This article was originally going to be a simple review of my new Bike Friday Tikit folding bike. However, as I started comparing it to the other folding bike in our home, a Mobiky Genius, it became apparent that there was a much more interesting subject in here. Putting the two side by side, I couldn’t help but notice that they were almost case studies in the difference between how a designer approaches a problem, and how an engineer approaches the same problem. The Mobiky is an international award winning design, and quite a beautiful work of art, while the Tikit has an undeniably Frankenbike look going on. However, where the Mobiky looks wonderful, it kind of falls down when it comes to accomplishing its intended purpose, especially compared to the remarkably capable Tikit. In a way, both bikes succeed wonderfully, while somewhat failing at the same time, and in exactly opposite ways. The funny thing is that any close examination of the two bikes, and it is painfully clear where their different development processes diverged. You can literally see the different philosophies at work in each finished product.
I think what makes this such an interesting examination of the production process is that, for the most part, the two bikes are seeking to solve exactly the same problems, in very much the same way, just coming at it from different perspectives. They are both targeted at urban dwellers and travelers, who want to use multiple modes of transportation including bike, car, bus, taxi, train, plane and boat. They both think the best solution to this problem is a bike which can fold up in a few scant seconds, fit in a suitcase, be rolled while folded, and fit in just about any storage space. They both feature handles on the top of the frame to make them easier to carry, lift, and maneuver while in folded state. In fact, if you were careful with your wording, you could make one fairly accurate description which fit both bikes perfectly. The two bikes could literally be two different designers’ submission for the exact same design specification. Yet the two bikes could not possibly pick more divergent solutions to the same design challenges had they been trying, nor could they possibly look more different.
I do have to say as a qualifier though, this isn’t a head to head review of the two bikes, even though at times it might read like it. As bikes, there is really no comparison between the two, as the Mobiky is a one-size-fits-all mass market item churned out of a Taiwanese factory and sold on Amazon, while the Tikit is custom hand-made in Oregon specifically to the rider’s measurements and specifications. If you are reading this article to see which is a better bike, let me save you a lot of time. My Tikit cost more than three times the price of my wife’s Mobiky, and I wouldn’t have spent that money if I didn’t think it was worth every penny. As far as which bike I prefer, I am loath to even compare the Tikit to the Mobiky, because it is on a whole different level, as I am concerned. Ultimately the Mobiky is an interesting little toy, better compared to a Razor scooter than a real bike, while the Tikit is one of the best bikes I have ever owned. What I am looking at here is not which is a better bike. I am looking at the interesting differences, brought about by the clearly divergent design philosophies.
Obviously, the defining feature of any folding bike, is the fold. Sure it is a bike first, but what sets it apart from any old bike is the fact that it folds. Nowhere is the difference between these two bikes more clear than in the way they fold. Both bikes fold so quickly that there is really no point discussing differences in the speed of the fold. I am quite sure that any differences would come down to nothing more than the user’s dexterity and familiarity with the mechanism. Either bike could be folded while walking, hardly breaking stride. But where the Mobiky folds into an impressively tidy little package, the Tikit quite frankly folds into a crumpled mess. If aesthetics were all that mattered, it would be a joke to even compare the two, because the Mobiky clearly wins this without any contest.
Of course, aesthetics aren’t all that matters, and the Mobiky is not purely aesthetics either. Another important part of how the bike folds, at least for the stated purpose of this market segment, is how well it rolls while folded. Here the Mobiky again runs away with it. Where the Mobiky rolls like a scooter, or perhaps a good rolling suitcase, the Tikit handles like an ungainly dolly, or more accurately, like a bike balanced on only one wheel, which is exactly what it is. Once again, there is no real contest. The Mobiky’s impeccably thought-out design easily trumps the Tikit in this regard. It is clear that a great amount of importance, and no small amount of CAD time, went into figuring out how to make the Mobiky roll just as well in folded state, as it did in unfolded state. It is an admirable goal, but also one which starts to show the problem with the design/aesthetic-driven focus of their production process, as opposed to the engineering/purpose-driven focus of the Tikit. See, to get this wonderful fold, it requires two points of articulation in order to bring both the front and back wheel in towards the center of mass of the folded package. The first point of frame articulation is just in front of the bottom bracket, which holds the cranks and crank bearing, and the second one is just behind the bottom bracket. This means that to keep the chain from falling off, the chain path must be articulated as well as the frame. This is where you get the first clever, but problematic, design feature of the Mobiky, the double chain ring.
