Tight Squeeze? Try a Folding Ebike to Solve Your Storage Space Problems.

Every apartment dweller who cycles has the same nightmare: where to store the bike once they arrive at home, with no garage and locking it up outside, exposed to the elements and the bike thieves, out of the question.

But the storage problem of where to stash a bicycle, especially some of the bulkier ebikes out there, isn’t exclusive to those who live in apartments. People in homes with overcrowded garages suffer, too, as do those who bike to work and need to be able to stash a bike under their desk and out of their coworkers’ way.

All such sufferers of scant storage space should take a hard look at a folding ebike, as they’ve grown rather clever.

the options:

There are more folding ebikes on the market than I can feature here, so I’ll talk about two of the most popular on the market, both of which I’ve spent time with this year. Bromptons are still made in England and use only a slightly evolved version of the basic Brompton folding design created in a bedroom in 1975.

The Brompton Electric G-Line features a lot of parts with multiple uses to lock it together for transport or storage, such as one of the pedals locking the wheel against the frame. The bike I rode had the optional rollers mounted on the cargo rack so that I could glide it along the floor when folded, rather than having to pick it up and carry it, except when I came to a staircase.

After decades of effectively dominating the folding bicycle market (non-electric, of course), Brompton has stiff competition in the electric folding bike market. As a legacy bicycle manufacturer, when they moved into electrifying their existing folding bike they ran into companies that were designed at the outset as ebike companies.

Lectric Bikes’ XP4 is reportedly the best-selling ebike in the US. Despite being a folding ebike, I found its construction burly and solid. The single-spar frame is thick, and it didn’t give me any worries about its durability.

Between the two, I found the XP4 750 easier to fold and unfold. The Electric G-Line requires a rocking motion that takes a bit of time and practice to get right. But the XP4 750 weighs 71 pounds with the battery installed, while the Electric G-Line weighs a far lighter 42.9 pounds.

You have some weighing to do yourself, too, as in whether you feel that the Brompton’s lower weight is worth paying four times as much.