To knowingly buy a fake or not?

[Mucklegipe]

Right there are a lot of fake A-Bikes out there, some good, (compared to other fakes), to some not so good.

So would you buy a fake bike just to get an A-bike style?

Before you answer think on this. Would you buy an iPod lookalike knowing full well iPods are only made by Apple?
If you want an iPod you buy an iPod! Also remember if your lookalike iPod breaks what is the worst that can happen? Wasted money, lost songs right!

What if the bike, the copy because it is structurally untested unlike the Sinclair bike, (I know it is possible for them to suffer damage as well but will tend not to due to better tolerances), breaks, remember you are probably on a public road at the time!

Having seen pictures of copies that have failed if I had known I would not have bought the first bike. I guess it is called hindsight!

Aye, well a real bike then?

You decide!


Mucklegipe

[Sherlock Holmes]

I put "Yes, but I would be careful" because I seriously did consider buying an imitation first. Since I live in America, there was no way for me to test ride an A-bike anywhere. As much as I was dying to have a real A-bike, I knowingly bid on one or two fakes on Ebay to see if I could get one for really cheap in order to "test it out" before forking up all the money for a real one.

I am SO glad, though, that I did end up waiting, and buying a real one.

I am really hoping that somehow Sinclair will start selling the bikes actively in the States here. If there had been a local store that sold A-bikes and allowed you test one out, it would have saved me a lot of grief of worrying if it worked as well as I hoped.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

[Weakling]

Have you found any dealer in USA? I live in Northern Europe so me not up do date on bikes in USA. Are there icy streets now in Chicago? I used Minibikes on Icy streets and fell to the ground at least two times every winter and I was lucky to not get bad head injury.

Is it easier to find Carryme than A-bike in USA? I've seen that they mention Carryme in the Bikeforums.

[kenwshmt2]

My first a-bike was a fake, it creaked like a ship at sea, and the freewheel burned out at 100 miles.

My current abike is a real one.

If the copy were amazingly cheap, I would get a few and keep them around for spares, and as auxiliary vehicles. Not intending them to be used much.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Have you found any dealer in USA? I live in Northern Europe so me not up do date on bikes in USA. Are there icy streets now in Chicago? I used Minibikes on Icy streets and fell to the ground at least two times every winter and I was lucky to not get bad head injury.

Is it easier to find Carryme than A-bike in USA? I've seen that they mention Carryme in the Bikeforums.

No, unfortunately, I was not able to find any USA dealer for an A-bike, though, I looked pretty hard. There was one website I found that listed it, but when you tried to order, it said "currently unavailable." It looks like it is a lot easier to buy the Carryme bike in the USA (I think it says one day shipping to Chicago) though, it is more expensive than the A-bike, and not as compact. I am not sure how much it would cost to ship one to Europe, though.

Yes, there are icy streets in Chicago here, and probably will be off and on till about late March. It is not bad if people put down salt and shovel the walkways, but often times some people do not, and thus the snow gets trampled down more and more by people walking and it turns into really nasty hard bumpy ice (as I am guessing you experience the same thing in Northern Europe). Not a good surface for the A-bike.

Do you still ride your bike on the ice, even after your falls?

[Weakling-Sweden]

Yes, there are icy streets in Chicago here, and probably will be off and on till about late March. It is not bad if people put down salt and shovel the walkways, but often times some people do not, and thus the snow gets trampled down more and more by people walking and it turns into really nasty hard bumpy ice (as I am guessing you experience the same thing in Northern Europe). Not a good surface for the A-bike.

Do you still ride your bike on the ice, even after your falls?

such ridgy and bumpy icy snowy streets and sidewalks are dangerous.

Cars also make long valleys and the front wheel get on a tangent and one easily loose balance when it is dark outside and one are sloppy in the watch out. Hehehe

No now in winter I use my kickrollator go to flickr dot com and write kickrollator and you see a crazy looking old chum, that is Mr Weakling in all his splendore. I use an ESLA which is a Double Kickbike or what to call it. Finland makes them. they have three companies their doing their own models, Norway have one and Sweden none so we import the Finnish one.

Price a bit like a Carryme.

It is too big to use in commuter train and busses but most of the time they allow me cause it is seen a bit like an "aid" and such is special case. But they are instructed to throw us out in case of rush hour. As retired we are expected to travel during low traffic. So I plan to get a Carryme to have when it is rush hour here.

I have a distant relative in North? Chicago. LakeVilla close to the big sea there that border Canada. I should have kept contact with him but as young one didn't care about such distant relatives. So he would not be happy if I showed up I guess. His 90 year mother died some two years ago so he has sewer the ties to us distant relatives while she loved to visit my Mom each five years or so. Very friendly old lady.

[Mucklegipe]

My first a-bike was a fake, it creaked like a ship at sea, and the freewheel burned out at 100 miles.

My current abike is a real one.

If the copy were amazingly cheap, I would get a few and keep them around for spares, and as auxiliary vehicles. Not intending them to be used much.

Did it have proper tyres like an A-Bike or like mine have solid rubber ones?