The Mobiky gets its tight fold primarily from the double chin ring, which separates the cranks from the drive gear by having one chainring on the cranks, then a chain going from that to a second chainring, which shares an axle with the actual drive gear, which is then connected to the rear cog with another chain. The double chain ring is clever, in that it allows the needed articulation for the wonderful fold, but it is problematic for a number of reasons. The primary reason it is problematic, is that it requires a very nonstandard arrangement, with very nonstandard parts, meaning that any failure of this mechanism will be very difficult to repair at all, much less ‘in the field.’ I don’t think that non-standard arrangements are by themselves always bad. Without non-standard approaches, there would never be any innovation. However, when you are talking about one of the most important components of a bike, the drive chain, you have to be very careful when adding complexity and moving away from standard configuration. In the event of a failure in this part of the bike, you are extremely unlikely to find a bike shop willing to work on it, nor any readily accessible source for the parts to fix it yourself. If you bend a chainring or crank arm, it is not just a matter of having your friendly neighborhood bike mechanic fix it up with parts on hand. If any part of this system fails, the bige is unusable, and unlike a standard crank assembly, it is not a quick or simple fix. It is also problematic because it is not a very efficient arrangement. Whenever you run a chain to a gear, you lose some energy, and doubling the number of chains and number of chainrings over what is typically used on a regular bike is a less than optimal way to approach the problem of how to fold the bike. The arrangement is made even more problematic by the fact that it introduces additional possible points of failure. It is another chain to possibly cause problems, another two chainrings to possibly cause problems, another axle that might fail. Ultimately, some users will find the simplicity and compact nature of the fold will be worth the loss in efficiency and serviceability, but there is definitely a price to be paid to meet the design goals. It is a lot of additional complication to what should be a simple machine, just to achieve a particular fold. I understand why they did this, but it is clear the Mobiky was designed around the intent of having the best fold, and performance was an acceptable loss to achieve the desired fold.
The Tikit, in contrast, solves this particular problem by having a single pivot in front of the bottom bracket, which pivots the entire rear of the bike up and at an angle so that it rests next to the front of the frame when folded. It is nowhere near as neat, aesthetically pleasing, nor balanced as the Mobiky fold, but it avoids all the problematic complications of the Mobiky. This way, the drive path of the bike remains static relative to its components, as the entire back of the bike swings around and under. Rather than the Mobiky’s articulated drivechain, the entire drivechain is placed behind the fold. Of course this requires a larger fold which lack the compact dimensions of the Mobiky, but this gives the Tikit a completely standard configuration from the crank back. Despite its aesthetic and size drawbacks, compared to the Mobiky, there is no loss of efficiency, no additional points of failure introduced to the drivechain, and nothing which would complicate repair at any standard bike shop. In fact, behind the fold joint, the Tikit is really no different than any other bike. This means that there is nothing exotic needed for the drivechain. Since the bike is no different from the crank back than any other bike, then nothing new is needed part-wise from the crank back. Anything that went wrong with the drive system of the Tikit, could be fixed at any bike shop. Any part of the drive system can be swapped or upgraded with standard parts you would use on any normal bicycle. It is not as exciting, or as exotic looking as the Mobiky, yet it works better for the intended purpose of a bike like this, which is intended for hassle-free multi-mode commuting in an urban environment. The last think people want from a commuter bike is specialty components which have to be hunted down and ordered from specialty sources. No matter where you take it in the world, you can get the Tikit back on the road again at any bike shop after a failure. The same cannot be said of the Mobiky. While the parts of the Mobiky could certainly be hunted down with some work, it is highly unlikely your local bike shop would be willing to go to the trouble, and almost impossible to believe you could find a shop willing to do it while traveling abroad. With the Tikit, there would be no such problem. It is clear that the design intent was to in no way compromise the integrity, simplicity, serviceability or efficiency of the drive path, even if that meant a less than elegant fold.
