, that a family of four going by car is about as environmentally friendly as you can get’. He has obviously forgotten the bicycle, but then he is talking about long distance journeys. Given that in theory ‘nothing can equal the steel wheel on steel rail for environmentally friendly transport’, what has gone wrong? A new state-of-the- art Virgin Super Voyager weighs 40% more per seat than an Intercity 125. Second, faster trains use a lot more energy – cutting the London-Edinburgh time by 30 minutes increases energy consumption by one half. Is half an hour worth it? Third, new trains are badly engineered.The new Pendolino intercity trains use 14 times as much energy for lighting as the trains they replace. How can this be?”
For some time we’ve been predicting that the winners and losers from the next generation of folding bikes will be judged in terms of weight. On a conventional bike, light weight is little more than a good talking point, but a folder has to be carryable. We’ve lost count of the strapping great fellows who’ve told us they can’t understand our enthusiasm for lightweight folders. And if you too can run the length of Clapham Junction with a 15kg bike, or heave it over the sill of a car boot, you won’t really be interested either. For the rest of us, lightweight folding bikes are the future.
We judged the conventional Stelvio to have similar rolling resistance to the Brompton or Primo, which was slightly disappointing, but it weighed a few grams less, and was better suited to narrow rims. At 172g, the new ‘Light’ version fitted to the SL is probably the lightest production 406mm tyre in the world. It’s hard to believe that not so long ago, the 260g Primo Comet was considered a world-beater…The Light Stelvio rolls well too, reaching an excellent roll-down speed of 15mph on our test-hill, but in this respect, it’s still narrowly beaten by the Primo. Schwalbe has launched the tyre as a ‘Dahon Special Edition’ in snazzy orange and black, although a mass-market version is expected in the autumn.
As compromises go, the ratios are more or less perfect.The 34-inch bottom gear should get the Helios up most gradients without too much huffing and blowing, and the top gear of 88-inches is tall enough to nip along on the flat with a following breeze, but not high enough for spinning down long gradual descents. Power transmission is wonderfully direct and there’s very little flex from the rear of the bike, so the Helios SL tends to encourage you to work hard and reward you with the desired forward motion. Standing out of the saddle is less satisfactory, because there’s quite a lot of flex in the front of the frame and the handlebar stem, which feels too frail for grunty, sweaty riding. Whether this is enough of a problem to put off the more seriously athletic types remains to be seen. A Bike Friday is certainly tauter, and thus almost certainly a little faster, but within the slightly flexy limitations of the Helios frame, the SL runs a surprisingly close second. And don’t forget how much money you’ve saved.
Elsewhere it’s hard to see where the weight has been shaved off.The handlebars look like carbon fibre and are called Carbonlite, but seem to be made of aluminium. No matter, they’re clearly very light and they look the part. Speaking of looks, the orange and black tyres, black frame, black stem and orange/yellow saddle may not be your cup of tea, but the general effect is suitably striking. As evidence for this, the hot wheels elicited a nod and grunt from a passing racer – a rare occurrence with a small-wheeler.
Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, have been around for years.We don’t need to worry too much about how they work except that in place of the old-fashioned white-hot bulb filament, there’s a gap where electrons, er, sort of vault across, giving off light in the process. No filament to burn out or vibrate to bits (life is effectively infinite in bicycle terms), greater efficiency, so batteries last longer and/or weigh less.
Living without a car brings its own joys, but add a tandem to the equation and life gets more complicated. Given the attitude of most train operating companies to tandem carriage, long distance rides are tricky indeed. My wife Anna and I planned an epic from Portland Bill in Dorset to John O’ Groats in the far north: ride up, train back, simple. Except that the Thurso-southwards train doesn’t take tandems, and nor does the Scotrail bike-carrying road van which runs parallel to it in the summer.
The production Sprint is broadly the same as the Forza prototype we tried back in June 2003, so won’t dwell too long on the detail. Beneath the skin there’s a new power controller with larger and better cooled something- or-others, and the charger has been slightly derated to reduce overheating in that department. The headlight has changed too – it’s bigger and altogether sexier- looking, but just as feeble in practice, although a better dynamo works wonders. And in place of the bargain-basement trip computer there’s now a decent Cateye or Sigma. Also standard is a chunky centre stand, a bell, and – nice touch this – a plastic track pump and cable lock.
Superficially, the Ezee Rider is identical to the wildebeest (sorry, Sprint), with the same generous component package, but it costs only £690, and the technical spec is cruder and simpler.The neat NiMH battery has been replaced with an old-fashioned lead-acid pack, which is almost twice as large and weighs a back- breaking 13.8kg (slightly more than the Powabyke battery). Obviously an off- the-shelf purchase in China (it’s strangely familiar), the battery pack doesn’t align with the Ezee battery lock, but it’s hard to imagine someone trying to steal it anyway. An additional complication is that the larger battery necessitates a taller and more upright saddle stem, so shorter people may find the 91cm minimum too high.
