Do you still ride a bike or do you already kwiggel?

[Skybird]

And here it came today.





The version I have weighs 10.1 kg. Folded it indeed fits into the packing box of 55x40x25cm (one pedal taken off and attached to a special spike on the frame). You can carry it folded, you can pull it like a suitcase trolly, you can carry it surprisingly easy and comfortably in fully unfolded condition. Unfolding I do in less than 20 seconds now, folding takes me 30-40 seconds, but I think I can loose another 10-20 seconds there.

The first practical impression was a deasaster, it even was horror just to mount that damn thing, the saddle is so high, and when you "sit" on it it provides zero stability, but swings your bottom left and right by 45°. The steering grabs are narrow and the hands are close to each other, so you wiggle in all three axis and cramp your hands around it in a desperate attempt to find stability, and there is none, and all the time your back swings
left and right like that of a duck on landwalk. Horror!

I managed my first slow and fearful circles, stumbled severla times, crashed gently. One must know and expect this and calculate this in: the first meeting with the Kwiggle is different than any bicycle thing you have ever tried, and it is no fun in the first 100 seconds, its drama.

I then started to drive in ovals and 8-patterns on the garage backyard (its a quesaiton of balance, the bike is inbcredibly agile and turns in closest of circles around manhole cover) , my fingers cramped around the steering handles, i razored the bushes, I shaved the dirt off the garage doors, in the first 5 minutes I tried to hit every possible obstacle there was just to prove that it can be hit, and all in all I have just given a pitiful and ridiculous sight. Thankfully, I was alone. Until a neighbour came, for his car, he saw me and burst into laughter. "Your bike seems broken!", he said. I then showed him what it is and folded it and showed him that small thing, too. He laughed no more. He suddenly was very interested.

I spend around 20 minutes driving racetrack patterns, ovals, 8s, did stop-and-goes. Then I got my bicycle gloves out of my garage (the sdteering grabs have rubber spikes I do not like that much, and then launched for the streets. Splash into he cold water.

I did not plan for much, I did part of the short tour I videoed last year, the first half of my jogging trail before turning for the woods. And then the switches flipped into other positions, and the rest all fell into its right places. All of a sudden, I got into the right rythm, and then things started to swing. And I mean that literally! It swings. No more cramps in my hands and fingers. No longer my body bowed forward, but was tall and upwards. That maybe was after the garage backyard practice plus 2 kilometers on the street. I relaxed. Started to trust the thing.

The trip for the close neighbourhood got extended for the nearby central garbage dump. And from there it got extended to around the Rieselfelder. And halfway through them I extended it further to the town of Greven, that is 16km away. And 16km back.

Fantastic experience!

You know, it does not feel like driving a bike. It feels like - jogging, running. The bike frame constantly wiggles left to right, in rythm with your feet. You see that from race drivers when they stand up from the saddle and do a standing sprint in the pedals. Since you more stand then sit on this thing, your shoulders swing left and right and even more and back and fourth, like a runner. And since it is very flexible steel (you sit like on a mounted spring), you also swing in the vertical, up and down, like a runner intentionally accentuating the vertical movement. You swing in all directions. Really its more running than bike-riding. And you are fast despite the small wheels! I easily drive with the speeds of my normal classical bicycle - just that I do not get that tired and exhausted that much, do not breath that heavily, do not sweat that much. Its same and slightly faster speeds, less hardening in your back's muscles, and less effort. You feel like a miracle runner.

The downsides: the wheels are small, you have to look out carefully where you drive, holes in the ground and obstacles you would not care for on a normal bike, can make you crash if you slam into them unprepared. The dampening, despite the ballon tyres, is harder than on my other two bikes. The heavier your step (hills up), the more you wag your tail, like a duck, whereas in normal driving mode on level terrain, you lower back is almost stable and raises no attention. . The concept of wanted instability (I call it the F-16 effect ) needs some time to get used to, in the beginning it causes "panic" LOL. The slower you drive, the more instable this bike becomes. Stopping and going at traffic lights definetly needs some adaption time, I would absolutely not recommend to take this bike and immediately jump into the dense traffic in the city centre. Practice first.

These all are factors that can be countered by training effects. You should calculate with some time needed to fully adapt.

But the driving/running experience is pure swing!

I absolutely recommend it. The thing is a hit. I totally porefer it to for exmaple a Brompton, its lighter, smaller, and nicier to run. Eh, drive.

I could read from the facial expressions of some people that they did not trust their eyes, however. Better drive with with a sense of humour and a healthy ego. Personally, already on the way back from Greven I did not care anymore, did not even realise it that much anymore.

I dont need this. But I want it. Makes for a great change form my usual biking.



(Steering bar is fully extended and that is too high, usually the handles are one handwidth above the saddle's height)


P.S. Due to the geometry, this thing has little weight on the front wheel already, so there is a certain risk of making an unwanted wheelie if you lift the front wheel to hop over an obstacle or rimstone, and then you fall backwards. The risk is real and one must be aware of it. At hillclimbs, lean forward a bit, before lifting the frontwheel, completely stand in the pedals, do not touch the saddle, then its safe. I dont say the bike is dangerous or unsafe, it isn'T, but these risks are - lets say they are accentuated compared to a normal bicycle.

I also tested the risk of dropping forward when breaking hard. I found it was not possible for me to get close to such a state. I estimate my top speed was around 27-30 km/h, and even when breaking as hard as possible, I felt nothing indicating that risk. The frontal break additionally is capped in effeciveness, again to counter this risk. This makes the breaking distance slightly longer than on a normal bike, but it still complies with the regulations and demands of the StVO. Means: the breaking distance still is within limits.

P.P.S. The bike comes folded and packed in a cardbox. Very clever poacking of theirs, the bike "hovered" in spanned rubber foil inside the box, the frame did not touch the cardbox walls. I have never seen such a box. Cleverly thought out.