I get great pleasure from my road bike, and ride mountain bikes reluctantly only when conditions are bad. The reason? I’m lazy. I don’t want work to feel like work. If I’m going to ride a bike every day, those 20km had better feel like a pleasure or else eventually, I probably won’t be riding every day. I’m easily pleased by efficiency, and that’s how I feel about bikes. A bike can be one of two things: A pleasure, or work. Riding the Revelo Lift is a pleasure.
For years I’ve been a weekend explorer. Toronto’s regional transit has bike racks on most of their busses, so with my road bike I am able to explore some pretty good stuff in a large region of forests and farms and lakes, including Niagara Falls. From April to November I put in as many centuries as I can. But lately, this donut of land has felt smaller. This summer, I want to go a little further. So this winter I’ve been looking high and low for a bike I would enjoy riding that fits in an Ikea bag. As I mentioned above, when it comes to getting pleasure out of work, I’m very, very efficient.
The folding bikes I looked at were the Dahon Speed and the Giant Expressway. They both have long wheelbases, longer than my road bike. The idea being that the stretched out feeling gives a greater feeling of mastery of the road. I had trouble doing shoulder checks with a short or long wheelbase. The jittery feeling of a small folding bike comes from the narrowness of it.
The first folding bike I looked at was the Giant Expressway. The bikes I own are both bought and serviced from my neighbourhood Sweet Pete’s Bike Shop. (An excellent bike outfit if you’re in Toronto:
www.sweetpetes.com) I’m lucky to have them. Expressway was a half fold and was pretty straightforward, but just too heavy for what I have in mind.
The Dahon Speed was at the store down the block. It’s the steel edition of the Dahon Mariner (I was interested in the Mariner) It was a similar size to the Giant Expressway, fold was smaller and somehow more elegant. But still it was large, and still it was heavy. Not Ikea bag worthy.
Brompton: I had tried a Brompton in the past – not my own – and I’m assuming they feel exactly the same and will for all time. It’s a bit too rich for my budget. The feeling I got when I rode it was like I was in a rumbling paper airplane with a rocket engine. It was a very good airplane and an exhilarating ride, but it wasn’t the right feel for me. It was a “sport” handlebars model which probably added to the rocket feeling. If I have the money, one day a Brompton is the sort of thing I would customize so that it was just right, and I would fold it up, so that it could fit on my luxury yacht, near the helipad, and use it to pedal around my estate in Maui.
WalMart. I was pwned by a foldie from WalMart once. Let’s not talk about it. I must have blocked it out of my memory. It was so awful I curbed it. Last I saw it was being ridden away by the guy on my street who feeds stray cats.
Helix. Crickets.
There was a Strida bike on my local Kijiji. It’s a small and tall fold which is kind of what I had in mind, when I envisioned a bike in an Ikea bag. A very cool bike, but not a very fast bike. I’m imagining 60-80km explores, so an element of speed is important.
Solorock was prominent on Amazon, ebay, and kijiji. In the end I never checked them out in person. I went online and that’s what led me to this bike forum. They have a local store in Mississauga. I learned they rebrand bikes and market their name. Nothing wrong with that, they obviously are very good at getting their name out there. I’m impressed by their metadata.
Finally I found Revelo. They started in 2012 selling a folding ebike. A few years ago they introduced a bike that folds like a Z into a small & tall fold. Shorter than a Strida and as narrow as a Brompton. For overseas travel this bike can fit into a 29” suitcase.
I looked at the Sport model because I liked the Shimano Claris 8-speed that lets me change gears with my thumb. They have a 20” model but I’m into size so I was drawn to the 16” model.
The shorter wheelbase took a moment to get used to, I felt like I was looming over the front wheel at first. It looked like there was no front wheel at all. But the geometry of this bike was much closer to my road bike than to my mountain bike. It felt good. It was weird looking down and not seeing a tire, which affected my balance until I got used to it.
Folding the bike was easy. The impression I got from picking it up was that it was really well designed. Handles in the frame wherever there was a balance point. I was able to open it and close it with one motion on my first try. There’s a magnet that joins it, and the bike also came with velcro straps. One strap which you use to cinch the bike securely, another larger one that can be used as a shoulder strap. There was a small kick stand on the front wheel which kept it upright when folded.
The bike was surprisingly light. It had a light feel to lift, after lifting the Giant Expressway and the Dahon Speed this was a real delight.
The Revelo Lift had none of the annoying rattling I heard from other foldies. It was a smooth ride, gears changed smoothly, tires rolled smoothly. I was expecting something more road sensitive from an aluminum bike. I think the one-piece design of that Z fold makes a difference when it comes to evening out the road. But I'm not a scientist, I can't tell you if this is better or worse than other designs. I can tell you, speaking as someone who values a quiet ride, that this was a quiet ride.
The ride was quick and I can see how this would be ideal for city biking. It was quick and nimble. I had the same problem trying to do shoulder checks that I did with the Giant and the Dahon. This wasn’t because of a short wheelbase, it was because overall the narrowness and general smallness makes for a more jittery ride. On my road bike, I can lean on the handlebars and catch some wind, leisurely look back left or right without changing my balance. On long rides, I forget that I’m balancing at all. On a smaller folding bike, a larger rider would need to be mindful of this or might throw their balance off.
Measuring my ride from the store to my home, with a tailwind I was going about 16-20 km/h (about 10-12 mph) in city traffic. On my road bike I probably would have gone a bit faster, on my mountain bike a bit slower.
I had lightweight mudflaps, which is good because the roads were sloppy and slushy in places, and wet all over. The small wheels and the mudflaps did the trick, and there wasn’t any road salt goo on my coat when I got home, or mud on my pant cuffs.
Here is the ultimate test that makes this bike worth it for me: There is a stretch of ride on Shaw street where there is a gentle uphill grade, that always feels like a labour on my Kona Splice, I would feel a definite strain pushing up the grade – I hesitate to even call it a hill – and would be a bit winded and a few drops of sweat would pop up. There was none of this with the Lift. Riding was a pleasure. There is a definite ceiling to how fast I can go using a regular cadence of about 20km/h. Compared to my road bike I would objectively compare the Revelo Lift speed to my road bike speed a 7 out of 10, while the speed of my more labourious mountain bike is 6 out of 10. For example, this morning it was beginning to snow so I rode my Splice to work, into a headwind I went about 14km/h.
The bottom line is, for what I need it to do the Revelo Lift bike is the best value for the dollar. It has a great design, it feels good on the road to ride, and looks great. I am looking forward to nicer weather so I can take it out for longer adventures.
Here are some photos. I switched the 53T crank for a 56T one, and bought those important mud flaps.
Revelo Lift sport 16
I went about 16-20km/h (about 10-12 mph) at a normal cadence
Folds narrow like a Brompton in a cool Z shape.