Above the fold: The people behind the Gocycle G4 thought of everything

Enlarge (credit: John Timmer)

Foldable bikes offer a pretty obvious trade-off: the convenience of something you can easily pick up and store in the corner of an office or small apartment, but with some compromises in the cycling experience. Typically, putting a greater emphasis on one of those will mean sacrificing a bit on the other.

But e-bikes offer the possibility to sidestep some of that trade-off, boosting aspects of cycling performance without adding much in the way of added bulk. And the Gocycle G4 provides an excellent demonstration of how well that formula can work out, offering excellent performance in a thoughtfully designed package that is easy to pick up and lug around. It’s not so good that it will completely replace a regular bike, but it comes a lot closer than I expected, and it has a number of brilliantly designed features.

All that said, the bike still has a couple of issues that temper my enthusiasm a bit.