Riding Performance
The riding performance of portable bicycles is challenged by the need to make the bike as small and as light as possible. Rider body weight and size, and road conditions have a strong impact on design and on performance. Typically, portable bicycles intended for the East Asia market (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, ...) can be designed for riders lighter than 80 kg and shorter than 174 cm. Northern Europe and America require designs for riders up to 120 kg and 200 cm. City roads are generally smoother in Asian cities, but the bicycle has to be able to ride in crowded city sidewalks. Many European city streets are paved with cobblestone, so portable bicycles marketed in Europe need to cope with such a pavement. The smaller the diameter of a bicycle wheel, the higher the rolling friction and the rougher the ride, which is a challenge for portable bicycles as well as for kick scooters. New technological solutions are being studied to offer the same rolling friction at smaller wheel diameters.
Read more about this topic: Portable Bicycle
Famous quotes containing the words riding and/or performance:
“Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers,
From their own music when they stray.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)