Bicycle Recommendations
lincolnquirk.com
lincolnquirk.com
I wish this myth would stop being perpetuated. Yes, aluminum frames typically crack or dent rather than splinter and become immediately hazardous, but if you hit something hard enough to break a carbon frame, you'll have done even more damage to an aluminum one. If you hit the deck that hard, you're best off getting the frame professionally inspected and replaced if necessary.
I think this fear stems from a gut feeling that metal is more ductile and durable than "plastic", but what you're dealing with is far, far stronger than plastic.
I always like to show these videos to illustrate:
Speaking of paint, if the paint on a carbon bike is damaged, you let in all kinds of new problems from UV brittling to galvanic corrosion (where the carbon meets a metal part). There have been recalls from pretty major manufacturers over glavanic corrosion (which mostly shows up in bottom brackets and the headset-crown interface on forks.
Long story short, carbon fiber is a great material for bike frames and parts! But caring for these bikes is a completely different beast compared to the horrific abuse metal bikes can take. Neighborhood kids will leave their metal bikes in the mud and snow outdoors all winter, then ride the thing to school all year. I wouldn't want to try that experimnent with carbon. It's my preferred frame material, but it's not a low-maintenance one.
Steel yields gently so most people have learned to tighten things until they feel the bolt start to yield, then stop. With aluminium that's harder, and with carbon it basically doesn't happen. You need to be careful, ideally use a torque wrench, and always check for cracks in your carbon bike.
A friend was "helped" by someone a while ago and their carbon MTB now has a crack where the seatpost bolt does up. It seems to be ok and they know to watch that area. But I'm ok with it because when it does fail... the seatpost drops and couple of cm into the frame and gets loose. That's pretty survivable.
Said friend-of-friend also helped change the oil in their car. Overtightening an oil filter is much less survivable (for the car). Filter split, oil everywhere, had to get towed to service centre and replaced. Oooops.
Aluminum, steel, carbon, etc are materials that can be engineered out to wazoo to have different qualities, many of them overlapping. Aluminum bikes can be wet noodles and steel bikes can be bone-jarring stiff. A big-box-store aluminum bike is nothing like a race bike made from high-end reynolds aluminum. Etc.
And I've taken the bike off 6ft drops and ridden it decently hard most of it's restored life.
CF repair can be done and plenty strong, it's just more risky because the properties aren't isotropic and simple like steel/alu so you can't just weld in a piece of metal of roughly the same thickness. I would not want to repair a bike I don't ride myself.
[1] https://medium.com/@fixingthings/fixing-a-trek-remedy-29-9-8... (yes, sorry it's medium)
Welding after heat treatment will reduce the weld affected zone back to its basic untreated properties.
The videos are fun, but of a very limited scope. I would like to see the corresponding videos made by an independent person, or by people who make steel, aluminium and titan frames. People who sell carbon frames at a higher price point have every incentive to bias the results of these experiments in their favor (for example, by intentionally producing less robust aluminium frames for their lower end products).
The most dangerous parts are rims, fork, steerer tube, handlebar. If one of those breaks at speed, you will crash spectacularly.
And what people are afraid of are manufacturing defects, testing a good frame is pointless if you worry about manufacturing defects.
The problem with carbon isn't what happens when you ride it, but what happens by accident. Tipping a carbon bike over can cause stresses in a direction where the fibers are weak, thus causing significant damage with minimal force. Some carbon bikes are even so thin in certain places that the frame can bend if you press it with your finger.
This type of problem is not present in aluminum frames.
So weight and speed probably do matter, even for regular people.
