Kickstarter Funded Folding e-Bike

A Kickstarter project for an e-bike that is fully funded. It is a very attractive design.


Kickstarter page for folding e-bike

The informational site (that doesn't have much information yet.)

Since a $1,390 Kickstarter pledge meant one received one of the early bikes at a "special" price one can deduce that the expected sale price will be somewhere north of that. A Dahon electric folding bike with a more traditional derailleur shifting system can be had for around $2,000, so that's a point of comparison in the folding bike world. Performance has a Schwinn 8-speed comfort bike (no folding) with a 250 watt front hub for $999, which is probably the low(est) end for pricing for what is probably an OK (not for heavy use) electric bike.

Putting the battery in the frame seems lovely from a design standpoint but not necessarily very practical otherwise, but in the notes to funders, apparently it will be possible to attach supplemental batteries.

A strong advantage of this design compared to many e-bikes is that it looks to be reasonably light. In one of the videos, someone commented on the bike being light, which is hardly the first thing people typically say about e-bikes. The Schwinn mentioned above, near as I can figure out, must be around 50 pounds (or about 20 pounds more than it would otherwise).

Otherwise it has some issues, I think. Looking at the set-up, there appears to be a single brake lever yet one can see two brake units, front and back. A single brake lever that controls both brakes? I know this is technically possible but it seems highly undesirable. There does not appear to be any shifting mechanism for the pedal-drive system - the traditional drive system that the electric drive in the front hub supplements. Perhaps it just a single speed bike? And the use of a direct drive system rather than a chain (or a Gates belt drive, if one is insistent on getting rid of greasy chains) isn't something I find appealing, even if it is a elegant design element. I suppose since it is an electric bike, the loss of some pedal power due to the inherent inefficiency of direct drive is OK. Real bikes have tires that run on roads and sidewalks etc where there is dirt - in the rain, quite a lot of messy stuff, actually - so while you can get rid of the chain, folding the bike may still involve some mess.

I find most puzzling the use of "recycled aluminum" for the frame - presumably this is recycled aluminum appropriate for a bicycle frame and not just former beer cans. Or perhaps turning former beer cans into 6061 bicycle frames or similar is easy.

At least this bike project got funded!

Shirlington - Officially "Bike Friendly"

New sign on bike trail near Shirlington - that one in the middle

A crew appeared today and installed the sign stating this is a "bicycle friendly community." (I realize I don't know if those signs stating the distances to various places were there before or not - I don't think so.) The sign faces the bicycle trail, as this picture mostly makes clear. There are several problems with this:

* The ones who need to hear this kind of thing more are the motorists in the sense of, "hey, don't run over the cyclists; this community is supposed to be bicycle friendly!" Ironically this sign is posted right at one of the worst crosswalks for cyclists in Arlington. Arlington is bicycle friendly, and by the way try not to get hurt crossing this street with cars zipping off 395.

* I suppose pointing this sign celebrating the League of American Bicyclists' designation of Arlington as a "bicycle friendly community" is fine but in the end, it's deeds not words. We aren't going to think, "oh yeah - Arlington loves cyclists because they put up this sign. We are going to think that because of useful things that the County does for cyclists (and their safety), which does not include the layout of this particular intersection (from a cyclist perspective).

It reminds me of socialist realism to have a sign proclaiming the glories not of today's reality but tomorrow's shiny future.

Washington Monument on Bike Commute

During my morning commute -

As a result of the earthquake, apparently climbers were going to rappel down the Washington Monument to inspect it; as a result, camera crews came early to get positioned to shoot video and stand-up news interviews. Around noon they were still there . . .

Bad Street Crossing for Bikes

Hoping traffic clears, then he'll finish crossing

This kind of thing is crazy - this cyclist, having seen this intersection before, assumes that the traffic pattern is the same every day. The cross traffic has the green light. Traffic from the left clears and then, usually, traffic from the right. So if you go out as he has done and wait in the middle, it should be possible to get across once the traffic from the right clears (without waiting for a green light, that is).

But what are motorists to think of this? They have the green light, and there you are in the middle of the road. There is no center island. And sometimes the traffic pattern doesn't work out and traffic ends up coming from both directions at the same time, and there you are, in the middle of the road with no place to hide.

Belgian Bicycles, 1910s (Photo)

Newly added to the Library of Congress Flickr collections online

Taken near the Belgian town of Diest, presumably during World War I. From the Bain News Service collection. As presented by the Library of Congress on its site, it isn't possible to "pull out" the images with bicycles much of the time, but users add tags in Flickr that help with that.


"France - Cyclists of Army" - another Bain photograph


The Austrians had some bikes, too.

