After eying the Strida for a good two years, I finally had the chance to ride and manhandle one this week, when I demo'd the folding bike at Pop-Up Magazine. The short of it: The Strida excels at being one of the quickest, easiest folders I've broken down and put back together -- but it is also one of the most testicle-threatening little bikes I've ridden.
Details after the jump, but for now enjoy this Strida commercial from Japan (awesome, despite the fact I have no idea what they're saying).
I'm no stranger to the range of decent to not-so-decent folding bikes from makers like Dahon, Brompton, Breezer and Birdy. Not one of them is perfect for every ride or rider. Dahon offers excellent sporty components (for a price). Brompton makes a luxurious city cruiser (a bit on the heavy side). Point being: if you want to be George Jetson, you've got to be comfortable with some trade-offs.
The Good: Instead of a greasy chain, the Strida features a Kevlar belt drive (great if you're commuting to work in decent pants). The ergonomic grips provide excellent padding for your palms and the seat is equally comfy. After about an hour in total, I was able to get the folding and unfolding down to about 15 seconds give or take. Intelligent design: magnets on each of the wheels hold the two wheels together when folded (some of Dahon's bikes do this, too). The disc breaks are solid, which leads me to the...
Not-So-Good: Slamming the breaks, especially on a downwhill, will forcefully thrust your junk into the frame. There is no way to avoid this. Believe me. The triangular design is unique and smart, but creates a roadblock your manstuff will simply not appreciate. On the plus side, if you learn to break slowly, incrementally and carefully over time, the frame-smacking can be avoided.
Good-to-Know, also: This ride wasn't designed for hills, at all. It's a single-speed with tiny wheels and a seat that doesn't necessarily offer the longest of strides a particularly tall rider would want (not an issue for me, just saying).
Overall, for $800, you can sit atop a user-friendly, smooth-riding folder that's great for mostly-flat commuting. But again, that's only provided you ride safely. And by safely, I mean: break like a surgeon or wear a jockstrap and cup. Or maybe both.
I live in a quiet, hilly neighborhood in San Francisco near two parks with great running trails and killer views of the bay. Neither park has street lights, though, so it's a good idea to head out with a flashlight. Black Diamond Equipment makes a compact, 1-watt LED lantern called the Orbit. It emits this smooth, circular ambient light about six feet in diameter that makes everything from pavement cracks to poop smears surprisingly visible even when it's pitch dark out. It also stands upright, which is great if you're just hanging out in one spot, and the light is consistent and smooth, unlike the flickery yellow of most flashlights and candles. The Orbit is actually designed for outdoorsy stuff like camping and backpacking, so it has little hooks that attach to tents and trees and is super lightweight (3oz). I like that you can adjust the brightness with the on/off button and pull the base of the lantern out to extend it from 4 to 5.5 inches in length. It runs on four AAAs or an optional rechargeable battery.
At $30, it's one of the neatest-looking, practical flashlight alternatives out there.
The excellent conservative writer George Will has an amusing, if very old-mannish rant up about denim, which to him is an emblem of America's disordered national psyche. There's a great bit in the middle, echoing a line from a Daniel Akst piece from the WSJ:
Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products. Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults...
Yes, it's really Akst's thought with the dial up to 11. But there is no picture of Akst in a bow tie that you just know is being worn with a matching elastic belt.
Vaja, maker of stunning cases for MacBooks and Sony Vaios, added the Vaio P to its offerings. I'm tempted, but it's $120! On the other hand, I did pay $700 for a netbook. After the jump, the latest hardcover edition.
Cult of Mac's Pete Mortensen is the latest to explain why "Windows 7 Starter Edition" is going to make cheap PCs suck.
I never feel like Apple is needlessly squeezing pennies out of me by charging more for the features that make it worthwhile to upgrade. ... Starter is intended to make people want to buy the nicer versions of Windows 7. I think it's net effect is more likely to be that people seriously consider alternatives.
On the contrary, Windows 7 Starter Edition reveals why the alternatives can't beat Microsoft: because consumers just don't care. This disinterest is so profound that Microsoft can not only design an intentionally bad product, but market it as such. It knows that most people will pay extra to stay rather than switch, regardless of whether the proposed alternative is better or cheaper.
If you claim, in a review at Amazon, that its third-party sellers attempted to bribe you to get a good write-up, what will happen? Amazon will delete your review, of course! [Consumerist]
Griffin's TuneFlex solves a problem: the iPod Touch and iPhone's lack of physical controls, which matter when attention is best given to the road ahead. A base unit plugs into the ciggie lighter and the stereo's auxiliary input, while a remote control (play/pause, FF and rewind) attaches to the steering wheel.
It works well enough, with two minor drawbacks. First, it's big and cumbersome enough that you might want to not bother with the steering attachment, and just leave it knocking about in the console. Second, the base station caused en error to popup on our first-gen iPhone, which complained that it wasn't compatible. It worked perfectly, however, after the warning was dismissed. Apart from that, it's perfect.
It's also compatible with normal iPods, should you just want a fancy recharching mount or remote.
At $80, though, it seems expensive given what little it does, even if it does it very well.
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