My A-bike loved London Marathon.

TOWER HILL / TOWER BRIDGE

My work for London Marathon for last couple of days gave me a good excuse to ride my A-bike all over London. I didn’t really have free time to appreciate the view, but I certainly did enjoy riding my bike a lot under nice sunny weather.

22nd April was the day for the race and whole London went crazy… after all, London marathon is the biggest race in the world — 40,000 runners, 500,000 spectators! Even you are not London residence, it’s not too difficult to imagine that both pavement and main road packed under such occasion. I can guarantee you. it was, really.

Once again, A-bike came handy. I could just choose to take the street runs parallel to the main road without any time loss, and when I had to passed among the crowd, rolling half-folded A-bike served well.

This is only a part of the half a million.

Probably many people find benefit of small wheel bicycle in the day like this, so I saw many folding bikes.
I failed to find another A-bike though… it’s still a minority!! Argh!!

ALDGATE EAST

In the evening of the marathon day, me and my friends felt eating Vietnamese at Old St. but went for curry at Brick Lane instead, thanks to London’s slow traffic recovery.

My A-bike got a lot of attention from the marathon crowd as expected, but who could have guessed what happened to my A-bike at the London’s curry heaven.

Today’s hero.

As some of you may know, Brick Lane has a big Sylheti Bangladeshi community, and people there is quite friendly to others. When I was unfolding my A-bike to enter a curry restaurant, a gentleman asked me about Sinclair A-bike, so I started to explain to him. Then he began calling people around there! Within a second, me and my A-bike were surrounded by passersby and barkers from restaurants nearby.Some of them (including the gentleman) were very keen to find out about A-bike and asked me to write down the URL of Mayhem UK Ltd and Selfridges, so I did make memos for them.

Later, when I and friends came out the restaurant with satisfaction brought by great dishes there, a man came up to me. He was one of the people I gave notes earlier. He told me a fantastic news.

“You know, I already placed my order. the bike. It’s for my kid.”

I forgot to ask his name, but got his permission to put above photo here. He’s the one made my day.

On my way back to station, countless of people still asked me about A-bike…. Brick Lane seems to me a BIG potential market for A-bike. If you are an A-bike owner, go there with your bike. You’ll see it straight away.

Today, a couple of people said to me “it’s your company, yeah?”
I said “No.”

Have you ever got this experience?

When you carry your fully folded A-bike by grasping the handlebar stem while you are walking (or running to catch a bus), the crank arms and handle bars of the bike rotate and go sideways. This may cause inconvenience and affect the portability of the bike itself. Even worse, the turning crank arms and pedals may hit the saddle and cause damage on it.
 

I have a small tip here for you to slove the problem.
No rope, no string, no strap, no wire, no bungee chord nor hook is needed.

After you have folded your A-bike, just prop a pedal against the end of the folded handle bar on the same side and prop the other pedal against the back of the saddle.
 

See? The problem is sloved now!
 

The bike is now more portable and even more compact now.

This method also works perfectly when you put your A-bike inside the storage bag.

OLD STREET On that day, me, my girl and our Sinclair A-bikes got off the tube at Old St. Station to get some digital prints done. My travel card didn’t work on the exit, so I had to ask a station staff to open the gate for me. (*mind you, A-bike is small enough to get through the normal gate!) While my mind was occupied with wondering why the machine on the gate didn’t recognise the ticket, the station staff caught me with a surprise. “How did you find the bike?” My mind went blank and just replied, “Err… it’s slow, but quite okay.” What an awful answer that was! I should have told him how good A-bike is, and how much I love it right? Anyway, he told me he’s actually looking at A-bike to buy. It was new to me and made me really happy.

Is every Londoner shy to the “new” thingy?

SHAFTESBURY AVENUE
After we’ve done with a photo lab at Clerkenwell Rd., we cycled the road down towards central via Holborn. Our A-bikes provided comfortable smooth ride, and we got off our bike at the end of Shaftesbury Av. Over there, we had a conversation with a gentleman who’s wondering if A-bike meets his requirement — daily long distance ride.