Mucklegipe

[Weakling]

Those who constructed the A-bike says that solid rubber tyres make the other components get stressed to the point they break.

Are there not very many different variants of solid rubber tyres. I mean they use them in Rollators/Walkers with wheels. I guess the stress is much less on the rollators cause not the whole weight is on them.

The good thing about solid rubber tyres would be to not having to change the inner tubes. Such could be a pain indeed.

changing tires...near impossible

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=e4071d05f4152a5700fed1f0944227f9&t=360376

But maybe A-bike is easier than the bike he talks about in that link.

It is a thing about safety too. If one get a puncture while in the middle of high traffic in a city to loose balance in such situation could be fatal.

We have a thread about changing the inner tubes here so I try to find link to it.

http://www.abikecentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=260

Here is one about solid tyres
http://www.abikecentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=404

maybe more threads too.

[Weakling]

My aology to Sherlock Holmes for my careless attitude to winter weather in USA.

OKLAHOMA CITY - A winter storm that left the nation's midsection coated in ice marched eastward Thursday, while many of the places it already hit continued to shiver as crews worked to restore electricity.

In Oklahoma, at least 350,932 homes and businesses still were without power early Thursday, officials said. The storm pummeled the region for three days this week, bringing down power lines with heavy ice and leading to the deaths of 33 people, mostly in traffic accidents.

Some places in the Northeast could receive up to a foot of snow Thursday, said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Camp Springs, Md. Schools in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced closures, in some cases before flakes even began to fall.

So your weather there is much worse than we have here up north Europe. Golf Stream is helping Scandinavia to have very good weather even if rainy and snowy at times but not as severe as over there.

How does the small wheel size tire of A-bike deal with lots of snow?

[Sherlock Holmes]

My aology to Sherlock Holmes for my careless attitude to winter weather in USA.

Not need to apologize Vekling. We have had some pretty horrible days this past week and a half, but it is not horrible all the time. I would say we get about three or four major storm systems during the winter, and then a bunch of smaller ones mixed in the rest. We had the first major one in the last week and a half.

The deepest snow I have tried the A-bike in so far has only been between an inch and an inch and a half, but that was still falling, so it was still light and fluffy on the ground, not icy. I think I would feel comfortable riding the bike probably in up to 2-3 inches of snow, as long as it had recently fallen. After that, though, I think I leave the A-bike at home.

How cold does it get there where you are? Do you not get much snow?

[Weakling]

Snowy weather in US is worsening. 200 airplane in Chicago had to cancel their flights. A foot of snow or so and in North East maybe almost a yard? Isn't that extreme? I'm very lucky here in Sweden. Very good weather.

No bike will manage to ride well under extreme conditions. But when they have plowed and the cars has made the streets free from most of the snow one could test. I wonder about Yaktrax, a kind of accessory? for the shoes to get a better grip on snow and ice. One should make such for the wheels/tires too. Maybe not practical. But cars have such.

[Guest]

I bought a fake and spent this evening tinkering with it. The fit and finish is excellent and at first glance, I imagine it doesn't look too much different from the real thing. The problem is that it is like wearing a fake Rolex. You know it's not the real thing and even if it works for a while, it just isn't the same. However, I needed a bike that I could ride 1.5 miles to the bus shelter and fold small enough to take on board. I used to have a Dahon SpeedPro, but even folded, it is too large to take onto some buses.

[scarlett]

I am the guy who bought a couple of fakes in Guangzhou for £20 each, so that answers the pole bit. The bikes were damaged in transit to where we bought them. The sales lady agreed to send us the spares we needed to make them fit.

The first pack of spares arrived by air within two weeks of the sale. Cost to them of £35. The second pack arrived just before Christmas, Air frieght cost £20.

We now have two complete and working, if not perfect, fun bikes and a small box of spares, clips, tubes and the like. My wife no longer wants her bike so I expect to have at least one bike working well this time next Christmas. A year's fun and occasional transport for £40 is ok for me.

[Rich]

I put down a 'yes' but it's somewhere between that 'hell yes' and 'hell no' because it's more like a 'yes... maybe'. As in, since I too am in the US, I'll buy the fake (knowingly), but once I've exhausted other possibilities. If the fake is the only way I can have a bike I'll be able to take as carryon to a plane, then that may be what I have to do eventually.

My own full-size bike sits sadly on my balcony, with my last ride having been about two years past. I'd use the A-Bike when I hop a plane from Austin to Houston, as there's a monthly aviation open-house a short walk (or bikeride) from the plane terminal that I like to attend. So the A-Bike would get more use! Still, the one time I hopped a plane instead of driving (yay super cheap fares), the walk was nice.

-Rich
----- staring hungrily at some eBay bikes

[scarlett]

If Rich wants a real A-Bike and they are not distributed in the US why can't a bona fide dealer in another country send him one for money? If they are bound by some contract to only sell in their own country surely they could get permission on a one-off basis until whoever sets up in the country.

It is a crazy world when you can buy fakes in a country but if you want the genuine article you cannot buy it.