Folding Bikes

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 184

Quick folding bike

Brompton

My new best friend is the Brompton T6, a foldable 6-speed bicycle made by the Brompton company in England. Living in an urban area and having a bike that folds is basically like having wheels for feet; and in the world of folding bikes, Bromptons simply cannot be matched in their compactness and riding quality. They ride beautifully and smoothly thanks to a conical rear shock absorbing block. They take about 10 seconds to go from fully unfolded to fully folded and are compact enough to take inside anywhere — metro, hotels, restaurants. I, at least, have never had a problem storing it. There are other makes of folding bikes (like Dahon) but time and time again I see people that own Dahons who simply won’t bother folding them and chain them up outside because they’re so cumbersome. What’s the point of owning a folding one? Brompton spare parts are amazingly easy to install yourself (the manual is very comprehensive and detailed in how to upkeep the bike). I bought mine six months ago and it has completely transformed my day to day existence. It’s a true lifestyle changer. Check out the front carrier accessories too. Fill that with other cool tools and that’s basically all you need.

[*Today, the closest available model to the T6 is the M6R.] — John Root

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Premium folding, touring bicycles

Bike Friday

A folding bike is a compromise between ride quality and foldability. Moulton makes great artisan folding bikes with very unique design. Brompton also makes lovely folding bikes (previously-reviewed), but kind of artisan and pricey. I like the previously-reviewed Strida if all you have to do is ride 1-2 miles to the transit station. It’s not much good if you have to ride for more than 15 minutes. Citizen Bikes are awful, but some people who have never ridden a nice bike seem to be able to tolerate it. Dahon is starting to make some pretty damn good folding bikes at reasonable prices.

But my favorite is Bike Friday. It can fold into a suitcase that won’t incur over-charges on airplanes. Super light. Rides like a real bike, in some ways better. They have a few different models (even tandems!); I’ve ridden most of them — they are all good. I optimized my choice for quality of ride, but you can build them with ease of folding in mind by specifying what you want in terms of tools/no tools. For instance, some models require tools to fold for airline travel, but not for folding to stash on cars/buses. The Tikit models, on the other hand, explicitly requires no tools for folding at all.

These bikes are not cheap. I am a self-admitting bike snob. I value ride quality. Most low-cost folding bikes just feel cheap. The difference is in the custom-fitted frame, and better design details, higher-quality components and etc. (Bike Friday has been doing it for years). But you can get on a good Bike Friday for $1200. If you want, you can spend up to $3000 or even more for extras, but the frame is the same. These guys have great customer service, too.

I love mine. When it was recently stolen, I was heartbroken. Bike theft is like pet death. If you see my yellow Bike Friday (it has my wife’s name “Arwen Griffith” on the top tube), throw rotten fruit and stones at the asshole who stole it. — Saul Griffith

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Portable transit for urbanites

Strida Folding Bike

This folding bike has won both design and race awards. I’ve used it for seven years to traverse New York City, commuting two miles one way: in and out of Grand Central, the subways, buses, etc. A lot of folding bikes break down so that they’re bulky and awkward. The Strida is long and narrow, and carries like a photographer’s tripod — I can fold it while running down the platform at Grand Central. An easy way to visualize it is to picture three tubes in a triangle. Two points are hinged, and the third is a latch. When unlatched, the tubes fall together to look like a group of parallel tubes with a seat and wheels. Assembly is just forming the triangle, then click and go. This design is very clever, yet simple and robust.

The bike is unusual because there isn’t much maintenance (tire pressure and brake adjustments only). Unlike the Brompton, the Strida is a single gear with (dry) belt drive, which means no shifter or greasy chain, no tension adjustments and no caught pant legs. Even though there is only one speed, I can still climb reasonable hills. The tires are mini fat tubes, so you can jump curbs and hit potholes without any problems. The bike has a very, very tight turning radius, and while riding, your posture is quite upright – like a boulevard bike, not humped over like a road bike – so you can see traffic while riding in a suit and tie. The construction is solid, not flimsy in the least. I stripped mine down for size: removing the luggage rack and fenders so that it would easily fit in the overhead rack on the train. No one has ever bothered me for a bike pass on the trains or buses. If you buy one, be prepared: people will stop you often to ask what it is. I once had two teenage girls run out of a restaurant (and hang up their cell phones) to stop me and ask what it is. For a brief moment, I actually felt trendy! — Bruce Hartleben