Good quality steel is quite light as well, about 2.5 kg for the frame and the fork. Add to that beefy 650b or 700c wheels with 42..50 mm wide rubber and you've got a bike which one can confortably ride on most roads, paved or otherwise. The new gravel bike trend is quite in line with this. As long as it's not an UCI approved discipline and the manufacturers start making only race bikes again, one can probably find a decent endurance or adventure model with more relaxed geometry and actual utility. I like the current Breezer Bikes lineup a lot, especially the Doppler. They're made of regular 4130 chromoly, not Reynolds 725 or other heat treated steel types, but they're affordable, very durable and also carbon fork compatible. Joe Breeze is also very experienced designer and builder, being one of the original mountain bike pioneers. If you want a more nimble bike look for a Ritchey or the more premium QBS brands like Salsa or All City.
Dutch style bikes are okay in flat countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, but I'd get a lighter trekking bike regardless.
That said, Dutch-style bikes are not for me. I like trekking bikes, which often have a good trade-off between speed, weight, stability, and lower maintenance than most road bikes (especially with belt drive and a gear hub). I also have a hybrid bike, which is lighter and faster, but I don't really like the amount of maintenance it requires (regularly degreasing the derailleur) and it feels less stable than a trekking bike.
my (limited) experience is the opposite. I have more back pain after a ride with my upright, dutch-style ride, than on my sporty trekking bike, that has a more inclined position and I ride comfortably for longer and on more irregular terrain. Maybe the vertical position is worse to absorb road vibrations?
Could be. My point of reference is The Netherlands, where we have good cycling infrastructure and the roads are typically very smooth.
In my case, a change of saddle made a great difference. The two saddles weren't particularly different in price or overall look, but one happened to fit my body much better than the other. Luck.
On a trekking bike your weight is more distributed, since your torso is sort of laying down.
Though, if I could go back a few years in time, I would just buy something like an Urban Arrow. We had one last holiday and they are awesome for transporting kids + groceries.
It doesn't make much sense, in a way: If I have a trailer and 150-200kg of total weight (and I have as much every couple of weeks), why should 5kg more or less matter? But it matters: The bike feels better when it's not that heavily loaded, ie. most of the time.
What matters most of the time, matters.
Just get a 40 euro clonker and drive it. Fix it up when it needs fixing. Unless you're doing 15 or more clicks of commuting with it, that'll be perfectly fine and anything more luxurious than that is a waste.
Thank you for having the balls to say this.
It'd be like someone asking advice on getting his first car and all of these people come in and tell him that you'd really want a boxer engine, and while you can get FWD, RWD or AWD is just superior. And you also really ought to get a turbo on it. Some people still prefer a supercharger, but those are just outdated, and modern antilag systems just make turbos superior in all ways.
Q: i want to buy a car.
A: just get one. compact car, ferrari, station wagon, truck mixer, F1 car, oldtimer, golf cart, doesn't matter! all of those will get you to your destination eventually.
But that's not really true. A lot of novices are turned off riding because they use a bicycle shaped object which rides like a tractor.
Buying a light bike with good handling and a good drive train is important for taking pleasure in riding even if you're just doing a 4km commute or supermarket run.
I have two bikes, one is a silly city bike without gear shift, and with dodgy brakes. I have to go up and down the hill, it's really not possible to use it for that comfortably.
The other is an excellent (also second hand) bike with 7 gears, panier rack, disc brakes. I love it. Disc brakes, BTW, are so comfortable on your fingers.
Yeah, you can. And for 95% of cases it'll be fine. The article opens with "For non-expert cyclists". Those don't need to worry about the material of the frame, or the kind of brakes. Give them a 3-speed with hand brakes and it'll be fine.
What's way more important and much more likely to cause a huge shift in comfort for starting cyclists that this article doesn't talk about is correct size, saddle adjustment etc etc.
> Some people are willing to spend a little more money to get more comfort.
Totally. This is coming from someone who used to own 4 bikes (once every-day bike, a mountain bike, a street racing bike and a carrier bike for postal work). But you get those for specific reasons after you've learned what you need. That's when you are already an expert. If you're not a biker, the thing to do is get something cheap so you can get used to it and just do it.
also if it was true that ease of use wasn't a factor e-bikes wouldn't be booming.
