Many months ago I wrote about the Brammo electric motorcycle and how it can be very useful for commuting in and around town. I still think that it’s a great alternative to it’s gas powered cousins for those who are environmentally conscious. But for those who aren’t keen on motorcycles, electric or gas powered then there are several alternatives and I don’t mean inline skating or skateboarding, although those are good too.

What I’m talking about are other 2 wheel contraptions that cater to the needs of in town and suburban commuters called the bicycle. There are folding bikes, electric bikes and a spare tire bike. Spare tire bike? We’ll get to that in a bit, and of course the ever popular Montreal Bixi stations. If yo don’t know what a Bixi is then you better head over to Montreal and take a gander, yes I said gander. Every now and then I see a person on a unicycle but I’m not sure how well they do on the urban battle-ways of Montreal. Yes, I said urban battle-way b/c that’s what you have to do just to maneuver your way in Montreal. So let’s check out these 2 wheel contraptions.

If you go to www.foldingcyclist.com and click on the manufacturer’s directory there will be an impressive list of folding bikes to browse from. I’m not in the market for a folding bike but I like to look and see what the clunky chunky heavy folding bike has become. The folding bike I had many many years ago was heavy, it was a store brand model from a store that no longer exists, it was called El Pedalo and they had a store in Montreal, from what I remember, they were good folk.
Now the newer folding bikes are a tad lighter and some brands even focus on performance folding bikes, I never would have thought of folding bikes being performance oriented but they have them. And several of these manufacturers also changed the way the bike folds, the most common has been to fold them in the middle but now they fold in many areas to make it more compact. Since I live in the province of Quebec, here is a folding demo from GoBike, a folding bike designed in Quebec. They claim it takes 25 seconds to do the fold, that’s not too bad. You can peruse their website, it’s simple but you will have to contact them for prices. There are other manufacturers of folding bikes, Dahon comes to mind as well but you can check that out in the folding bikes link.

One of the other alternatives to pedaling is to use an electric motor to power the bike, this is all great and dandy but some of the so called eletric bikes rally look like underpowered scooters and they really throw people off on the bike paths. The Yike Bike looks nothing like these electric scooters, it is completely on its own. It looks great and appears to be comfortable. The one thing that gets me is the price, I guess that’s why they call it a Yike! The Yike is not a long distance scoot and come to think of it neither are the electric scooters, they have a max range and once that’s been reached then it’s time to plug it in and wait. Well at least you’re not paying for gas.

Now the next little blurb is special because the manufacturer’s background is not bikes, it’s automobiles. Volkswagen has decided to jump in and create an electric alternative and stick it into the spare tire well of their vehicles. Now this is just a concept for now but VW wants to make it a reality. The bike is well designed and it makes you wonder, why don’t other auto makers do the same? But this is not the first time that VW has offered a bike with their cars, they had the VW Jetta Trek being sold in the mid to late nineties. Okay, so the bike wasn’t electric, I’m just saying that it’s not the first time that the company has used a bike for marketing. Good job Volks! Way to go!

All this talk of bikes makes me want to go out and do some mountain bike riding but first I need to eat and then rest up a little and maybe see a movie or something, by then I may be too tired. Oh well, another day I guess.

Bixi bike station in front of work