Keeping small wheeled bikes at a straight path? Rideability?

[Weakling]

Is it difficult to keep A-bike, Carryme, Handybike, Koma, and other short
Would make it dangerous to be in traffic where big lorry and buses are close to your body in narrow streets.

www.Youtube.com have short clips people have made on their bikes. Not only how to fold or unfold them but also the agility, their willingness to perform as bikes.

Going straight at low or high speed, to take sharp turn arounds and to stop fast when needed.

The smallest I actually have long experience of is the Microbike. It has 12" wheels and some 950 millimeters wheel base.

Has the A-bike maybe only 650 mm in wheel base? Carryme by Pacific-cycles maybe have 800 mm wheelbase?

I saw on one youtube clip that a guy rode a Mobiky whom have 12" wheels very straight while a girl riding a Carryme was meandering left and right a lot. Did she ever get it to go straight? I hope it was her being embarrassed over being videoed by her friend putting demands on her?

These smaller bikes with very short wheel base and small wheels are they more difficult to keep going straight? Where I live they are strict on our ability to go straight for street safety reasons. To not put stress on the car drivers so they turn over to the other half of the street and crash into opposing direction cars. I hope you get my drift?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVVgsQt1DK4

but the official? video show that it is possible to go very straight so could it be the attitude of the driver?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AOadFVB9JVU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UMLKDMzXR0M&feature=related

Carryme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDaJfOdWzqY&feature=related

It could just be her attitude, she is on the sidewalk? or a Cycle way combined sidewalk? So she don't need to be going straight while the official A-bike demo guy was out in the traffic and he cared about his safety and he represented A-bike so he was very motivated to give a proper look?

Compare with the guy in the BBC? video where they just fooled around for the show. Wiggling all over on purpose? He even did a wheely?

wheel base and small wheeled bikes riding at a straight path?

EDIT I forgot to include Strida in this thread. The wheels are 16" and it is a rather small folder so maybe it should be included.

[kenwshmt2]

Is it difficult to keep A-bike, Carryme, Handybike, Koma, and other short wheel base and small wheeled bikes riding at a straight path?

That depends.

I am on my second, or 'first' a-bike, as the first one I got was a copy, and what proved to be a bad copy.
The steering was extremely loose, and it required more concentration than was comfortable to keep the front wheel strait.
My second one; which is an A-ride, from hamacher, is a 'real' a-bike.

The A-ride's steering is much stiffer, its not so stiff the steering will stay in the direction its pointing if it were released, but it doesn't flop around.

All that being said, I prefer to bike on the sidewalk where the dexterity of the bike is its primary feature, and not be on the street where it doesn't fair well against vehicles.

In a place where the sidewalk isn't to unpleasant; as in cobble, or brick. Dodging between news paper boxes, telephone poles, barracades is very easy to do.
You can turn an a-bike around within its length, or not to much more.

The shakiness of the a-bike at slow speed isn't as much about its steering as it is about the high center of gravity at low speed, and its lack of mass.

An abike that isn't moving is very much like a pogo stick, and stability needs either a great deal of skill, or at least 4 mph motion.

Heavy bikes have enough inertia that you can pull your legs up and begin peddling and it wont fall over because of the weight of the bike, not so with an a-bike.
You must be moving to get stability.
If you peddle from a standstill, it is very likely that the bike is going to leave you and you are going off the back.

Wheelies are quite easy to do, and generally not intentially.

[Weakling]

kenwshmt2,
thanks. Yes at very slow speed it is more like the dancing on slacking line or something. One need to have good balance and concentration and long experience of doing it I guess.

The only way to find out is for me to actually try it out. You might have much better talent for riding than me.

Compare with those who love the Strida. They don't even know what I talk about when I tell that the old version of Strida was impossible for me to get balance on. I was surprised too cause nobody had warn me that there is any problem.

Until I read a review where they admitted one need to get to know the bike. To actually learn to use it.

I don't remember that I had any such time to get used to the small Microbike. I mean the about ten or more old Swedish bike not the extremely small microbike that also have same name.

So these things seems to be very individually experienced.

I hope Carryme owners read this and answer too.

Based on Amurolee's experience after using his A-bike for one years I guess me should not by that one.

Carryme look much more stronger how it is build.

I wish we had same reports on what goes wrong if somebody stress that bike weighting more than they promised is ok.

[Weakling]

I guess me will write about this in the Strida forum too. And maybe in a Strida topic here in A-bike forum.

But this is the thread me started to compare them. But I forgot to include Strida in this thread cause me had no plan to buy one when I wrote this.

Since I started this thread me have had a chance to test a Strida 3.2 indoors.

Strida are very different compared to all other bikes me have tested.

I dearly hope that Carryme bike doesn't behave like Strida does.

The problem is how to describe it's behavior.

First. I am sure it has to be very individual. Whom the rider are. But I manage well on ordinary bikes and I ride very well on the Microbike which are an unusual bike in many ways.

So that makes we wonder if it is all about my inability to keep balance.

It should have to do with the way they built the Strida too.

I'm surprised nobody have mention it before. Could people be too embarrassed about their failure so they keep silent about it?

I tried for some two minutes to get balance and failed. If I was a Police or Traffic Officer looking out for people who look to be drunk driving or riding that me would have spotted me instantly. I tried desperately to keep a straight decent pace but I failed to do it. I never fell but I was way out of course and would have died if me was in real traffic and not inside a building with no cars around me.

I think there are three kinds of bicycle people.

1. The ones Strida write about on their homepage. They master the Strida within 10 to 15 seconds and at most it takes two to three minutes for the worst performers. They knew of none that failed.

None of these riders mention they had difficulty learning to ride it. They don't admit this to be the case. I wish they did so others are warned.

2. People who do learn how to master the Strida and who tell others that they had problem at first but that it only took them some 10 to 15 seconds to get the hang on how to. None of these failed and they gladly tell others that this bike behave differently compared to other bikes. One have to learn how to ride it. It is not an ordinary bike.

3. People like me who either never learn to or have to practice a lot to learn how to keep a straight path on it. I tried for two minutes and my
body told me that it didn't feel confident it could learn it in 5 or 10 minutes and the Shop owner didn't want to me ride for that long cause I could bump into other visitors there. I wiggled around a lot and could easily get to to crash into people on my not so straight path.

I think me have some kind of neurological deficit a kind of lagging behind. I am slow at such things like responses and to keep balance on a Strida one need to have very fast responses to compensate the way it wants to go on its own.

I hope the Carryme behave like an ordinary bike. If you have tested a Carryme please tell me how it behave.

[Amuro Lee]

Maybe you'll have less problem with the CarryMe on balance, I think.
However, due to your height (I remember you told me that you'are about 195cm tall) your knee may hit the handle bar easily when you are turning. Therefore, you have to use the "leaning technique" to overcome the abovementioned problem.
I used to ride my Strida on the corridor outside my apartment when I've just unpacked it from the box. I encountered the same problem on steering. However, when I took the bike outside and cycled it around, I found I got used to it very quickly (just few seconds).
My neighbor, Burningwood tried my Strida when I met him. He also got used to it very quickly and told me that riding a Strida is more comfortable and relex than his expectation.