> if a car crumples too much when it’s in a collision, that’s an unsafe car and you don’t want it on the streets. I feel the same about bikes.
also sounds a bit strange. Certainly carbon fiber can crack instead of bend, but you typically notice that. And aluminum is probably not as "bendy" as steel, but I've never heard about anyone getting into problems due to riding around unknowingly on a cracked aluminum frame.
Consider that adding 5 pounds to stationary components, like the frame, is adding < 5% to the amount of work being done by the rider, depending on the rider's weight.
I took his comments on bike weight as him saying that it isn't really worth worrying about an extra pound or two.
28 lbs : carbon steel (2 models)
25 lbs : 531 butted main tubes, forks (2 models)
23 lbs : 531 throughout (2 models)
The super course was a bit of an aberration (27 lbs; 531 plain gauge steel main tubes only; only a 1 lbs upgrade from carbon steel; the 531 did not improve the bike but the sticker on the seat tube conferred bragging rights!)
Weight is still a substantial factor if you ever have to go up or down stairs with your bike.
Doubling the bike weight, you might notice in the speed, you might not. You might notice it in the handling/feel, you might not. Adding 8kg of panniers to my bike doesn't noticeably slow me down.
Personally, I'm just as fast up hills on a 12kg gravel bike with fat, supple tires (650x42), a rack and fenders as I am on the 8kg carbon 700x25c boneshaker tires.
And I'm faster going down, because I'm not shaken all to hell.
I've even seen riders having problems getting their e-bike upright again after it fell to the ground.
if a bike isn't fun and therefore not used after the initial honeymoon phase even the cheapest price tag is unnecessarily expensive.
I settled eventually on 26x1.75" tires with a solid center tread and kevlar lining. They were amazing on road (commuting) and worked well in other situations too. For context, I was riding 12mi/day commuting to/from work in Reno NV back in the mid 2000's. Rode a steel framed Specialized Rockhopper that was converted to a fixed gear tank- not your average fixie. Featured trekker bars, an MTB sized IRO hub, cliffhanger rims, racks front and back, the works. Best bike I ever had.
In a domestic space a bicycle is an awkward piece of metal.
1. Flats [revised]: use quality tires and learn to change it and patch a tube. But I know you don’t want to do that before you start riding, and some roads will flat anything (e.g.: I flatted 7 times in one day riding from SF to LA in armadillos). So what then? Maybe try: big fat tires, Tuffy strips, sealant, and tubeless.*
2. Minor repairs: always bring pump, tire levers, tube, patch kit, multi-tool, and a dollar bill.
3. Rain: always bring a light shell and gloves.
4. Safety: run both front and rear lights in constant mode day and night. Helmet always.
5. Crotch pain: Get padded bike underwear, and switch it out post-ride to keep it dry.
6. Slowness: Yes; it’s slower than a car. Plan accordingly. Get the fastest bike you’re willing to pay for, but mostly just work on making yourself faster.
7. Back pain: there are some posture effects of spending all that time on a bike. You’ll need to do some stretching or strengthening, or whatever; I’m not really sure because I used to think I knew what I was doing in this area, but it’s always been a fight and I think I’m losing it.
* no flash, I was wrong
* I’ve gone back and forth on tubeless. One trick I came up with is bonding the butyl tube to the inside of the tire with vulcanizing cement. You can also do the same with a layer of thick latex between the tire and a latex tube, which seems to work a little better at the cost of some leakage. I mix my own latex with PEG and some light fibers so it’s sticky but it flows.
Ok I'll bite, I've replaced my fair share of bicycle tires/punture repairs, what do you need the dollar bill for?
Please don't do that :(. Flashing lights are terrible. In the dark it's really hard to estimate the distance to a cyclist coming from the opposite direction with flashing lights. Secondly, the flashing is annoying to the eyes of other people in traffic as they try to adjust to light-dark-light-dark-light-... all the time.
