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.

[Skybird]

Its around a week with the Kwiggle, and every day since I got it I did a daily trip of 12-20 km, so by now I have experience with it and am quite used to it now.

Kwiggling is great!

It is of paramount importance to experiment with the saddle positions, if it is not well-choosen, kwiggling can be very exhausting. Just two turns with the screw in or out make all the difference, and suddenly you drive with an average speed of 30 km/h and feel no tiredness at all, at least: less tiredness than on a normal bike. Correctly adjustign the saddle is absolutley important, and ignoring it, thinking such small changes cnanot make a difference is the biggest mistake you can make. Invest care and time on this one thing. It pays off tremendously.

Same is true for the height of the steering bar. It must match, and very well, then all will be good. If it is too high, it becomes exhausting again.

Driving is stable, I never, at no time, felt threatend or had a critical situation with falling backwards or forward when there was a hole in the ground or I had to brake. But you have to watch out, and anticipate the track surface and situations ahead. Carelessly dozing off and daydream while driving this, is no option here.

It feels a lot like jogging/running, as I said, or another comparison: riding a horse. Your bodyswing in the vertical is very similar.

I can unfold the bike in less than ten seconds now. Folding it takes me 20-25 seconds. Once the hands know by themselves where to grab and where to hold, its a thing of seconds.

If you are looking for a commuting solution, then look no further, this is probably the smallest and most comfortable solution you can currently find on the market. If you, like me, do not have the need for it, you may want it nevertheless, for me it is turning into a comfortable sports tool for low or moderate training intensity - after-training wellness already included, since you feel it while your ride, and do not need it afterwards anymore.

Very, very happy customer. I full-heartly recommend this.

They ship practically worldwide, but seem to have opened business in the US as well:

https://momentummag.com/the-kwiggle-...ng-to-america/

Do not worry for the shipping risk, the packing is very cleverly done, and good. I never would have had that idea by which they do it.

In Germany, and I assume elsewhere as well, they accept you to send the bike back if you do not like it after some days, since you cannot test it in a shop. They say they have a return rate of 3%, so of 100 customers, 97 seem to be happy with what they got.

The version with 3 gears, mudguards and lights, and a holder for bike panniers with certain connectors, costs around 1550 Euro. Considering the material and building quality and compared to other folding bikes, thats almost a steal. In Germany, delivery time is currently 3-6 weeks. A version with 6 gears is available, but its 2-3 cm thicker. An e-version is in development, but not fixed for a date due to the difficult economic circumstances.

Its a specialist and serves a niche, but in its niche it does what it does better than any other such bike, I dare say. Outstanding manufacturing and material quality, too. A reminder of that "German engineering" and "made in Germany" once had a meaning that was famous not for no reason. Well, the inventor is/was a machine building engineer.

I use average speeds of 25-30 km/h, and practically overtake all ordinary bicycle commuters. Acceleration phase is a bit longer and trickier than on a normal bike, but once you roll, things quickly turn into pure swing, and then you rush!



Not suitiable in the rough, for mountain biking, and such, You want plain and even track surfaces, the city and smooth road environment. Small stones and holes you find there, obstacles of 2-3cm in diameter, are no problem. Beyond that - be careful. Tyres are a limitaiton, they old out 100kg in total, of which 10kg are reserved for the bike. Driver and a small backpack/luggage must not exceed 90 kg. The frame itself would hold 250+ kg. The limit is set by the tyres, not the frame.
Super.

[Skybird]

I think an updated opinion is due.

I had nine months now with the Kwiggle, and probably around a thousand kilometers. During the 2, 3 coolest months I did not use it, since the cold temps corresponded with rainy weather and slippery underground, smear and grease fro wet leaves. That are conditions I do not feel so comfortable with the Kwiggle, because i now use such a high and elevated position for the saddle that when I need to stop at a white line or red traffic light, my stand is much more instable than with on a normal bike where I can easier connect to the ground with foot. Sometimes I jumpo off, its safer and easier. But you must not have your saddle this high, btw. I do it for the speed. And boy, this little speed demon in unbelievably fast and agile!

Surprisingly the Kwiggle has taken over a lot from my mechanical (non-electrical) bike with 28" wheels, if I must not transport a lot of stuff and do not go shopping, I now take the Kwiggle. To go in town from A to B, the Kwiggle is now my preferred choice - simply because I am faster than with the e-bike or the mechanical bike in the urban environment. Believe it or not, but its true.

In the first months I had the saddle a bit too low, still too low, I thought it already was high since it was higher than on my other bikes. The result is that the Kwiggle's unique design could not work to its full advantage, and I did not realise it, but I meanwhile learned that this way I wasted power, and speed. This spring, for some reason, I changed the position of the saddle, and put it closer to the steering bar and higher. The saddle now is one handwidth ABOVE my navel! Note that it swings up and down by maybe 10cm, however, its feather steel (stable to minimum 250 kg). The technical change was not dramatic to how it was before, but the felt difference it made could not be any more dramatic! I now indeed "drive-walk" in a fully upright posture, both legs and body are in a vertical straight line as if I were walking. My feet can fully push the pedal only when I fully stretch the legs. This has several consequences. You drive very relaxed, your leg muscles stay very relaxed and comfortable, rested. Because you must not use your muscle as much as on a n ormnal bike, it is the weight of your body that you just let drop onto the pedals. That increases your endurance, obviously. And increases the speed even further! The speeds I drive with this are isane, absolutely insane, in excess of 30km/h, and that I sometimes hit 35 km/h can happen and does happen every drive. (On my normal non electical bike I drive with 15-22, 23 km/h, usually) Why I know this so precisely?

