Zizzo Folder Notes

I met some friends up on Burnside last night, and planned to ride home with Al from there, so I decided to take my Zizzo Forte: We could meet up, hang out, and I could fold it up and stick it in the trunk and ride home with Al once the evening was over.

The longest ride I've ever taken the Forte on happened at Diamond Lake a few years ago, when we rode our Zizzos around the lake trail, which is about 11.5 miles. It's a very different ride than the one from far SE to close SE Portland, but the bikes handled themselves pretty well. We've also used them at the Nehalem Bay state park outside of Manzanita, for biking into town. (Manzanita has a really nice two-lane walking/biking bike for the couple of miles between town and park. If you don't want to pay for an overpriced hotel or vacation rental, and don't mind state park camping, it's a nice way to go.) 

Either way, Diamond Lake and Nehalem Bay are very quiet, unchallenging rides. When it comes to city riding, I've never taken the Forte further than the 2.5 or 3 miles into Woodstock, and I've always done that on the quiet surface streets. 

But I'm trying to figure out what my "acoustic in the city" bike is going to be. I had a weirdly specced up Electra Townie that I found on clearance during COVID lockdown. Oh, let's digress:

A digression on COVID semantics

Yes, it lands weirdly with me when people say "during COVID" or "after COVID."  It has also not worked with me to get pedantic about whether we were in an "actual" lockdown compared to places like China. So if you see me writing "during COVID lockdown," I'm trying to split the difference: I'm talking about the time during which nobody was going out much, hours for a lot of businesses were still very reduced, there were constant supply chain things going on, and knowledge worker types were still largely working out of their homes with few options to return to the office. It includes both the time during which we were all complaining about toilet paper hoarders, and a little bit into the time during which you could finally find a bidet in stock. 

I can't even begin to tell you when I think "after COVID lockdown" started.  I remember the week that the acquisition of the company I worked was finalized and the acquiring management staff showed up as a sort of dividing line, because their CLO was having a lot of informal meetings in the employee common area, and he spent them quietly but pointedly picking at stickers our workplace team had put on all the tables encouraging social distancing, wadding them up and tossing them out between conversations. Nobody was masked, and our executive team kept getting called to the acquiring company's HQ in Minnesota and coming back with COVID. I was still largely working from home but coming in when it seemed to make political sense, or so I could do a weekly in-person 1:1 with my boss, as both of us waited around to leave in late October. Out in the world, "after COVID lockdown" was when I stopped seeing masks on hiking trails at all. So, at some point in 2022 was "after COVID lockdown." 

Anyhow, I found that Townie at the local Trek store on very deep discount. It was 27-speed, had disc brakes, a dynamo hub, and racks both front and rear. I think I paid $700, which was less than much simpler bikes in that lineup. I think it was a failed experiment in making a "serious" Townie.  The relaxed Townie riding posture worked super weirdly with 27 gears. It was like some kind of rolling steampunk La-Z-Boy. It was the perfect pandemic bike: A box of Trader Joe's red wine lashed down on the front rack perfectly. 

Either way, it is with Ben in Eugene now, waiting to be stolen from outside a lecture hall. 

Figuring out the third bike

... and I'm trying to figure my third bike. I've got the ebike for hauling stuff and getting across town without working up a huge sweat, I've got the touring bike to do long rides out on the Springwater as I get ready to do a century in May, and I'd like something I can take on the train, ride around the extended neighborhood, and sometimes mix up in city traffic with when I'd like to get my heart rate up or an acoustic ride seems like fun. And also toss in the trunk for a ride home after meeting up for happy hour.

The Forte could be my third bike, but I wanted to test it last night, so I used it to get up to Burnside, which is about 6.5 miles away and involves a stretch down Foster Rd. from 82nd to 52nd over some bumpy, sketchy bike lane, then a stretch down 52nd where being slower off the light from Powell than all the cars makes it easier to manage a left turn on a fast downhill, then a leisurely jaunt down Clinton and then a tour of Ladd's. There are a few points along there where you're mixing it up with traffic a little: Enough to get a sense of how stable the bike feels as you keep your head on a swivel.

So, how was the ride?

Not bad and not great, I guess.

The stock saddle is pretty comfortable. The handlebars are a good width and it's easy to lower or raise them. Since starting back up with a touring bike I've gotten more comfortable with a sportier posture, so I have moved the seat forward a little and keep the bars lower when I deploy them.

The 20-inch wheels are not breaking any speed records. Strava tells me I averaged 12.5 miles per hour, and I was giving it pretty good effort: When I tried to spin the way I do on my touring bike it was frustratingly slow, so I was putting some leg muscle into it.

It is not at all, as you might imagine, a plush ride. It's an aluminum frame on tiny wheels, so the stretch along Foster was especially bad.

It's also a little bit of a creaky ride. I spent an hour a few nights ago working through the headset and stem, because the bike has always had a bit of creakiness there, but I'd always assumed it was because the bike folds in a way that involves a few telescoping components. I knew that creakiness would be a non-starter if I had to deal with it all the time,  so I mustered some patience, watched a few videos, and went to work.

