To help you find the best foldable bike for your needs, CR bought and tested more than a dozen conventional pedal-powered bikes and folding electric bikes.
There are a lot of factors to consider when buying a folding bike. First off, how will you be using it most of the time? If you plan to take the bike on public transportation, you should find out what accommodations the transit system in your area offers. Are there bike racks or somewhere you can stash your folding bike while you commute by train or bus?
Here, we walk you through key factors and highlight the models that stood out in our testing.
Space Considerations
If you’re going to be putting your folding bike in a car, make sure it will fit in your trunk or back seat when it’s folded. It’s a good idea to look at the bike you want to buy in person so that you can actually measure it. Not all manufacturers will tell you how much space the bike takes up when it’s folded. And with some models—especially the more sturdy ones—the frame won’t fold completely flat, and handlebars and pedals can stick out quite a bit. These bikes include the Schwinn Loop and the larger Montague Boston.
Weight
Make sure you’re comfortable with the weight of the bike. Some folding bikes are quite heavy, weighing more than 30 pounds. That’s in the same range as a four-pack of gallon jugs or a 50-inch flat-screen TV, difficult for some people to lift into a car. With a heavier bike, you may be more likely to scratch the car’s back bumper or accidentally smear bike chain oil on your clothes.
Folding
If you’re going to be carrying the bike for any distance, you’ll want a model that’s not only light enough but also folds in a way that you can handle. You don’t want to end up having to schlep a heavy, unwieldy bike that bangs into your legs constantly or makes your arms feel as if they’re going to fall off after a few minutes, as was the case with the Schwinn and the Montague.
Before you bring your new folding bike home from the shop, make sure you know how to fold it. CR’s testers found that instructions for how to properly fold a bike were often not included in the owner’s manual and that instructional videos online were limited. If you’re ordering online, it’s especially important to know what you’re getting and how to use it.
“It took a bit of time, and some digging on the internet, to figure out how to properly fold some of these bikes so that they’d be as small as possible,” says Bernie Deitrick, CR’s senior test program leader.
Ride
Folding bikes ride a little differently than standard-sized bicycles do. With their long handlebar and seat stems and smaller wheels, they tend to feel more unstable, although not in a way that’s unmanageable on most models. But be sure to test-ride the bike before you buy it, to make sure you’re comfortable with it. If you can’t test-ride it beforehand, make sure that you can easily return it and get your money back.
“Riding each of the tested bikes felt somewhat different, which shows that it pays to make sure the bike you want is a good fit for you,” Deitrick says.
Test Results
Below are some of the models CR tested from Brompton, Dahon, Montague, Schwinn, and Zizzo, listed in order of their Overall Score, which incorporates range, ease of use, and portability, among other parameters. Each of these folding bikes has particular strengths and weaknesses, but our testers found them all to be fairly portable transportation.
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