Author: Gunnar Fehlau
Announcement: This Summer ’08 I’ll publish the one and only book all about folding bikes.
(I know it has been delayed a long time. Obstacles always seem to throw themselves in the path of me getting this book finished! I made a lot of progress in past month but now another book forced itself on me—really! I would’ve turned it down but it’s a family thing. Anyway, it bumped back the folder book. Ugh! I’d say it’s at 85% finished.)
$19.95; paperback; 6×9; 150 pages.
Folding bikes today are lovely, highly-developed creations of great utility, style and engineering finesse.
Today you really don’t have to give up a thing—not even thrift—to get a bike you can carry in a satchel.
Mixed-mode travel is booming in urban—and harbor—areas around the world. Folding bicycles are an essential part of many transit solutions!
There are quite a few models and approaches, all offering a unique angle or advantage. The scene is proliferating and developing far more today than even 10 years ago. The improvements and diversity will really impress you!
The old mainstays—Brompton, Moulton, Birdy—are going strong, although they are ever more refined. Exciting new players are on the scene: Bike Friday has to be the biggest US maker, offering race-bike performance and style in a suitcase. Dahon, a company formerly in the mid-to-low range, has come on very strong with the best-looking designs which are also among the lightest and most affordable! One of their new-era models weighed only 21 pounds and sold for only $600…and had the cleanest lines produceable by the high level engineering and computer design.
This is just a tiny taste of what’s coming at you in a new title which will expand public awareness of what bikes are and can do.
Upcoming Projects
My goal is to publish bike books that no one else will, about important bikes for everyday people. I’ll let others handle the Lance Tour books and Mt-Bike Trailguides. (These are the only bike books that bookstores tell me they can sell. My projects keep showing them otherwise, but they’re admittedly exceptions.)
I already have in the production hopper the world’s first book all about trikes.
My proposed line-up of OYB title subjects will finally let the world see what bikes are really all about:
*velomobiles
*city bikes
*tandems
When finished, the world will finally have sufficient info and inspiration available about the rainbow of bikes that the whole world uses (rather than just a small segment).