We’ve never been particularly fond of the 16- inch Di Blasi bicycle. Certainly, it has a clever folding action, but at 14kg it’s on the back-breaking side of heavy, it has too many wobbly joints, and it simply doesn’t stand up in comparison to your typical Brompton or Dahon.We’ll hold fire on the newer 20-inch version, which might perform better.
And now, having got enthusiasts for folding and metamorphosing things all steamed up with excitement, we must qualify the more amazing bits.Try lifting the trike, and you’ll discover that it’s a lot heavier than a Brompton – 20.2kg to be precise (Di Blasi, rather unnecessarily, suggest 21kg), whereas a typical folding bike weighs 12kg or so, which most people can manage, at least over short distances.Twenty plus kilograms really is too heavy for the older or frailer folk who might want a trike. A young, able-bodied person might be able to carry it, or lower it into a car boot for you, but on your own, you’ll be stuck.We found a lightweight sack-truck useful for moving the Di Blasi about, but this won’t negotiate steps. Di Blasi do sell a neat bag with a shoulder strap that would make carrying easier and give some disguise on the bus.
Strangely, few concessions have been made to weight. Besides the cranks and wheels rims, the trike is almost entirely steel (even the rack) and some of the joints and brackets are pretty chunky.We think a weight of 15kg would be feasible with better use of materials, although this would obviously cost more.
A slightly unusual issue this time because we’re overwhelmed with bikes.This has meant squeezing out The Mole (no doubt back on full form for the next issue) and much else has been cropped to make room, but with so much fascinating hardware around, we guessed you’d rather we cut the waffle and made space available.
I am looking for a lockable secure housing for our bikes which can be bolted to the front of our house. I found a company that sold such objects through your advertisements but can no longer locate the company. Could you help?
We were rather chuffed to find a handy padlock that fits snugly on the ever-faithful Brompton, disappearing inside the frame when the bike is unfolded. It is called Wedlock and is made by Specialized. We bought it here in Switzerland from a mail-order shop called Véloplus (www.veloplus.ch), but it may well be available elsewhere now. It obviously adds a bit of weight to the bike, but we have found it rather nifty. It folds out like a concertina and is great for securing the bike to likely-looking poles when it is not feasible to carry the bike inside (although I am getting quite shameless – my Brompton enjoyed its first trip to the cinema recently, as well as happily shopping in supermarket trolleys, on the strength of A to B’s advice!)
This winter I have been using the Brompton and bus to get to work. At £1, it’s a lot cheaper than the £3.80 rail fare from Redhill to Croydon. The luggage rack could be almost purpose-built for a Brompton. Another advantage is there are no steps up and down from the platform.
I am looking for a good folding bike in the 20-inch size for longer trips (I commute 14 miles every day, plus train, with a Brompton, but the ride is a bit too far some days… I read about a folding bike today that I haven ìt seen or heard about before. It does not appear to be listed in your website Buyer’s Guide or Price List? So, I am wondering if it’s a brand new thing, or is there really nothing new in the biking world? It looks really cool and it is called GoBike. It seems to be Canadian, and can be found at www.legroupego.com
My son has just turned 14, and I am thinking of buying an electric bicycle for him to use to get to school (seven miles of country lanes, including a steep hill both ways); to town (four miles of the same); to after-school sports and to visit friends. I know very little about this form of transport and would appreciate some advice.
Our criteria are safety and reliability, along with the capacity (in terms of both power and space) to carry substantial bags of books/files and/or sports kit (including, if possible, racquets/bats).We also need to know about re-charging the batteries (the school run is six days a week and includes late evenings). Oh yes, and if it looked a bit cool, that would be a bonus! What we really need is a Which? magazine type guide to electric bikes.
A little under three years ago, Giant revealed the Lafree Lite, raising the stakes in the electric bicycle world overnight.This quietly understated machine was quite simply Light Years ahead of the opposition. At 22.2kg, it was lighter than almost everything else, yet it was well equipped, and offered a reasonable 20-mile range. Crucially, it was also a really nice bicycle to ride, either assisted or with the motor turned off. A year later, the Lite was joined by the Comfort – £200 more expensive, but complete with decent brakes, automatic halogen lights, front suspension forks and a suspension seatpost.
If you think 23 miles isn’t far, remember we’re riding fast in hilly country. On a more leisurely 30 mile jaunt with Alexander in the child seat, the ST came home with two ‘fuel’ lights still glowing out of five. On the ‘ECO’ setting, we’d say 40 miles would be quite within reach with care.