Another interesting comparison between the two drivechain folds, is how they chose to deal with a problem which faces all folding bikes, and bikes in general, that greasy chain. On the Mobiky they once again chose an aesthetically pleasing answer, which is to enclose the outside of the chain in a plastic cover. This is a very straightforward and time-honored solution. Unfortunately, due to the articulated drivechain, they could only enclose the rear portion of the chain, having just a circular face guard on the crank. This only gets you half the benefit of a fully enclosed chain, as pants can still become caught in the chainring the crank is mounted to while riding. The solution, however, does protect anyone from getting grease on them while transporting the folded bike, which is the main purpose. As so many things on the Mobiky though, that enclosed chain has a fairly major ramification, namely that it requires the use of hub gearing. There is no way to mount any sort of derailleur on the rear part of the drivechain, because then you would have to remove the chain enclosure. While not by any means a fatal design flaw, it does severely limit the gearing options of the bike. The Tikit deals with the same problem quite differently. It uses the same sort of circular face guard on the crank chainring, but instead of enclosing the chain path, as the bike folds to up and to the side, the chain is occluded by the front part of the frame and the front wheel, ending up on the inside of the folded package. This leaves plenty of room for a derailleur, giving the user a great many more drive options. Both designs accomplish the same thing, but the Tikit designers used the sloppy-looking asymmetric fold to their advantage, to enable a wider range of gearing options, while still blocking the chain from coming into contact with anyone while folded.
Of course the drivechain is not the only part of either bike which folds, nor is it actually the part which takes up the most room. Easily one of the most cumbersome parts of any folding bike is the long seat tube, on top of which the saddle mounts. You can’t make it too short, or the bike is difficult to pedal, and it has to be adjustable to fit a range of riders. Here, both bikes again take completely different, yet in some ways oddly similar approaches. Both bikes use the seat tube as the main locking element which hold the bike in its unfolded state, preventing an unwanted fold with the weight of the rider actually acting as the tension keeping everything tight. Both bikes also use the seat tube as the trigger to unlock the folded state of the bike to allow it to unfold. However, once again, they accomplish these identical goals with amazingly dissimilar philosophies.
Like some real world Tetris puzzle, the designers of the Mobiky wanted to make sure that no space went to waste. To this end, the seat tube fits beautify in the empty space between the ‘legs’ of the folded frame. Of course the entire seat tube would not fit between the legs, so the tube telescopes to the desired length with a series of quick release levers. A lockout rod running beside the telescoping seat tube snaps into place to ensure that once the seat tube is extended, it cannot slide back down, and moving the seat tube up frees the locked components of the legs to pivot out and unfold the bike. It is a remarkably smooth and well thought out ballet of parts, and honestly impressive to see. It also allows one of the Mobiky’s most unique features, which is a multi-stage fold. If you are just running for a train, you have shove the lockout rod, throw the main shaft of the seat tube down as you fold up the legs, and you have a mostly compacted bike, without having to worry about the quick releases. However, if you need the bike even more compact than that, you can undo all the quick releases, and end up with a tiny package indeed, with the saddle resting neatly behind the main hump of the frame. As with everything on this bike, it is clean looking, and has quite a bit of visual flare, as well as getting the bike down to an impressively compact size. Unfortunately, as with everything on this bike, there is a functional trade-off for this wonderful design.
