Advantages
The primary advantage of this bike over other performance folders is that it folds quickly into a small package. Thus, it can be taken into stores, onto trains, and into the office, yet can also be used for cross-country touring or fast group rides. It is much easier to fit in a suitcase than comparable Bike Friday or Airnimal models, but less easy to pack than a Brompton. The only other hinge-free performance bicycle that is small enough to serve as a multi-mode commuter or that fits into an airline legal suitcase with minimal disassembly is the (unsuspended) Mezzo folding bike.
One other major advantage is the suspension, allowing for a smooth ride on small wheels. The suspension is anti-dive and has minimal impact on pedalling efficiency due to its stiffness, while improving rolling resistance on rough surfaces. The suspension can be adjusted using different elastomers (small pieces of rubber that serve as suspension).
The Birdy has no frame hinge, with both the front and the back points of contact serving as latches and shock absorbers. Thus, the downward force of the rider holds the bike together in such a way that the latches cannot fail while providing shock absorption.
The longer reach offered by the "all round" stem option makes for a much sportier ride than the Brompton.
Read more about this topic: Birdy (bicycle)
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“For, the advantages which fashion values, are plants which thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets, namely. Out of this precinct, they go for nothing; are of no use in the farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in the nuptial society, in the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in friendship, in the heaven of thought or virtue.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“[T]here is no Part of the World where Servants have those Privileges and Advantages as in England: They have no where else such plentiful Diet, large Wages, or indulgent Liberty: There is no place wherein they labour less, and yet where they are so little respectful, more wasteful, more negligent, or where they so frequently change their Masters.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)