For these reasons, flashing lights are forbidden in some countries (e.g. in The Netherlands, where cycling is one of the most popular methods of transportation) [1].
Just have the lights always on.
[1] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/fiets/vraag-en-antw...
Some Chinese manufacturer once set the standard, and now all these lights have a single button that switches between off, half-brightness, full-brightness, and this much-maligned strobe.
2. a well maintained bicycle is very reliable, even if it is older
3. yeah, it is like walking. get a rain coat when your forecast says it might rain.
4. my advice get a hub dynamo to power your lights, never worry about charged batteries again. flash mode is not a good idea, also illegal in some places. helmets are overrated and are essentially victim blaming. But I get where is this coming from, instead of building a safe infrastructure the cities put the responsibility to be safe on the bicycle rider.
5. get a better sattle, never really had an issue.
6. very much depends on the place, in my town I'm as fast as a car on many daily routes, simply because I can use more direct routes.
7. what kind of bicycle are you using? everyday bicycles shouldn't do that, a good bicycle let's you ride w/o backpain. maybe your bicycle is too small or too big for you, they are not a one size fits all kind of thing.
It is not about becoming a "biker" or "cyclist" it is about that a bicycle is a good mode of everyday transportation and a very much less harmful one for cities. Not just in the Netherlands.
I can't even remember my last flat since I've stopped being a student on a budget, got a job and bought a more upscale bicycle with those tyres. That's over ten years ago with a single daily use bicycle. I've changed them once I think; just due to the thread wearing down. They really do work at preventing punctures.
> 6. very much depends on the place, in my town I'm as fast as a car on many daily routes, simply because I can use more direct routes.
And parking is rarely a problem too.
Yes, I went from having a puncture every 250 miles to not having one over the last 6,000 miles.
My only problem was getting hold of them during the pandemic.
Nobody in their right mind bonds tubes to tires (in two decades of cycling I've never heard of this nonsense.) Nobody wastes their time or energy mixing up custom goo for whatever this person is doing it with it.
Do not use sealant in tubes, only tubeless. All you will do is make for a big mess. Buy tires with the right level of flat protection you need, don't ride in debris, ride with suitable tire pressure, and when you get a flat, figure out why you got the flat, and address it if relevant.
Do not use latex tubes (you can't even buy them in most stores because they're vastly inferior to artificial rubber tubes in every way imaginable.)
Do not fucking do this. Not only it is a pain in the arse for other people, it's also actively dangerous. In the dark it can make it look like you're further away, behind a hedge of something that'd block light. Lights should be on continously.
> Helmet always.
Really no reason to.
> Crotch pain: Get padded bike underwear, and switch it out post-ride to keep it dry.
Just get a better saddle, and ensure the saddle's in the right position and leaning. Either a softer one, or, if you're on a bike with a forward leaning posture, a saddle with a hole in it.
Having padded shorts helps, but saddle sores are usually a result of poor fitness and poor ride ergonomics. Most bikes sold to casual riders enforce a very vertical position in which a lot of the body's weight is supported by the butt, which then gets "bruised" and over exerted. A comfortable ride is one where you rest your weight equally on your arms, legs and butt.
My advice for people suffering saddle sores is to ride more and get stronger legs and better pedaling technique that can support their weight over the complete pedal stroke.
So now I have a Brompton. It lives between rides in an ordinary closet (or cupboard as a Brit might say). Taking it from the closet to the outside and unfolding it is the second easiest ride prep method I know of —- the easiest is outside unlocked (price of outside and unlocked are obvious).
Hauling it requires no now-you-have-two-awkward-pieces-of-metal car rack or disassembly, so the decision to take it somewhere to ride is only do I want to ride it.
And it is a piece of masterful engineering that does everything a bike needs to do reasonably well and doesn’t encourage the purchase of Lycra or obsession over specifications. YMMV.