As I’m sure everyone knows if they think about it for a second, all things being equal, telescoping tubes are not as rigid as a single contiguous tube of the same length. This is true of the Mobiky seat tube as well. The tube has far more flex than you would normally expect from a bike, to the point that a heavy rider like myself will lose a fair amount of energy to the flex. Making matters worse, the sliding nature of the base of the tube, introduces both vertical and rotational play to the entire seat tube, such that even if the rider was light enough to avoid the flex, it would be impossible to keep the entire assembly from rattling around and twisting slightly as the rider pedaled. Another unfortunate side effect of the quick release telescoping seat tube, is that if you need to compact the bike as much as possible, for example to fit it in the trunk of a car, then before riding the bike again, you will have to readjust the height and yaw of the saddle, which will slow down the time between unfolding and getting rolling. It is another example of a solution to the problem which looks very nice, and works very elegantly and achieves a gorgeous and manageable fold, but at the cost of efficiency and stability.
The Tikit, predictably, approaches this problem with almost the exact same solution as the drivechain. It is ugly, asymmetrical, and the end result kind of looks like the seat tube broke and fell over, only to snag on part of the frame. It is working on the exact same principal as the rear frame pivot. In fact, the seat tube assembly is like a mirror image of the rear frame pivot. So much so, that they actually pivot together and interlock under the rider’s weight to keep the bike together. Where I describe the Mobiky’s seat fold as a ballet of parts, the Tikit I would describe more as the fifth wheel on a tractor-trailer rig. It is an almost brutal gnashing of parts, which don’t really look like they are going to fit right, yet perfectly do. There are all sorts of plates and latches sticking out at seemingly nonsensical angles, none of which makes sense until you see the whole assembly move. When it does move, everything fits exactly where it should, and the parts firmly lock just like you would want them to, but nothing feels elegant or smooth about it. Where I would describe unlocking and unfolding the Mobiky as raising the height of an office chair, I would describe unfolding the Tikit as raising the back of a pool chair. The Mobiky folds and unfolds in a graceful way that can only be described as making you look cool while you do it. The Tikit unfolds in a gangly sort of way where you are pretty much assured that at some point in the process, you are going to look like a clumsy dork, wrestling with an ungainly piece of equipment.
What sets Tikit apart from the Mobiky’s mechanism though, is that instead of being a tube sitting in a hole, rattling around, the seat tube has triangulated supports mounting to both sides of the front of the frame, and firmly seated in a catch in the rear frame. It is a rock solid arrangement, which isolates any flex and shimmy as much as possible in a seat tube this long. It has the added advantage of always keeping the saddle in the same position relative to the seat tube, so no readjustment is needed to unfold and get rolling. It, however, does not have the multi-stage fold of the Mobiky’s seat tube, meaning it is either up or down, and there is no way to get it any smaller without completely removing the saddle. The designers of the Tikit do get some clever design points for the handle integrated into the base of the seat tube though. The handle is completely hidden until it is folded, and then serves as how you roll the bike. It is an unexpectedly polished touch on a bike which otherwise seems very mechanical and lacking in aesthetic polish. Once again, it is clear that the intent of this design was stability and efficiency first, with the best fold they could manage after meeting the first two conditions.
The handlebars are probably the one feature of the two bikes where the teams had nothing in common. The two approaches are radically different, and don’t even try to accomplish the same goals. Oddly enough, this is also the one area where I think the Mobiky has neither an aesthetic, nor functional advantage overall. It is very clear that Mobiky team saw the primary challenge for the handlebars as one of how to get them to best fit with the folded dimensions, where the Tikit team didn’t even really try to get them to work with the dimensions of the fold, worrying instead about how to give users the broadest possible choice in handlebars, while folding incredibly quickly.
