FoldingStyle

What do you think about?

https://www.iruka.tokyo/
https://vimeo.com/277440100

berlinonaut

Intersting find! Seems to have been made with much love and attention to detail! The story behind it is very interesting, too, and speaks for itself: iruka******************** - iruka

I do not get the reason for the black knob on the front of the bike. Maybe it acts as a kind of spacer if you use the optional bag-hook on the bars. It does however in some way make the bike look a bit strange for my taste.

It costs ~1700€ plus tax in Japan, so it is not cheap - but seems to be very well made. At 12 kg it is not terribly light, especially for a naked bike w/o fenders, rack and lights - but it has an internal Alfine 8-speed hub that adds to the weight. Still a bit on the heavy side. The 18" tires (like the birdy) are ok, but limit the choice of tires a bit.

A very fancy design, well made, already an interesting line of accessories - it looks like somebody has realized his personal dream. Great thing and looks amazingly well thought trough. Rear frame design close to Birdy and Helix, split main tube was AFAIR seen on some prototypes of the Curl. The motivation for the bike sounds a little bit like the one of the creator of the Helix (and in the same way like the story behind the creation of the Brompton: seeing the potential behind the concept of folding bikes but being not happy with what's available on the market). Regarding the cleanness of the design it reminds me a bit of the castro bike (though the Iruka is obviously much more complex).

The fold does not convince me too much on first look: Long and flat (like a folded Tikit) but surprisingly wide and I cannot find an advantage that would result from using a mono fork (apart from looks). I guess it all depends from how it rides.

Thanks for sharing!

Kabuto

Interesting looking bike indeed. Wouldn't mind checking one out when they go on sale next month. I suspect that like Tyrell bikes the Iruka is sized for the locals, so a bit small for anyone taller than about 170-175cm.

Iruka means dolphin... so maybe the black knob is a design feature to match the name?

berlinonaut

Indeed! The max saddle height of 950mm would be by far (!) too low for me In combination with the pedal being ~10cm off the ground in lowest position, the max. bar height of 980mm is 5cm higher than the S-Brompton and 5 cm lower than the M-Brompton. Would be rideable for me, but not with comfort and only over shorter distances. So it seems you are right regarding the bike being a bit on the small side for Europeans.

ttakata73

Nice to see new designs but see some issues with this.
Wide fold, tiny roller wheels and the grip is so close to the ground when folded so would probably dig into the ground with just a few degrees of tilt. Trolleying this folded would be very difficult.

tcs

(Hey, we all know what it's like on Bike Forums: resurrect an old thread, and everybody is all 'Why didn't you start a new one?" Start a new thread, and it's "There's already been a thread on this - use the search function!" )

Sometimes folding bikes designs are optimized to fit into a certain space, rather than fill the smallest volume possible.

Fun fact: Dr. Hon's original bike was designed to fit under the seats of the San Francisco Bay Area's BART trains, and Mark Sander's Strida was designed to occupy the space of an umbrella or walking stick while standing on a London bus or in the tube.

The low but wide Iruka was optimized to fit standing between the rows of seats in front of you on a Shinkansen (Japanese 'bullet' train), as explained around the 5-minute point in this video interview with the designer:


That's pretty cool, although I note one has to put their bike in a bag onboard a train in Japan. While there's no bag shown in the video, there is one available on Ikura's accessory page (along with an extended seatpost, to answer a concern in a prior posts).

https://www.iruka.tokyo/en/

tdonline

As a rectangular fold, it may fit into a standard luggage bag?

2_i 

I somehow miss the point. Half of the year in Japan are rain days, but the designers seem to function in some Lalaland where fenders are irrelevant.

Kabuto

The saddle height specs they post are from the ground to the saddle, not the pedal or BB to the saddle. I checked with the designer directly about a year ago. Even the extended seatpost would be about 8-10cm too short for me (92cm cycling inseam).

Jipe

One more nice Japanese bike made for... Japanese people only !

Besides the size, it has also some other weak points.

Indeed, no mudguards, but also no light and with a weight of almost 12kg without any equipment and lightweight Kojak tires, its pretty heavy.

If you look at the frame design, comfort will surely not be its strongest point (aluminum frame+thick rear frame+massive lefty fork+relatively narrow high pressure tires).

Kamiseta123

Nice bike. But fixing and maintaining the bike might be pain in the a.. most of it are proprietary