Quality of engineering, miniaturisation, lightness, battery technology (for e-bikes), customer experience… it’s a perfect fit. The Mac wasn’t codenamed “Bicycle” for nothing.
I mean you’re right about Brompton but I suppose folding bikes just look “too silly” for most people, that Apple would want to be associated with them, sadly.
The exception is if you have drop bars, because hydraulic brakes are still kinda new there. But if you're looking at beginner guides you should have drop bars anyway.
Every bike shop employee I've talked to told me hydraulic brake maintenance is harder, but you need to do it so infrequently that they take less total effort. They feel great and have been working great for me with no work needed so far.
I used to have mechanical disc brakes and IMO they were worse than both rim and hydraulic disc brakes. They constantly needed adjustments, the cables stretched, they rubbed and made awful noises, and they weren't nearly as precise or effective as hydraulic disc brakes.
I really enjoy shifting gears while stopped at a traffic light and not worrying about grease or monthly maintenance.
7 gears seem enough to me.
That said, when something does go wrong with the belt/drivetrain/hub it becomes a pain in the arse.
I did not know that and a couple of thousand dollars later I'm never going back. All the gears you want, any time you want them, and a great deal of "it just works". Admittedly it does feel a bit weird to say "time to change the oil in my bicycle" :) Which, BTW, happens more often than changing the chain.
All of a sudden headwinds and hills are afterthoughts.
Usually you can get thicker more durable tires. Carry cargo/racks with little regard to reduced aero and more weight. You can keep up with the spandex crowd in a mixed outing. You can go 20mph (at least, be careful with ones that go faster than you can handle) in almost all situations. Bike locks can be heavy and non-aero too.
They are in a rapid, rapid phase of evolution. Likely they will become critical to urban lifestyles.
Depends heavily on terrain, weather, and the health of the rider.
Get an electric bike if you wouldn't get on a normal bicycle otherwise. Get a normal bicycle if that works for you. The health benefits are substantial, they're cheaper, less likely to be stolen (because everyone wants en e-bike), and it's one less thing that can break or need replacing in time. Not having a battery to back you up also stops you from getting dependant on it.
I don't own a bike for pure fitness (that's a desirable side effect), I own one because it is my means of transportation (outside of public transport for longer distances) and damn convenient, but I'm not about to give up the (significant) health benefit for a little more comfort I don't need now.
So get an ebike if you feel like it or need it, but don't underestimate the simplicity of a trusty old fashioned bike.
If you are physically fit, I'd rather say: get a good bike within your budget. For example, 1200 Euro will buy you a very decent non-electric bike, that will probably be a smooth ride. 1200 Euro will buy you quite a miserable eBike. 500-600 of the cost is the engine and battery pack, so a 1200 Euro eBike is roughly a 600 Euro bike (so, usually not great).
If you have 2000-2500 Euro to spend, you can get a decent eBike or a high-end regular bike.
Why the hell is the default shape a gooch destroyer? I'd rather a round wooden bar stool seat than that.
I literally can't find anything except that design online either.
For what it’s worth after some time in the saddle your body will get used to it and it’ll be less uncomfortable. Even now, after decades of cycling, it takes a while to get comfortable again after a prolonged period off the bike.
More usefully, upright bike saddle fit is largely about the spacing of your sit bones. There's tutorials online on how to measure that, and some saddles tell you what spacing they're designed for. The alternative is to go to a proper bike shop and try a variety of saddles to find on you like. But it's tedious, because seat height, handlebar height, handlebar distance, seat to pedal horizontal distance and fore-aft tilt all affect that too.
If it really bothers you pay for a "bike fit", there are people who do this for a living and can make a huge difference to how you feel on the bike.
Basically people with this problem are often trying to sit on the wrong part of their body and/or have the wrong length saddle for their riding position.
I’ll start with the first problem of sitting on the wrong part.