I told him what’s good and bad about A-bike, and he expectedly concluded “probably not”, and I agreed with him.
I personally would love to do a long ride with my A-bike, and some A-bikers out there had done it already, but I suppose it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

“…but I really like the idea of the bike!” He added though.

SOHO
I was rolling my A-bike in fully unfolded “A” shape, and my girlfriend’s A-bike in my backpack (Yes, she refused to carry hers…Argh!), walking through Soho. Then we got approached by a young lady at Brewer street.

“Can I ask you something about your bike?” “I met a guy with the bike on the tube the other day, and I’m really really intrigued by it. It’s so small!!”

Since the lady caught us when we were thinking to ride again, I took out the A-bike from my backpack and let her feel the weight of a normal A-bike (mine is no longer considered normal). It was funny to find a bit of disappointment on her face when she lift it up.

“erm… it’s a bit heavier than I thought…. but it still much lighter than other folding bikes, isn’t it?”

I said yes and explained to her how well A-bike fit into Londoner’s life style. She gave us the double-thumbs-up and said “Perfect!!”

However, she told me that she found A-bike in Selfridges is a little pricy (GBP170 according to her). I gave her some website addresses including Mayhem UK Ltd. to find a better offer. I hope she gets one soon and enjoy A-bike life.

CARNABY STREET
Riding our A-bikes on the quiet alleys of Soho to the café at Great Marlborough St. was absolute delight. Nothing beats Sinclair A-bike for this kind of short A-B journey, which we get a lot in London.

Later on, I was there explaining all about A-bike once again to a gentleman at Carnaby St.. I realised that I got much better doing that compared with earlier that morning, and made my girlfriend said to me “You talk a lot on A-bike, almost like a rep!”

Most of the people (including the gentleman at Carnaby) came up to us on that day were seriously considering to get A-bike. This proves how much Londoners seek portable booster for their mobility.

I’m not an A-bike rep, but I can say this. Although A-bike is not super cheap and its tiny wheels make you look like a bear on a tricycle when you ride it, A-bike works real great in London — needless to say it’s also the lightest, the smallest and the cheapest foldable-bike-in-a-bag. so,
C’mon Londoners! Get your A-bike now!

While searching for something to spend my Nectar points on, I came across this link for an A-bike on the Nectar web site.

I notice that it kindly includes the pump for 51,500 points. Depending on how you collect your points (for example 2 points per £1 spent, or 1 point per litre of fuel) it’s still an expensive way to acquire an A-bike but it’s good to see the exposure for our beloved contraption!

– Notice, every price doesn’t include the Great SHOCK PUMP !!
– Korea : the BJC is like the Selfridges in UK.
– Hong Kong : accept the price in HK.
– Japan : the distributor says “Before Tax !!”.
– China : couldn’t find a price information on their site so accept Amuro’s mention on our forum.

Before today, there have been just two situations where I have ridden my A-bike:

1. Alongside my three year-old daughter as she rides her pink electric tricycle to the park (the same trike that was the inspiration for me getting my Sinclair C5!). Her tricycle is VERY slow, so it is excellent slow-speed practice for me!
2. Riding quarter of a mile or so into Sale town centre to post letters or pick up some milk etc.

Today though, my wife (Ruth) took Lucy (said three year-old) on the back of her bicycle while I was on the A-bike. When I am on my mountain bike (or even the C5!), I spend a lot of time free-wheeling because Ruth struggles with Lucy’s weight on the back of her bike. Today though, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could still stay behind her quite comfortably while riding the A-bike.

On the way back from Tesco, I was leading and I heard her say to Lucy, “Right, let’s zoom past Daddy!”

Red rag to a bull.

I pedalled as quickly as I could. I had to lean over the handlebars so much to stop the front wheel coming up that it reminded me of being on my CBR600RR!

I’m not sure what made the handling so twitchy at that speed though. It could have been:

1. Lucy shouting, “Look at my Daddy go!”
2. Ruth laughing hysterically and shouting, “Do you realise how ridiculous you look?!”
3. The pedals going round so quickly that my feet were flying off them
4. or the steering being so sensitive that I was all over the place!

I’m glad it was a relatively quiet road, but having said all that, it was great fun!

I just wish I’d been wearing my Garmin Forerunner GPS watch so that I’d known how quickly I was going