Oregon firm touts new fold-up bike
Published 8:06 pm Friday, November 9, 2007
EUGENE, Ore. — During a recent visit to Eugene, Bobbi Kamil, of California’s Monterey Bay area, attracted a small audience at a coffee shop near the University of Oregon campus.
The 64-year-old retired educator wheeled up on her bike, and in about 15 seconds folded it into a compact, 25-pound package that could be stowed easily beside one of the tables.
She’s a proud and happy owner of a “tikit,” the latest creation of Bike Friday, a manufacturer in west Eugene that says it has designed the fastest-folding bike in the world. The company says it can be folded in five seconds.
Bike Friday unveiled its newest model in February, and has since made 500 of them, said marketing manager Hanna Scholz. She is the daughter of Alan Scholz, who founded the company 16 years ago with his brother, Hanz.
To launch the new bike, the firm raised about $250,000 including an $80,000 jobs-creation loan from the city of Eugene and boosted employment by about 40 percent, Hanna Scholz said.
Bike Friday built an international reputation making high-end single and tandem bikes with smaller-than-usual wheels that could fold into a hard-sided suitcase, be shipped anywhere in the world and enable their owners to do some serious touring when they reached their destination. Bike Friday will continue to make those bikes, which are custom built for their owners. The bikes, which can cost up to $5,000, tend to appeal to high-income retirees, including private pilots, boaters and RV enthusiasts, Scholz said.
But sensing that the broader market is finally ready to accept fold-up bicycles as one antidote to global warming and rising obesity rates, Bike Friday hopes that its tikit, which retails for $1,195 compared with an average cost of about $400 for folding bikes will turn more people into bike commuters.