The Mobiky has a couple clever ideas when it comes to the handlebars, like how each side folds down independently, so you can use it as a handle to roll the folded bike around, but mostly the Mobiky handlebars seem like a ‘phoned in’ bit of design. They are little more than a couple of bent tubes sticking off a hinge, with a pin that locks them in the up position. They don’t have enough room to mount much on them. Their odd spread and shape makes it impossible to put any sort of standard bar bag on them. They have an oddly sloppy front plate which acts as a cable guide when the bike is unfolded, but looks like it should be a mount for some sort of cargo solution which doesn’t exist. Even if a cargo solution did exist, you couldn’t use the front plate very well, due to how the cables route down the front of the stem, and tend to get crushed by anything you try to hang on that hook. The steerer itself is inexcusably thin, has an amazing amount of flex, and does not inspire any particular confidence that it is what you would want in your hands if things got hairy. As far as their folding goes, the steerer/stem (such as it is) just slides down into the unusually long head tube after releasing a quick release latch, and the combination of the folding bars, the cable runs, the odd plate and the quick release lever make for an unpleasantly fiddly experience which will probably take you longer to fold/unfold than the rest of the bike combined. It is really as though they got to the end of this wonderful design, only had the handlebars left, and the designer threw up his hands and said “I’ve got nothing, just have them figure out something at the factory.”
For the purposes of this article, I actually wish the handlebars on the Mobiky were nicer, because I don’t think any part of the bike highlights the differences in design approaches better than the handlebars. Unfortunately, the fact that they are poorly designed and cheap looking on the Mobiky also kind of undercuts my point as well. Nonetheless, it is really obvious that the entire handlebar assembly was designed backwards from how the designer envisioned the entire bike looking folded. I suspect that they are so poorly made, precisely because his design intent was focused not on being usable as handlebars, but as fitting in the dimensions they wanted for the folded bike, and that did not leave much room for a decent handlebar design. All in all, the Mobiky handlebars are usable if you never retract them into the frame, but are easily the weakest part of the bike both design wise and materially. If you plan on folding them regularly, they would become a major annoyance very quickly, even though they do serve the design purpose of allowing the bike to fold very compactly without removing the handlebars.
The handlebar assembly of the Tikit, is conversely the crowning glory of the bike, though still indicative of the completely design-lacking, purpose-driven, engineering of the bike. On the surface, the handlebar assembly uses the same unlock, flop over on a hinge, and catch on a part of the frame motif as the rest of the bike. It has the same “was that supposed to do that?” broken look of the rest of the folded bike. The advantage it has though, is that it manages to use a totally standard steerer tube, letting you put literally any stem and handlebars you want on the bike. They have some split bars they sell to make it easier to pack in a case (more on that later), but you are in no way limited to their options. The down side of this though, is that the handlebars, brake levers, lights and cables just hang off the side of the folded bike like you had tied the head of a 12-point buck to the side of your bike. If all the other design decisions up to now hadn’t made it clear that the compactness of the fold came only after the performance criteria had been met, the handlebars are like a giant neon sign letting you know designer’s priorities.
None of this, though, is what makes the handlebar assembly the crowning achievement. How that assembly locks and unlocks is probably the most unique part of the bike. It is so unique that they gave it the super-geeky name Hyperfold! The quick description of Hyperfold is that there is a thick cable that runs all the was from the rear fork, up to a clamp on the base of the handlebars opposite the hinge. When the bike is unfolded, that table is taught, and the clamp holds the bars in place. As the rear of the bike folds up, the tension is removed from the cable, the clamp comes loose, and the handlebar assembly can pivot on its hinge. What is great about the feature, it it lets you fold the entire bike in one motion, albeit an ungainly one. What is as completely not great, is this is all accomplished by just running this giant cable along the side of the bike, and up a hole in the head tube, squeezed between the head tube and the fender. It works, and it works well, but from an aesthetic perspective, it is like someone said “screw it” and just took to the bike with a staple gun in order to run the cable. It is almost charming in its complete lack of any attempt to look like anything but a big cable running through a noodle on the frame. I can think of a million more aesthetically pleasing ways to accomplish the same task, but this particular part just screams that no one even tried. It did what it was supposed to do, so there it stayed.