What people often try to do is treat a saddle like a chair and attempt to sit on the fleshy parts of their bum — on the glutes (arse muscles). Instead what you want to do is sit on your “sit bones”. The sit bones are part of your pelvis and can be found on either side of your balls or vulva (depending on your biological sex, naturally). It can take a little time to get used to having pressure on your sit bones. Using padded cycling shorts can help with making the transition to regular cycling, and can be necessary if you do more than an hour per day in the saddle even for experienced riders. The temptation is often to get a bigger, softer saddle but this will have the effect of putting pressure on your squishy bits, so even if it feels more comfy when you first sit on it, within 5 minutes you’ll be hurting. You want a saddle that is only slightly wider than your sit bones.
The 2nd part of the equation is saddle length. The long and short of it is that you need a shorter saddle for more upright bikes and a longer one for bikes with a lower front stack. This is because if you are more upright your kegs would rub on a longer saddle. Your local bike shop can tell you what saddle length is appropriate.
There is one more thing to think about and this applies especially to women, and that’s the gutter in the middle of the saddle. Many women find a deep gutter can help take pressure off their vulva and keep the weight on the sit bones.
In conclusion, no their isn’t a giant conspiracy by the cycling industry and local bike shops to hurt you. Instead you just need to update your technique so that you are on your sit bones instead of the fleshy bits. A smaller, harder saddle is going to be infinitely more comfortable than a big squishy one.
Trust your local bike shop, and if you are having difficulty adjusting get some padded cycling shorts.
Good saddles I have experience of using include Brooks (various leather saddles depending on the bike) Sella Italia Turbo (I use this on my single speed) and Fiz:ik Areone (SP OK?). None of these are cheap but cheaper, good saddles are numerous.
Trust your local bike shop and lean in to it. It might take a few weeks to adjust, but you’ll get there.
Happy riding!
Two examples of saddles for people who ride wearing a skirt:
https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/selle-comfort-rocky-fietszadel-r...
https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/selle-comfort-zadel-rok-22-cm-da...
Similar models ought to exist worldwide. Though in general, following the advice some of the other posters have given is more effective.
Most people can use normal saddles. I would recommend getting one suitable for your plumbing down there though (i.e., unisex is convenient, but a good saddle tends to be suitable for either penises or vulva's, not both).
My experience is the opposite. I ride a cyclocross bike which I've had for 12 years. I've done everything on it. It has cantilever brakes, and they're just ridiculously simple to maintain. Nothing ever goes wrong with them. Every year or two I change the pads. They're incredibly forgiving. Even with the pad wearing away, I don't need to adjust anything, there's just a little bit more travel in the lever.
By contrast, my partner has a disk brake on the front - same bike otherwise. It's a constant hassle, because there is so little tolerance. If the disk is slightly out of true, it makes noise. If the wheel is put on the tiniest bit incorrectly, it's unrideable. They seem to need adjusting frequently, and it's just plain fiddly.
I'm going to switch to disks for my next bike, just because I'm sick of wearing out rims. For everything else I prefer rim brakes.
Some things that strike me as a little off:
1. Frame material is hard to generalize about, and I wouldn't rank order them quite the same way as the author has, or at least for the same reasons. Top-end aluminum is very very nice, very light and strong, for example. There's pros and cons to everything. ey
2. I'd maybe stick closer to 28-32 mm for a tire, but their advice isn't too far off the mark. Tire choice depends a lot on use. Gravel or some snow you might heed the author's advice, but for blacktop skinnier would be better. Skinnier tires were overrated for awhile, now wider is better is maybe overstated advice. You want the skinniest tire your typical riding surface can afford vibration-wise in general. Wider than your riding surface needs just adds unnecessary weight. By the same token, you could underestimate how much variation in riding surface you encounter.
3. They dismiss weight waaay too easily, although this is becoming common advice now, even in some racing circles. Weight matters, although there's diminishing returns to less weight, especially around 10kg or so. You can overdo it and become a weight weenie unnecessarily, and at some point losing more weight won't matter. But all other things being equal, lighter is more comfortable and easier ("all other things being equal" is the catch though).
