On Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 12:09:10 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 9/21/2018 1:03 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday I do a ride with 4,000 feet of climbing so I'm not In a hurry up any hills. But neither am I waiting around since I have to put in 600 feet of climbing to get to the start.

I started up my first climb and this buy probably 40 years my jr. came by on one of those foldable Dahons like I was standing still.

May his tires wear out and he not find a new source.

Tires are readily available from multiple sources.

A quality 18"-24" wheeled folder actually has some advantages over a
bicycle with larger wheels, though ride quality suffers the smaller the
wheels, unless there is adequate suspension, and even then it's not
pleasant on rough streets with small wheels.

There were a bunch of high-quality folders at Interbike last week:
Dahon: https://dahon.com/bikes/speed-d30-2/
Tern: https://www.ternbicycles.com/us/bikes/472/node-d16,
Oyama: https://oyama.com/product/cx9/
Chedtech: http://nexy.com/chedech/home/19-chedech-blue-flatbar.html

They are not cheap. These are not the $150 folders that you see in some
catalogs or on eBay. But there were plenty of low-end folders at
Interbike as well.

The reason I became enamored of folding bikes was the limited bicycle
capacity on public transit, specifically Caltrain (San Francisco/San
Jose). Now they've expanded access for more full size bicycles, but a
folder is still less stressful. Folding bikes are a good solution to the
"last mile" issue on public transit.

I've been offered several jobs in the Silicon Valley area. But the traffic there is so difficult it would take 3 hours minimum each way and I'm not about to throw away that much of my remaining life sitting in traffic. I considered the BART or Caltrains commute but companies don't even KNOW how far they are from these stations!