Another big feature of folding bikes, and in fact the whole reason we bought these, is the ability to fit in a suitcase, so you don’t have to pay extra to take them on a plane with you when traveling. As far as I am concerned, folding bikes which can fit in airline regulation bags are a whole different category from other folding bikes. There are plenty of bikes out there like the innumerable models of Dahon, and a host of others, which I frankly can’t even understand the utility of the fold, because they still aren’t small enough to fit in a suitcase. Both of these bikes are suitcase friendly though.
This is where all the hard work they put into the tidiness of the Mobiky’s fold really pays off. Once you have completely folded the bike, it is practically a suitcase already. In a sane world, which airports most certainly are not, you would just be able to hand them the Mobiky at the check in counter. As it is in the crazy world of airports though, you still have to put it in a suitcase. This really couldn’t be any easier though. You take off the front wheel, take off the saddle, put it all in the suitcase, and you are done. There is no way the entire process could take more than a couple minutes. You can have the thing packed and ready to fly in less time than it takes some bikes to unfold. You don’t even have to remove the pedals, or accessories on the handlebars like lights and bells. It really is a marvel of design, and shows how well they did their job. There were a lot of sacrifices along the way to achieve this fold, but when it comes down to a tight and easy fold, it is far and away the winner. This is the Mobiky doing what it was designed to do, and it does it wonderfully. Comparing the Mobiky to any other folding bike, it is undeniable that the designer deserved to win some awards for it. The problem, as with everything else with the bike though, is that it is also undeniable that the bike you get clearly suffered for the design. As clever, as quick folding, as compelling and as attractive as the Mobiky is, you feel every one of the corners cut within the first block you ride the bike down. The frame has too much flex, the wheels are too small. There isn’t enough adjustability. There are a lot of tradeoffs to get that bike to neatly fit in the suitcase with no problems.
The Tikit, on the other hand, is not quite so smooth to pack. I know, I am getting bored setting up the same dichotomy every time too. It is not my intention to belabor the point, but rather to show the depths to which these two very different approaches permeate every aspect of the finished product. The Tikit requires a fair amount of disassembly to fit in a suitcase, and even then it needs a suitcase which is straining the very limit of airline regulations for standard-sized luggage. You have to remove the handlebars from the stem, remove the stem, and steerer tube from the head tube, remove the seatpost and saddle, remove the fenders and rack, and remove one of the wheels. Then you have to turn the bike just so, cover the parts so they don’t scratch each other, and pack it al a specific way. There is absolutely nothing fast, easy or elegant about it. It is not a particularly user friendly experience, and really the exact same process you would have to go through to pack a full-sized bike in a full-sized case, plus a couple extra steps for the fold. Honestly, I don’t think they could have made packing the bike any more steps if they tried. However, it does fit, and once you get to your destination and reassemble the bike, you have a no compromise machine to ride. As with every other aspect of this comparison, the Tikit once again chooses raw functionality over style, flare, or even ease of use. It is a raw, make it work sort of solution, lacking the finesse and style of the Mobiky. The thing is, it really does work better. What you end up with is easily twice the bike in the same amount of space. It rides better, can be better tailored to the rider, is stiffer, and is just in every way a better bike, but you can tell that the cost you pay for that is something which looks somewhat ungainly, and rather like it was thrown together by a very smart person in a garage.
From the moment you look at the two bikes side by side, it is unavoidable that the Mobiky started life on a sketchpad in a hip design studio, and the Tikit started life as a pile of metal tubes in a greasy bike shop. Both were attempting to accomplish very similar goals, and both made it to market with a finished product. However their path from concept to completion was so different that the two bikes share almost nothing in common. I could actually go on in even greater detail, examining how both teams isolated the flex from the crank, and a million other design choices, but every time the process is the same. The team working on the Mobiky always opted for an attractive solution which worked well enough, and the Tikit team always opted to solve the probelm to the best of their abilities, regardless of how it might look.
