A common frustration in my part of the world is that transit does not run very often, and there are only 2 spots for bikes on the front of buses. There have been many times when I’ve had to wait an extra hour just to see if the next bus happens to have a spot for my bike.
Every time this happens, I promise myself that I’m going to someday spend the money to buy a folding bike (which can be taken on the bus if it’s folded).
In my head, riding a folding bike is a joyous experience, partly because of Dr Sharon riding a Brompton in Ted Lasso, but I’m curious what it’s actually like.
My dream folding bikes are any model of Brompton, a RadExpand 5, or a Tern Link D7i.
I have an ENGWE EP-2 Pro: For your purposes, I wouldn’t recommend it because it’d be not very fun to drag onto a bus/train at 75 lbs base weight.
I would not recommend the RadExpand 5 for similar reasons: I’m a fairly big dude, but even just tossing my bike in the back seat is kind of a pain in the ass, I would not really want to haul this on and off of busses all the time.
If you want a regular bike though, Brompton would probably be great! That Tern Link looks pretty sweet too though. For pedal powered bike, that has some really cool features!
If you want an ebike, you’d probably better off converting a Brompton or that Tern (or you could buy a lighter folding bike).
If you need to get around really quick, ebikes are amazing, but if you’re not pressed for time and have good public transport, I think you might be better off with a lighter traditional folding bike.