Folding e-bikes are portable space savers, but they come with some downsides, too. Here are the most important pros and cons of choosing a folding e-bike.
I always hate how folding bikes feel wobbly. I need my bike to feel solid.
they are great if you live in a metro that allows bikes on trains but not all the time or for some reason do not at all. Presumably then you are just using it for last legs that amounts to only a few miles on what should be good infrastructure. Otherwise there is not much point to using one over a real bike. Oh except maybe like if you want to bring it into the office and they don’t otherwise allow that. or just a tiny apartment.
They shouldn’t really feel wobbly unless you’re talking about speed wobbles when you’re going really fast but that can happen on fixed frame bikes too.
Con: asshole train conductors with a chip on their shoulder and a minor power trip will harass you for having one where it is explicitly allowed.
We got a folding cargo bike because we have zero indoor storage space and needed something that would fit in one of these because it’s all the available space we have in our small city backyard.
Do I wish I had a garage and room for a “real” cargo bike that didn’t fold? Sure, but the one I have works great for what I need it for and it does have some pretty awesome side benefits.
- We can fit the bike in the car and take it on vacation with us.
- It fits in an elevator or on a train in a pinch.
- Because the handlebars fold down and sideways and the pedals fold in you can push the bike through super narrow alleys and gaps that a normal bike wouldn’t fit through.
I’d love to own an urban arrow or some other epic long tail cargo bike but the folding aspect has allowed me to own a bike I otherwise wouldn’t have any proper storage for. So for me it’s a no-brainer.