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Bike hacking

Atomic Zombie’s Bicycle Builder’s Bonanza

A fun and detailed guide to hacking unusual bicycles from old bike parts. With a bit of welding here and there you can take castoff bicycles and repurpose them in dozens of imaginative ways. Here are notes for customizing choppers, tandems, unicycles, and crazy stunt bikes with frames found at the dump. How to strip down a bike to its useful components, and what to keep in mind as you modify its design and performance. — KK

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

04/6/26

Retro Recomendo: Followable

Recomendo - issue #508

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 9 years.

Home DIY videos

How To Home is a YouTube channel with excellent videos that demonstrate how to complete common household repairs, such as wiring switches, fixing faucet leaks, and threading wire through walls and ceilings. Unlike many DIY videos, these feature high-quality audio, are well-lit, and aren’t blurry. — MF

Culinary curiosities from around the world

Gastro Obscura is an Instagram account with photos and descriptions on unusual foods from around the world. You’ll find Japanese cream puffs that look like kittens, fruit that looks like an exploding planet, fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding, and lots more. It gave me a greater appreciation for just how diverse the world’s culinary options can be. — MF

Laugh out loud caricatures

Watch sidewalk artists in Waikiki draw extreme caricatures of customers, and their customer’s hysterical reactions. The drawings are much more exaggerated than typical caricatures yet they look uncannily like the subjects. I was laughing along with the people who bravely sat for the drawings. A guaranteed mood lifter. — MF

Quick research explainers

Two Minute Papers is a YouTube channel featuring short videos (sometimes 5 minutes long) created by a professor who reviews new research papers in visual programming, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer graphics, simulations, and other state-of-the-art computer science. He explains the research’s significance, while running very cool graphics demo-ing the results. I find it a painless way to keep up in this fast moving field. — KK

Strange images

The instagram account Welcome.jpeg calls itself a digital museum. It’s kinda art, kinda meme, kinda kitsch, kinda weirdo. It collects oddball, strange, unorthodox, found images and delivers these misfits as little visual collections. It’s my guilty pleasure. — KK

Joyful social media

I’ve intentionally cut down on my social media time, but there’s one account I never scroll past because it always makes me smile: Official Stick Reviews on Instagram. It’s the internet’s go-to spot for stick reviews submitted from around the world. Initially, I thought it was satire, but I soon realized the enthusiasm for finding cool sticks is both genuine and contagious. Here’s a good example. — CD

04/5/26

Book Freak #204: Living for Pleasure

An Epicurean Guide to Life

Get Living for Pleasure

Wake Forest philosopher Emily Austin rescues Epicurus from centuries of misunderstanding, revealing that his philosophy isn’t about wild hedonism but something more radical: the pursuit of pleasure without anxiety. The result is a practical guide to tranquility that speaks directly to our age of overwork, social comparison, and endless striving.

Core Principles

Pleasure Means Absence of Anxiety

Epicurus’s insight was counterintuitive: the greatest pleasure isn’t intense sensation but ataraxia — a state of tranquility free from mental disturbance. True pleasure comes from what is absent: anxiety, fear, unsatisfied longing. Being satisfied with having what you need is itself the highest pleasure. The goal isn’t to add more but to remove what disturbs.

Sort Your Desires

Not all desires are equal. Austin identifies three categories: Natural desires (food, shelter, friendship) — pursue these freely. Extravagant desires (fine dining, enriching experiences) — enjoy occasionally without dependence. Corrosive desires (wealth, fame, power) — these are insatiable by design and generate more anxiety than they relieve. The key is recognizing which category a desire falls into before chasing it.

Friendship Is Essential, Not Optional

Nothing diminishes anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends. Epicurus considered friendship the most important ingredient of a good life — more valuable than wealth or status. Deep relationships aren’t a nice addition to a well-lived life; they’re the foundation of it.

