Thank God It's Friday (Pocket Rocket)

Are you planning to travel with your bike? For years, I’ve used a Bike Friday Pocket Rocket, the folding bike with 20-inch wheels that fits in a suitcase. It’s a great solution: no onerous airline charges (airline personnel can’t tell there’s a bike in there) and a position indistinguishable from your regular road bike. I’ve done eight days of touring in Ireland, the Hotter’n Hell Hundred, 140 mile cruises and plenty of normal training on my Friday and it’s worked great.

But some people think they look funny astride the small wheels and unique frame design. That’s no problem for die-hard Bike Friday owners who see the design as a badge of honor. And Bike Fridays are an industry insiders’ fave–each year the early morning ride at Interbike, the huge bike trade show, is filled with former pros on Pocket Rockets or Air Fridays. But if it bothers you to have little kids on the sidewalk laugh at your bike when you ride by, you might consider S+S Machine’s Bicycle Torque Coupling (BTC) system. The BTC’s are clever toothed couplers that enable a regular bike’s frame to be split for packing. The bike fits in a suitcase (although it’s somewhat bigger than Bike Friday’s to accommodate 700C wheels) and once it’s reassembled, the couplers are unobtrusive. Many manufacturers make bikes with the BTC system, including Co-Motion.

Both Bike Friday and BTC models mean that you can take your bike on business trips or for vacations, then get out for a real ride whenever your schedule allows. They’re great fitness preservers for busy travelers.