The curious Hub & Axle 'Pocket Bike'
 

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...51a6da1cdb.png

This bike is known to me only through this single line drawing in author Tom Cuthbertson's 1980 'Better Bikes!' AFAIK only a single prototype was built by the Hub and Axle Bicycle Company and I can't find any internet tracks it might have left.

Cuthbertson said it was light, stiff, rode and handled well and folded 'almost as small as the Bickerton', the folding bike benchmark in 1980.

Those tension cables look like slicers and dicers in any sort of unintended get off. :eek:

Other than acting as a brace for the long seat tube the top cables do not take much of a load. The lower ones do. All cables are tension cables :0. Maybe the upper ones help folding and unfolding.

I'm guessing the seat pillar unlocks on perhaps an overcenter, relaxing the tension on all the cables and allowing the bike to fold.

Could well be. The offset stem arrangement is also very curious.

It reminds me of the Dahon Jifo