You Can’t Separate Pleasure from Virtue

It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly. Epicurus wasn’t offering a shortcut around ethics — he was showing that genuine pleasure and ethical living are inseparable. Dishonesty, cruelty, and injustice create anxiety; integrity creates peace.

Try It Now

1. Identify something you’re currently striving for. Ask: Is this a natural desire, an extravagant desire, or a corrosive desire? How would satisfying it actually change my daily experience?
2. Notice a moment of anxiety today. Pause and ask: What am I afraid of losing, or failing to get? Is that fear proportionate to reality?
3. Think of a pleasure you recently pursued that left you feeling worse afterward. What category of desire was driving it?
4. Consider your friendships. Are you investing in deep, trustworthy relationships — or spreading yourself thin across shallow connections?
5. Try Epicurus’s thought experiment: Imagine having “enough” — your needs met, anxiety absent, good friends nearby. What would you actually add? Maybe you already have more than you think.

Quote

“Nothing diminishes our anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends.”

04/3/26

Happiest Countries/Monthly Flight Pass/Favorite US Airports

Nomadico issue #200

The Happiest Countries in the World

It looks like paying high taxes and spending half the year in cold darkness is a recipe for happiness: Finland is the world’s happiest country for the 9th year in a row and its Scandinavian neighbors all made the top-10. Meanwhile, the scores dropped again among the large English-speaking countries. Researchers are blaming that, in part, on too much social media scrolling, especially among the young. The apps that are really social (like WhatsApp and Facebook) have the least impact though, while the most problematic platforms are those heavy on visuals, with algorithmic feeds (like Instagram and TikTok). See the details here.

Rental Car Gas Tank Side

If you’re in a non-electric rental car and need to fill up, you can see which side of the car the tank is on by looking at the fuel indicator on the dashboard. It seems to be standard among all manufacturers now that there will be a left arrow or a right arrow beside the icon. So you know which side of the pump to pull up to without getting out to look.

Monthly Airline Pass From the UK

If you make a regular flight from the UK each month or get to travel that often for fun, Wizz Air has a subscription plan for you. “After a one-time First-Month fee, Multipass subscribers pay a fixed monthly amount for the remaining 11 months, providing certainty over travel costs.” After that first month’s fee, it’s 55 pounds sterling one way, 110 return for any destination, plus a set price for baggage if you choose to add it. See the full details at the Wizz website.

Favorite US Airports

If you want to avoid the current government-inflicted airport woes in the United States, you might want to drive to a smaller market. In this survey where travelers rated their favorite airports, small and medium market ones scored the wins. Rhode Island, Portland (OR), and Indianapolis snagged the top three spots and I was happy to see Tampa at number eight since I got through security in five minutes on Monday. (The Starbucks line was a different story…)

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

04/2/26

What’s in my NOW? — Elisa Michelet

issue #248

I’m a Californian-French artist based in Tokyo. My practice is medium agnostic, recently exploring film photography, bookmaking, and printmaking. I’m also a designer and founder of Studio Kaki, a branding and graphic design studio, and founder of Yuba, a free sustainable food guide to various cities in France. — Elisa Michelet

LINKS:

• Substack
• Instagram
• Website
• Studio Kaki
• Yuba

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PHYSICAL

• MD Notebook [A5] — I’ve never kept a consistent journal or diary, but this year I’m trying out some morning pages, and I’m loving the weight of this notebook, the smoothness of the paper, and the fact that it always lies flat.
• Olympus AF-1 Camera — I pulled this camera out of my storage box last summer; it belonged to my grandpa. Normally, I don’t love point-and-shoots and prefer more control while shooting, but it’s actually been quite liberating to shoot with. It’s got a great built-in flash, and it’s lightweight, which makes it great for travel or pocketing for a night out.
• Hinomoto Konbu Bag — I thrifted this bag in Tokyo and have since fallen completely in love. It’s functional, durable, has no external branding, and has the most satisfying zip.

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DIGITAL

• Only 8 — a brilliant website about Barcelona streets and who they’re named after.
• Never Too Small — A YouTube channel featuring beautifully thought-out apartments, houses, cabins, all roughly under 60 m² (646 ft²). It’s an excellent source of inspiration for interior design and architecture, and covers spatial problem-solving. It’s also fascinating to observe the distinctive ways in which individuals decorate their homes in cities across the globe.

