Folding Bike Research Survey

[JessicaWilson11]

Hello! I am a University Student conducting market research on folding bikes in order to design and manufacture a group one as part of a module this year. None of our group are experienced cyclists nor have we ever encountered a folding bicycle until this project so if you experts could complete this 10 question survey to help guide our research, it would really help us out and get us started. The link is below and will the survey itself should take no longer than 2 minutes of your time. Thank you in advance.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/H2XG8BH

 

[Jason]

Done

 

[jefmcg]

Done.. ish

Found a lot of the questions hard to answer. I care about folded size and ride, not about wheel size per se. "Don't care" wasn't an option. Several other questions I had to choose "other" and give annoying answers to.

 

[alicat]

Done. If I were an inexperienced cyclist, a folding bike would not be my choice of project. A & E could be quite busy.

 

[annedonnelly]

The first question assumes you have a folder. That sort of rules out people who haven't got one but may well want one and have opinions about what they want.

 

[Cycleops]

As @annedonnelly says it rules out people like me who are cyclists but are considering a folding bike.
In fact we are maybe not the best people to ask about folding bikes. The vast majority are bought as urban transportation or travel to work and the person might never have cycled previously except a child.

 

[simon.r]

One comment re cost:

Many folding bikes are well over your upper limit of £500. I’m sure your research will include sales figures, but I’d suggest that one of the best selling folders in the UK is the Brompton, which costs about £1000 (the cost varies with specification).

If you own a bike instead of a car it’s very easy to justify spending a four figure sum on one.

 

[the_mikey]

Done..

I answered as well as I could, my use of folding bikes is primarily for getting to railway stations carrying myself and a bag, it's also used for recreation occasionally, so things that influence my decision are simply getting it on and off the train, many rail operating companies have a policy that only allows the smallest of folding bikes on as hand luggage, which for a frequent traveller is an essential requirement, and this needs to be sufficiently robust enough to survive being lugged on and off trains, up and down stairs, I'm not sure disc rotors would survive too many trips on packed trains. Imagine if there was a small, comfortable folding bike that was more affordable and performed better than a brompton? Controversial maybe, but that's where the money is (in the UK at least), other countries might have different attitudes towards bicycles on public transport, thus allowing a different design to succeed.

 

[JessicaWilson11]

Thanks everybody for your responses! The questions are maybe a bit closed and directed to folding bike users as we have a specification to meet and so i have tried to focus the answers around that - i know they dont really welcome other thoughts as such but i do really appreciate you all taking the time to fill it in! thank you!

 

[Fab Foodie]

Done!
A single gear, 20" wheel, belt drive, rim brakes. Compact folder wound be fab thanks :-)
I don't have one in my collection!

 

[Fab Foodie]

[QUOTE 4989226, member: 45"]Hub gear.

Nobber.[/QUOTE]
Too much complexity and I have 3 already...keeping it simple :-)

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Hub generator and built in LED lights.