Team 7-Eleven, by Drake & Ochowicz (Book Review)

Team 7-Eleven:  How an Unsung Band of American Cyclists Took on the World - and Won is a new book about the 7-Eleven sponsored cycling race team that was active in the 1980s. The blurb description of the books is as follows:

Founded in 1981 by Jim Ochowicz and Olympic medalist Eric Heiden and sponsored by the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores, the team rounded up the best amateur cyclists in North America and formed them into a cohesive, European-style cycling team. As amateurs, they dominated the American race scene and won seven medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. As professionals, beginning in 1985, the team went to Europe and soon received invitations to the Tour of Italy and then the Tour de France, putting Americans on the podium in landmark victories that would change the face of American cycling forever.

Prepared with the enthusiastic cooperation of the team members and co-authored by the team’s founder, Jim Ochowicz, 7-Eleven is not only the most important missing piece in the story of American cycling, but the book that American cyclists have been waiting for ever since the 7-Eleven cowboys snagged that first yellow jersey.

The two authors are respectively a journalist who wrote about Team 7-Eleven (way back then) and Ochowicz, the team founder and manager (among other roles).

I am not an expert on pro cycle racing history, so I will confine my comments to fairly obvious stuff.

The book takes the obvious (and sensible) approach of presenting the story chronologically. The beginning focuses on Ochowicz and Eric Heiden - in the early years of establishing the team. Heiden's role was probably more important than Ochowicz since he was so supportive of the team and was a publicity and sponsorship magnet. The critical piece to launching the team was securing sponsorship from the Southland Corporation, which is described in some detail. (It was connected with Southland sponsoring building of an Olympic velodrome for the 1984 Olympics.) Finally in chapter 5 (of twenty) Ochowicz starts hiring and building the first U.S. 7-Eleven amateur team. The next several chapters describe the highlights of the amateur team's racing before the professional team was established, and the most prominent riders, such as Heiden and Davis Phinney. Chapter 12 segues to the building of the professional team that would compete in Europe starting in 1985 - it is the activities of this "senior" men's professional team, primarily when in Europe, that occupy the remainder of the book. Most of the narrative describes key team developments and critical race successes (and failures). The most well known race successes are covered in some detail, such as Andy Hampsten's Giro stage victory in the snow storm.

The two authors clearly know the subject extremely well and had the cooperation of most if not all of the important team members. Since this was Ochowicz's team, it is probably not surprising that certain more unpleasant subjects are not really covered - in reading this I was reminded of military regimental histories prepared by unit historians. Generally everything covered is given a positive spin - not to say that failures or bad days aren't covered, but . . . One technique is to have negative commentary attributed to other parties - it isn't the authors saying that in their early European racing the 7-Eleven riders were crash happy cowboys; no, that was what the other riders were saying about them. And not to worry; after a few years the 7-Eleven riders matured. Some controversial subjects are simply left out, most notably the almost complete absence of discussion of use of drugs in pro cycle racing.

Whether because of the "authorized history" approach or for other reasons, the description of events is fairly flat; the examples of "wildness" are not very wild, and so on. Bob Roll, for example, is described as "eccentric" and the "team clown" but the included example of his idea of humor rather tame, particularly since one can read far more outlandish stuff about him elsewhere.

Who is this book written for? I'm not a big pro bike racing fan, but I know enough to understand basic tactics (about as much as I know about American pro football, I suppose) and it seems the authors are assuming at least that level of knowledge. For example, at one point a 7-Eleven rider manages to win multiple jerseys in the Tour de France on one day, including a "combination jersey" for best standing in all categories (different than GC) - since this category no longer exists, this is explained, but the subtleties of the other categories are assumed to be clear to the reader.

The book includes a fair number of both color and black and white photographs, chapter notes, a good index, a the senior men and women's team rosters for the years the team was active (otherwise there is little said in this book about the women riders), and a "where are they now" epilogue updating the lives of the main (men) riders.

In some descriptions of the book, it is noted that Lance Armstrong started with the successor team, Team Motorola, that took over this bicycle team after Southland ended its sponsorship - but wanting to know more Lance-history wouldn't be a motivation for reading this; he is only mentioned a few times in passing.

Closing Four Mile Run I-395 Underpass

Approaching underpass to I-395 from Shirlington side, Friday commute

After considerable amounts of rain overnight, Four Mile Run apparently flooded the bike path underpass for I-395.  By the time that I arrived on my commute, around 7 am, I think the flooding was already gone but I chose not to investigate and rode around (the old way, over 395 on the pedestrian bridge and down Martha Custis).

In the evening the barriers had not been "officially" removed but someone had pushed them aside.