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INVISIBLE

“Coming back — so many pathways through the spring grass.” — Yosa Buson

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Sign up here to get What’s in my NOW? a week early in your inbox.

04/1/26

Tacopedia / Rude Cakes

Issue No. 111

TACOPEDIA – A SUMPTUOUS HISTORY OF THE TACO

Tacopedia
by Deborah Holtz, Juan Carlos Mena and René Redzepi
Phaidon Press
2015, 318 pages, 7.8 x 10 x 1.1 inches (flexibound)

Buy on Amazon

Whenever I’ve been away from NYC for a while, the first thing I always want to do when I get back is to have a taco (or three). My mouth starts watering as soon as I see the skyline. Southwesterners and Mexicans will laugh at this and feel sad for me but a good North East taco is the best option I have. So when I discovered Tacopedia through an NPR review, I immediately put it on my wishlist.

The book offers a sumptuous history of the taco, beginning circa 1000-500 BC when a legendary hero first created “nixtamal,” a malleable dough made by soaking dried corn in water and a bit of quicklime. Once rolled out and roasted, nixtamal becomes a tortilla, an “edible spoon” that can hold a near infinite variety of fillings and salsas.

After the background chapters, the book is divided into 8-10 page sections on popular and specialized tacos, including: grilled, barbacoa (lamb roasted underground in agave leaves, served with broth), basket (morning tacos par-cooked in the container they’re delivered in), and – for the adventurous – insect (!) tacos. Each entry includes the region of Mexico where the variety originated and describes how it has evolved over the years. It then recommends a handful of restaurants – many of them, tiny stands that have been operating for generations – where you can find the best examples of these delicacies. I showed the book to friends who regularly travel to Mexico City and they verified many of the choices. It also provides recipes so you can create reasonable facsimiles of these tacos using common kitchen equipment and ingredients.

The book is beautifully illustrated with hand-drawn infographics, cartoons and proverbs about tacos, plus street scenes of Mexicans from all walks of life indulging. Tacopedia (originally published in Spanish in 2013, then translated and released in the US in 2015) would make an excellent companion reference on a foodie trip to Mexico, which I hope to take one day.

The first photo (above) was taken at Cinco de Mayo, my neighborhood taco place. – William Smith of Hang Fire Books

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RUDE CAKES – ABOUT A TWO-LAYER CAKE WITH AN ATTITUDE

Rude Cakes
by Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books
2015, 40 pages, 9.4 x 9.4 x 0.5 inches

Buy on Amazon

Visual puns, illustrative foreshadowing, relatable characters, and second chances: these are the ingredients that make Rude Cakes such a treat. In a world where the background is fairly barren save for a few flowers that sprout side by side with candy canes and lollipops, Rowboat Watkins’s pouty pink pastry, a two-layer cake with an attitude, takes center stage and shows us how not to behave. Luckily, we also meet a giant cyclops who inadvertently sets the rude cake straight.

Rude Cakes is not only a fun read, it’s cathartic. Grown-ups reading this book aloud to their kids will laugh in commiseration with the pastry parents’ plight of reigning in their frosted tot. For kids, there’s plenty of opportunity for indignant head shaking at the cake’s social foibles, though it’s nearly impossible to do without cracking a smile. Afterall, not even a dessert can be sweet all of the time. And just when you think that cranky cake is going to get what’s coming to him, along comes the giant cyclops to lead by example, all the while making a mistake of his own that literally gives the cake a new outlook on what it feels like not to be heard. For a book without any people in it, every character and snippet of dialogue is truly and hilariously human.

On the surface, this is a funny little picture book about learning how to behave. And even on that level, it’s great. Everyone loves a read-aloud that includes a good yell or two, and Watkins’ narrative illustrations help teach preschoolers to read both images and social cues. But after a few reads, it’s clear just how smart and thoughtful this story really is. In very few words and completely without preaching, Rude Cakes lets us laugh our way through a lesson on social skills and self reflection. – Mk Smith Despres

03/31/26

What’s in my NOW? — Elisa Michelet