Not so long ago, the renowned Joe Breeze – inventor of the mountain bike to some – decided to import a line of folding bikes into the States, as part of his Breezer label’s move away from the MTB.Whose products would this giant of the US bicycle world choose as a partner we wondered? Birdy perhaps? Or maybe Brompton – both were looking to improve their US representation at the time.To our enormous surprise, Joe settled on Oyama, a Taiwanese/Chinese manufacturer of crude, toy-like machines from the murky basement world of budget folders.
Owning both a Giant Lafree and a Powabyke I’d always felt they would be ideal for pulling quite a sizeable amount of gear about, and that without a trailer, I was not making best use of them.The Croozer Cargo from Zwei plus zwei seemed to promise a lot (lightweight but reasonably strong construction, easy fixing to most axles, 30kg payload and a reasonably straightforward fold) and at £125 it wasn’t too expensive. Having never even ridden a cycle and trailer combination before I was understandably apprehensive about taking it out and about on West Yorkshire’s often busy roads.
This article dates from June 2004, and the Step-Compo has long since disappeared. It was a brave effort by the Japanese – a lightish, stylish folding electric bike, but it was soon overwhelmed by cheaper Chinese tat
The Honda Step Compo’s nickel-metal hydride battery is genuinely handbag-sized, weighing just 2.2kg.The problem is a capacity of barely 84 Watt/hours.To put that in perspective, the Lafree has a 156Wh battery and the Ezee Forza 314Wh – almost four times the size. Surprise, surprise, the Step’s bijou battery is lighter, but gives barely a quarter of the range. Riding our usual hilly ‘mountain’ course, the Honda managed only 9.7 miles at a modest 11.8mph. Riding exactly the same course on ‘ECO’ yielded a range of 10 miles at 11.6mph. Honda claims a range of 121/2 miles with normal power and 19 miles on ECO.That might be possible in laboratory conditions, but you’d be lucky to achieve anything similar on the road.
As an internet buyer, the experience was simple. I chose, I clicked, I bought, it arrived the next day, I unpacked, unfolded, fitted the seat, and rode. And nearly fell off. But although your first ten seconds on a Strida are bewildering, your brain quickly reprograms your senses. It’s short, rigid, nippy, and surprisingly comfy. My wife at 5′ 7″ thought it was great, because the riding position really is very upright, and the clever adjustable seat slides up and down the rear of the ‘triangle’ (after loosening three bolts), making it comfortable for both the short and the tall (six foot is probably the maximum though).The handlebars are placed very close to your body, which is unnerving at first, but quickly becomes very natural. It’s sort of steering from your stomach – none of this stretched-out-racer-style lark. I imagined I’d be thrown out of the seat upon mounting pavements and bumping over long grass, but the frame changes (see below) must have worked, because it feels far more rigid than a Brilliant Micro on the road, but is still compliant enough to tackle towpaths.
Strida have made several improvements to the third generation bikes, claiming that the new folding handlebar reduces folded dimensions from 45″ x 21″ x 20″ to 45″ x 21″ x 9″, which reduces folded volume from 309 to 139 litres (10.9 to 4.9 cubic feet)!
To find out if it can cut the commuter mustard, I draped a sheet over my 24-speed Dahon, hung up my pannier bag and resigned to cycling my 11-mile round trip commute on the Strida for a week. I (luckily) don’t have to rely on public transport for any part of my journey, so no news there I’m afraid. First morning out, I allowed an extra 20 minutes, but the ride took only four minutes longer than normal, which surprised me. No drama. No stress, and no obvious flexing from the frame. Every morning for the rest of that week the thought of riding it to work became an exciting challenge.The simplicity of the bike – one gear, drum brakes, and not much else – made me feel like a little kid again.
This article was first published in June 2004. Ezee has more or less gone out of business now, and big heavy electric folding bikes like this are very much a thing of the past
Make your dreams come true! Come to the USA and leave with a small fortune.The time-honoured way to do this is to bring a large fortune with you, arrive in Las Vegas and spend a month or so gambling the nights away. If you are lucky, you will leave Las Vegas with a small fortune. If you are unlucky, you won’t have enough money left to buy breakfast.
I know of only one successful electric bike shop in all of the USA. It is in our Pacific Northwest, in the state of Washington.The owner has by far the best American website in the business (www.electricvehiclesnw.com) and even he uses the website for occasional grumbles about the market. How can this lack of interest be explained?
Tale of our times: Like many, we were finding the burden of unsolicited emails a bit tiresome and decided to reopen our long disused email address box at atob@onetel.net.uk in place of a2b@onetel.net.uk, because it seemed a more logical address anyway. What we didn’t know is that many of you have been communicating with atob@ for years, presumably without reply. When we activated the address, tens of emails fell out, some quite old. If you’ve been waiting years for a reply, do try again. Otherwise, please alter your address book, because a2b will soon be extinguished.