For purposes of my "check out your adjustments" ride around the neighborhood, I mostly solved the creaking. In actual street conditions, where I felt compelled to really lean in to get the bike going, the stem flexed a lot and sounded rough. I've read a few people on reddit who've reported similar prior to stressing the stem too much and breaking it. The Forte is supposed to be the heaviest duty bike in the Zizzo lineup: Most Zizzos are rated for 220 pound loads, but the Forte claims 300 pounds. I think I might be the wrong combination of "technically under the standard limit" and "too demanding," (or possibly "lacking in finesse.") I am pretty sure the stem is standard across all models, and the frame is where Zizzo beefed things up.

Anyhow, the stem creaked and flexed in ways that made me think the people on reddit reporting snapped or bent stems weren't just bike-abusing goons. It didn't happen a lot but it feels like a "slow failure over time before a fast failure and a spill" possibility.

Finally, there is some rattling: When you fold the bike, the two halves are held together with magnets mounted to the frame. The magnets are on little swivels to allow them find each other and mate when you fold the bike. That means every little bump or vibration makes them rattle against the frame.

Between the stem creak when I'm pulling hard, the vibrations through the aluminum frame, and the rattling, it just didn't feel great.

Also, I guess, there's the fold. It's okay, but you don't get a very compact package and it is a little fussy. You can't roll it in that state, so you've got 30 pounds of awkwardly large wadded up aluminum to lug around. For last night's multi-modal adventure, folding it up after two stiff Old Fashioned's was a fine simulation of the "great bike to use for last-mile on your commute" use case, because I can't imagine feeling rushed to fold it and get it onto the train without a lot more practice than the dozens of times I have folded and unfolded it over the past few years. Last night, as I stood at the bike rack trying to get it all folded up, a friend who had never seen a folding bike in person started out making appreciative sounds about how convenient it was going to be for me to just toss it in the trunk, then burst out laughing when I got some part of it very wrong, muttered "fuck it" and half-carried, half-dragged it to the car, parts threatening to spill out with each step.

Let's just describe the folding process as having a one-drink limit.

That doesn't make it a bad bike. I have liked it at campgrounds, on MUPs, and over smooth and quiet surface streets. Zizzo markets to RV people and boat owners a lot, and that makes a ton of sense. It is small and light, with a super low stand-over height. It's not a "daily commute on crowded trains" kind of foldable, but it's definitely a "stick in the trunk and unfold at the campground" kind of foldable.  If you were one of the apartment-dwelling young knowledge worker demographic they market to, as well, I think you might find it less convenient than promised, especially if you had to go up a few flights of stairs with it, because the magnets holding it together aren't super strong -- you'd want to invest in Pronghorns or a heavy duty Velcro cord manager strap to keep the two halves stuck together. Or you might just decide that it's small and light enough to carry up two flights of stairs unfolded and left standing in a corner of your pad because it's not that much smaller folded. 

But I don't think it's a great urban commuter. After this experiment, I'd probably just take my touring bike. But that isn't really set up for a commute, either. I'd get speed back, and a smoother, quieter ride, but the bar-end shifters and longer wheelbase make it feel a lot less agile. 

Which, I guess, brings us to the epilogue. 

Epilogue

I'd left home a little early and was way ahead of schedule when I came out of Ladd's and was getting ready to cross Hawthorne. I came out very close to Clever Cycle. I'd been there recently looking at Tern e-bikes, so I remembered the display of Bromptons they had. At the time I just sort of noted it, thinking "I hear they're nice, but the Zizzo has been fine."

So I locked up and walked in. The sales person was a nice mix of friendly and crisp, asking me a little about what I was hoping for instead of just saying "sure, whatever" and letting me sell myself. 

I handed over my license and a credit card and took a C-line Explore out for a ride around the neighborhood, mixing with traffic in a few places. Wow. Steel makes a difference. It felt very smooth and quiet. I tried the mid-height bars and felt the right amount of sportiness. The gearing was fine: "The right six gears," as someone else said.  The hybrid shifting Bromptons do, where you need to be pedaling for front-ring shifts and you need to break your cadence for rear hub shifts, was a little awkward. Not unlearnable, though: With mid-drive ebikes you're supposed to back off a little when shifting, too. The Brompton just feels odd because there are two motions in the same bike. 

Once back I had the sales person demonstrate the fold and unfold, then again in slow motion. Fresh off a few recent fold/unfolds of the Zizzo, I wanted to see how all the pieces are kept together and how much you need to get your fingers in the middle of stuff to make sure magnets find each other, etc. Part of the sales pitch was definitely her confidence snapping the bike out into riding position, and then slinging it around in its folded form, which made me cringe a little, because the Zizzo would have flown apart.  I know better than to think it would take anything less than plenty of practice to get there, but that's why I was asking to see it slowed down, so I could understand what made it all hold together. 

So, I let her go ahead and swipe my card, and it'll be ready for pickup in a week or so. The Zizzo is going on Facebook Marketplace, or feel free to ping me if you want it for your boat or RV.