I have no doubt that the designer of the Mobiky had most of the design finished before it ever left the sketch pad, and then it was just a matter of figuring out how to get that design from sketch to real world with as few design compromises as possible. Everything on the bike screams tout the loving attention of a designer married to a design. There was never any discussion of how 12″ wheels would ride, or how big the tire selection might be for that particular size. ETRTO 205 wheels were chosen because they were the closest size to what was sketched. The tires were chosen because they matched the proportions of the tires in the sketch. An integrated hub was chosen, not because of concerns about weather of a need for a straight chain line, but because the sketch just showed a hub, with no specificity to gearing, and so an integrated hub shifter it was. I suppose you could call it top-down design, though I have some problems with that term since it means so many different things in so many different disciplines. I would instead just call it design-focused. I have no doubt there were pages of sketches working out different folding mechanisms trying to find just the right one that made a small package, while still bringing something fresh and innovative to the market. Every angle, every fillet, every joint carefully placed for maximum visual impact. Ultimately the goal was to make something that worked, sure, but driving desire was to make something neat and cool looking, which challenged conventions about what a folding bike should look like. It was a design exercise. It was an art project, and the details would be worked out in production, because that’s what engineers do. It is a style of design I am quite familiar with. Of course you want to build the best product you can, but from the point of view of the designer, the identity of the product lies in how it looks, and everything else works back from there. It would be wrong to describe it as purely function follows form, because in the mind of the designer, they are at times the same thing, like in the folding mechanism. However it is undeniably a methodology which is always thinking first about how it looks, and about how well it will works only after an attractive solution has been found. I think that probably the most accurate description would truly be a design-based workflow.
I am equally sure that behind the Tikit, is a long line of half-built, hacked up, and partially working prototype bikes. It is hardly even a design, but more an evolution of a line of products and prototypes. It was not made on a sketch pad, but on a shop floor. No designer crafted the lines or sculpted the fillets. It was a bunch of parts put together, and where they didn’t fit right, something was cut or bent or extended or welded. It was a series of incremental hands-on experiments. If it felt too weak here, or flopped the wrong way there, another support was tacked on to see if that fixed the problem. If the wheels got in the way when it folded, then you went down to the next acceptable wheel size, while making sure it wasn’t something so oddball that it would be hard to replace or fix. It was an engineering problem to be solved. A list of features was made, and someone started working on a frame that would accommodate the parts desired, and meet the specs laid out. It was the work of a master bike mechanic trying to make his dream folding bike, and it would look right, when it handled right. It would be wrong to call the Tikit ugly, because it isn’t, but it definitely has the kind of rough aesthetics that are always born of a form follows function approach. Many an engineer will tell you that no working machine can ever be ugly, because the fact that it works is a testament to the beauty of the design. I understand this concept, but good luck ever getting a product designer to believe it. More than anything, I find it truly surprising how many people guess instantly the bike is made in America, just by how it looks. There is a no nonsense quality to it which I think people immediatly identify with American tinkering and one-off production, for better or worse. What you can’t argue with though, are the results. No matter what you think of how the thing looks, it is impressive to ride, one spin around the block and you can feel where they focused their attention.