4. The disc versus rim brake and mechanical versus hydraulic disc thing is complicated (although the way the author writes about it seems to acknowledge this). All are fine; disc brakes stop better but the difference is often not one that has much practical consequence, and disc brakes can be just as futzy in their own way (they can be harder to maintain when you do need to do maintenance), and they weigh more and are less aerodynamic. My sense is the primary reason disc brakes are being pushed is because they are easier to use with wider tires. Hydraulic disc brakes are much better now, and are more differentiated from rim brakes than mechanical brakes in terms of stopping power, but mechanical disc brakes can be much easier to service when you need to (although rim are probably easier still).
Honestly, the bike community is full of myths and people pushing personal subjective preferences as if they're objective laws of nature. So you have to take everything, and I mean everything with a grain of salt. Bike companies push new products based on sketchy lab assumptions, that leads to purchasing trends based fear of loss of parts or desire for status, or to avoid feeling out of date. These then become incorrect maxims that are replaced by new FUD trends and pushback etc etc. There's constant bickering over extreme positions that oversimplify everything.
Some disadvantages: if my chain breaks, I have a problem. Although I must add I live in pretty flat Netherlands. But there are some steap long hills here that I like to ride once in a while, which give me another problem. I noticed my braking power reduced significantly when I kept braking for one or two minutes. Which is not strange, since the braking happens around the hub, so all the force concentrates there. This could be the specific brakes that were on my bike back then, but it scared me nonetheless.
Yes, steel has a fatigue limit, but it’s unlikely to come into play because of the requirements to be in that regime (mainly, bikes are too light) while at the same time, fatigue is highly sensitive to the details of the shape of the connection and any initial imperfections from welds.
Personally, I’ve had an aluminum bike and a steel bike fail in fatigue, both starting in welds.
My go-to recommendation for a bike that will fit the needs of 99% of people riding on pavement, is a Brompton. It folds up small, very quickly, making it easy to take on the train or throw in the back seat of your car. They also come with racks, bag mounts, dynamo lights/fenders/a bell and they have very workable gear ranges. People take them on trans-continental bike tours even.
The last I looked, the Bike Friday that folds as small as a Brompton had a lower max weight.
The higher load Bike Friday models only folded in half rather than thirds.
The other aspect of Bike Friday is that the buyer has to choose components. That’s fine for an existing enthusiast, but a dunning kuger for an average novice.
When looking at using a bike for transportation, you'd typically want racks/mounts, lights, fenders, a bell, internal gears, upright geometry, etc.
If you live in an area with a good transportation network, you'll want it to be foldable so you can leverage multi-modal transport options.
My advice is choose a bike for it’s low gears because you will spend more time riding up hills and into the wind than downhill and with a tailwind…even if the distances even out.
For reference to those who are unfamiliar with gear inches... My touring bike bottoms out at 26.5 gear inches and I've ridden it thousands of km, loaded across a lot of hilly/off-road terrain. A typical road bike might have 25-30 as its lowest, and a new touring bike might get closer to 20.
Oddly, I find smaller tires more comfortable. I also have better experience not popping them on debris. Expecting this is mostly confirmation bias.
In my experience a narrower tire on the same bicycle has the advantage of a lighter wheel (even if when the rim is the same, which usually is not). Two lighter wheels give quicker accelerations and a lighter bicycle.
It must be pumped to a higher pressure to be roll as well as the wider tire. So it gets a smaller contact area, transfers more vibrations to the rider and rolls the same.
BTW, if you optimize avoiding punctures you probably want sturdy thick heavy tires.
Though, for me, I suspect it is largely nostalgia. 25 is about the size of the first road bike I had, and that brings a ton of good memories for how well that bike rode. I didn't realize, until then, just how different the acceleration could feel between bikes.