A couple months ago, at LCSG’s Safe Cycling Clinic, Francis came to the event on one of the smallest and most compact folding bikes I have ever seen.

I’ve seen it before when I saw him eating lunch near my office…

…and I actually saw it on the newspaper photos when they did the “folding bikes in the MRT” launch in Kuala Lumpur and I asked around for info on the bike but I never really knew what it was. All I did know was it was made in China, and that sometimes it was called the “Mosquito”. Francis calls it the “Q Bike”.

Being so small and compact, naturally a great number of people were intrigued by the Q Bike. The first thing people notice about it is that it’s a lot heavier than it looks. It was perhaps around 13-14kg without anything loaded on it. Good thing that like the Brompton and CarryMe, this bike had rollers to enable rolling the whole thing in it’s folded state.

To fold the Q Bike, one unlocks the main latch on the frame. It releases the frame and folds it upright, sort of like the Jango Flik.

Check out the rear. There’s a belt drive on one side and and chain on the other.

You can already roll it around this way if you like. To make it even more compact, you can fold the wheels upward by releasing the hinge on the forks.

The result is a tiny tiny package of a bike that puts the Brompton to shame. 12″ vs 16″.

Riding the bike around was a different story altogether. I wasn’t really comfortable on it, but that’s just me. It comes with some form of suspension but I felt like I was gonna break the bike. LOL. If it was lighter and a bit sturdier, this would be a great bike for multi-modal commuting. It’s so small you can even wear it in a backpack if you could take the weight.

For more info, you can check out the China retailer here. Just remember to Google/Bing translate the page if you can’t read Chinese characters. If you’re in Singapore and interested in this bike, contact Francis for more details.