Hi Melissa,

The foldable bike until recently was best described as either good-riding or easy-folding, never both. There are now several excellent examples available in North America.

Your new Ritchey is unique as a full size (700c wheeled) collapsable framed version. Not expecting a viable market for his gizmo, Tom Ritchey rode one of these for years before making it available to the wider biker public. It is now also available from Dahon, a company specializing in foldable, mostly suitcase sized bikes. Dahon was formerly home to some generously described easy-folding types, but have recently revamped their line to include the good-riding versions.

Most suitcase-able types can usually sail through airline check-in procedures with little or no hassle.

One of the best suitcase folders out there is the Bike Friday. Started by the founders of the venerable, recently demised Burley, they were originally notable for fitting the whole bike into a wheeled standard case which becomes a touring trailer once the bike is removed. Bike Friday has possibly the widest assortment of models of any folder company, even a tandem.

A recent character in one of your columns, Matthew Bampton, has another prized example of a folder that actually rides well too, a British (such as himself) Brompton.

Another option, if money is no concern, is to have your custom frame fitted with S&S couplers. These are screw-together fittings that may be placed in several locations on the frame to allow varying degrees of packed-volume reduction.

By far the most common method of travel involves thoroughly disassembling your standard bike to fit into an airline friendly "travel case". These are very large heavy -duty plastic (mostly) foam lined cases designed for the occasion. At ~$400 bucks they are still a lot less than a folding bike you would actually want to ride. They are also often rentable from your friendly-neighborhood-bikeshop. The issue of re-useable packaging becomes problematic if one is point to point touring. Transport of your empty to the destination must be arranged.

Traveling with a bike is, unfortunately, a perennial dilemma at bike shops. Not enough people want to attempt it so few shops can justify stocking these exotics. We typically get one or two serious inquiries in as many years.

Karl

Nice post by karl below.

True . . . the BreakAwayBike is not "easy-folding". Still, it is sweet. Just back from four days in Denver with the Ritchey BAB. I arrived Saturday afternoon and left Tuesday afternoon, and with work in between, I still rode 180 miles. I'm really liking this bike, especially whizzing through airports with no hassles or fees . . . as though I was not transporting a bike.

I only have two small complaints about the Ritchey, both of which are easily addressed. First, the travel case included w/ the bike is "semi-hard" . . . which is to say, "not hard". Hmmm. I do not want the experience of unpacking my bike only to find some key component cracked or broken. Besides, the bike cost a lot of money and I want to protect my investment.

The solution? I bought some plastic compression members (http://www.sandsmachine.com/ac_comp.htm), which are basically sections of PVC pipe with flat plastic caps. Then I went to Back Bay Bikes in Portland and got some cardboard from a bike box. I cut both the compression members and cardboard to fit the Ritchey travel case. I placed on peice of cardboard in bottom of the case, put in the bike sections, positioned the compression members, and then place the second peice of cardboard on top, zipped up the case, and . . . Viola!. I am ready to transport my bike with stressing out about airport baggage handlers ruining my bike.

The second concern is the that the cable splitters bang against the frame on bumpy surfaces or while cranking up steep ascents. This can be easily fixed with a little stragically-placed closed cell foam and duct tape.

Otherwise, this bike rocks! Having travelled many times in the past with a full size bike box, I can say without hesitation that this is the cheaper and hassle-free alternative. Given the bike's price though, one probably needs to consider how often you will need to travel to justify the price of the bike. For me, I only now realize how many rental fees and shipping costs I could have saved over the years if I had only bought the Ritchey BAB sooner.

So far, I say that this (bike that dis-assembles) is an excellent way to make sure you don't have to give up riding just because you travel. Blake