The funny thing is, as both a designer and a cyclist, I can both appreciate, and cringe at, both bikes at the same time. I bought the Mobiky because the design absolutely floored me, and spoke to a need I desperately wanted filled. It looked like the perfect travel bike for multi-mode transportation. Then I rode it for three days, gave it to my wife, and swore I would never ride it again, because my 6’4″ 220 lbs body caused so much flex and rattling in the bike that I was sure it was going to fly apart any second. It was the best looking piece of garbage I had ever ridden. The designer in me absolutely loved the way it looked, the way it folded, how compact it was, everything about its design. The cyclist in me refused to subject myself to another minute of sitting on the thing. It utterly failed to serve its intended purpose for me, because it just cut too many corners to meet the aesthetics of the design. I know plenty of people, however, who are far less demanding as cyclists, and far more demanding as consumers of design, who would absolutely love the bike. For them, the design is at least as important as the nitpicky details of functionality. None of them would be caught dead on an ugly bike, but a Mobiky or a cool designer beach cruiser is just their speed. It goes perfectly with their uncomfortable $1,000 plastic chairs and blister-inducing $700 shoes.
The Tikit was a pure cyclist purchase though. I read the specs, I looked at the options, had it custom built to my measurements and had just the components I wanted put on it. I think about what parts I might swap out to get better performance out of it, and I look forward to riding it all over the world. The whole time the designer in me slaps his forehead and wonders why the thing has to look like a wrecked pile of junk when it is folded, and why it has so many odd angles and weird appendages which nobody even tried to integrate into any semblance of a unified aesthetic. I can spend all day trying to appreciate the raw beauty of form over function, but the part of my brain that gets paid to make things look pretty just isn’t buying it. It is the junkiest looking high-end bike I have ever ridden. I have no reason to think there is a single better folding bike in the world, but there are sure plenty of better looking folding bikes out there. Ultimately though, it is a bike, not a sculpture, and the intended purpose is transportation, not style. All the good looks in the world won’t get me across town, and when the choice comes down to compromising function for looks, or compromising looks for function, function will win out every time in my book.
I just think it is frustrating, because I don’t think it has to be one or the other. I think that an engineering-driven effort can be informed by good design, and end up with a product which is both first class in function and looks. I will admit, I have my doubts as a designer if things can go the other way though. I suspect that any time you start with a design focus, and then try to bring engineering in after people are already married to the concept, you risk ending up like the Mobiky. You can get it working, but too many compromises are made for the sake of the design. Maybe it is just my limitations as a designer speaking, but I know I have a lot easier time figuring out how to polish up someone else’s creation to make it look nice, than I do having someone come in and start making major changes to my creation in the name of mundane realities like how it needs to be welded. The problem of course, and I say this as a designer, is designers don’t like the idea that they are just an arm of the marketing department brought in to make with the pretty. We much prefer to think that we are the creative ones with all the fabulous ideas, and that the engineers are the ones brought in at the end to clean things up and make our glorious vision a reality. When you hand us an engineering prototype which you want us to dress up, we have this bad habit of sneering, making snide comments about putting lipstick on pigs, and immediately working on radically different concepts which throw away half the work engineering did. I know, it is awful, and I am not actually supposed to say that, but one of the advantages of working for myself, is I can be truthful. Us designer types are much more comfortable working with a blank page, coming up with pie in the sky concepts, and leaving the dirty work of getting it made to someone else. As such, we tend to try to run the whole show, and talk up our importence to the project beyond what is probably warranted.
Unfortunately, the two bikes show one irrefutable fact. When you have a good engineer tackle a problem, what you end up with is a well made machine which does its intended job impeccably, no matter how it looks, but when you have a good designer tackle a problem, what you get is a pretty and innovative solution to the problem, whether it works well or or not. In this era of rampant consumerism, and disposable everything, I can completely understand why so many companies go with the design focused approach. I mean, as long as they buy it, why do you care if it works as well as they expected, right? However I have to say in all humility that I have a new appreciation for how important it is to nail the engineering fundamentals first, and then polish it all up after you have a working engineering prototype. Who knows, maybe some day I will actually get a chance to work on a project where I can work along side engineering to keep a good balance between both sides from concept to completion, instead of it always having to be one or the other. Of course maybe I will win the lottery, find a unicorn in my back yard, and teach my Greman Shepherd to fly too, right?