The answer is surprising. I think I so far have not had a single ride where I have not been approached by people and got asked about it, sometimes even during driving. Even a full group of racing bike riders once encircled me in movement and asked me questions from all directions - while riding together at high speed. They were perplexed. THEY ALWAYS ARE Another biker once drove with me ho had a speedometer, from that opportunity I knew what speed I had at that time - thats why I know the maximum speed I can reach with this little thing (I also have good feeling for speeds in this range since my other two bikes both have speedometers). Today, this evening a service car suddenly was on my left side on a long empty road, the window went down and a - apparently ukrainian - man laughed and asked me about it and was totally perplexed and was fascinated and wanted to know everything about it. There were many occasions when I was approached and when the chemistry was right when i willed to demonstrate people the folding mechanism because I know they cannot find the bike in any shop. The reaction is always the same: perplexion, fascination and sort of disbelief (I can now fold the bike in less than 20 seconds, and unfold it in 5 seconds by throwing it into the air - the old and the young: you should see some of the faces! Mouth open, eyes wide. Its always the same.

I did not expect to use this thing this intensively, I saw it more as a freetime leasure toy, I was curious. But now I have it in regular routine use, and found my big "saddle bags" for the other bikes can be mounted on the front and do not block the light as I initially thought they would, its bigger bags.

A fantastic thing. The price is now between 15 and 17 hundred - and by that it is so much cheaper than other folding bikes, not to mention overpriced Bromptons. Direct sale from the manufacturer without intermediate traders - thats the secret. In a shop a Kwiggle would cost 800-1000 Euros more.

No technical problems, no loose chain, no visible wear and tear. The thing is more robust than my two other bikes, can you believe it! It still looks like new.

So after now nine months, my long time experience is overwhelmingly positive - even more so than last year after I bought it. To me it now feels like a natural extension of my body.

Negatives: you must think in advance about the route you drive, too rugged ground is a no go, cobble stone is not your friend, things like this. However, I drive this without problems on regular "civilised" forest paths made of condensed sand and fine gravel. The creator disocurages oyu to try steeper elevations than 10%, and I think 19% already is heafty with this. Starting to gia ns peed when laucnhign from standstill takes lyu longer, also if the wind is on your face you have disadvanbatges to normal hbnikes, since your upright body serves like a sail catching the wind. Going upwards at elevations I am slower than with a normal bike.

My summary is even more positive than it was last year: Kwiggle is a brilliant thing! And you are FAST. Racing bicycles and sports drivers you do not keep up with, of course, but more than 9 out of 10 city and touring bike drivers I overtake - with leaving a wind in their faces. You wouldnt believe the accoustic reactions I sometimes hear in my rear. From shoutings of disbelief, to something like hysterical giggling...

[Skybird]

My parents have given up four of their six bicycles, due to age. Thats why I now also own a Brompton. Side by side comparison:





So I had time this last week to test Brompton more extensively than before.

I dont like the anatomical geometry of the Brompton that much, my back is bent like that of an angry cat, it feels like sitting on a racing bike, almost, and it causes pain in the lumbar region since the muscles are constantly overstretched there. I drive more relaxed and with much less effort and power on the Kwiggle - while being slightly faster than on the Brompton at highest speed I could go. Both bikes can go surprisingly fast.



On the Brompton, the driving is more forgiving regarding unevenness in the flooring, holes, stones, sticks. On the Kwiggle you have to be on your guard and scan the track ahead. Failing to do so can lead to desaster. Assuming you have smooth track surface and good road conditions, Kwiggling is joy, however, pure joy. Cobblestone is not.



On both bikes I feel safe and not in danger to fall, not during accelerating, not during breaking, not during turning. But the Kwiggle driving must be learned, you cannot lend this bike to somebody and this person than just uses it immediately like any other bike, it does not work this way.


Also, the pack bag Brompton offers is much smaller than the standard size bicycle bags I could mount on the front of the Kwiggle. Really, believe it. The Kwiggle mounts more luggage volume than the Brompton with the Brompton standard bag for the back mount. However, the limiting factor is the weight, the Brompton can mount luggage of more weight. Kwiggle is limited to 100kg: bike+driver+luggage<= 100kg. Its not due to the frame, that has a limit beyond 250kg, but its due to the air pressure in the tires, these are the critical factor, not the frame.

Its nice to have another backup, and for free ("dem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul..."), but I prefer the Kwiggle, the driving must be newly learned, but then is superior.

[Aktungbby]

...Kwiggling one's Bromptons on line can be quite picturesque!

[Skybird]

^ You wiggle only on a Kwiggle by design, but not on a Brompton, Bromptons roll surprisingly stable. The Kwiggle is like an F-16 - the inherent instability in both is intentional and serves specific purposes. Without this instability both would not be what they are.