A Tale of Two CarryMe(s)

Those who turned up for the Earth Hour Promo Ride with LCSG would have noticed that I wasn't on my Dahon MuP8 or Brompton... but rather the Pacific Cycles CarryMe!

It seems that many other folks have also taken an interest to these bikes, as you can see in the pic below.

It is somewhat of a coincidence along with the rising popularity of this particularly dinky bicycle, but I had in fact been eyeing it for a while, having also read Taiwoon's account, and trying out his bike during the LCSG Lelong at West Coast Park.

The main considerations are typical of any cyclist who is trying to justify another purchase: I know I don't really need this bike, but I like it, I can see some reasons for having it... and the list goes on.

Aesthetically, it is also a really weird bike, very comical but also very cute. So extremely uncool that it becomes cool at the same time. However, if there's one thing that won me over is that it's really quirky, and screams non-seriousness at any given time. If you ride this bike, no one will bother to race you and will probably be a little to kinder to your silly self riding on wheels smaller than your face.

Luckily for me, there came a very good (or good enough reason) to purchase this bike: Get a pair to commemorate our fourth wedding anniversary (smart right?!). The two bikes would also be a celebration of our two lovely boys :) What a way to sell the idea to your partner huh? (It works!)

In any case, she loves the bike! Here we are at Marina Bay Sands.

We also wanted to do a multi-modal test of the bikes, so what we did was loaded them up in the passenger area of our car. Two folded CarryMe bikes will fit in the space of one folded-up seat of a Honda Fit / Jazz. We still had the front seat free, two rear seats free and the whole boot!

We parked at Lavender and joined the group ride through the city to Orchard Road. We couldn't join the group for lunch as we had to pick up our boys, and to save some time, on the way back we took the train from Somerset to Lavender.

Though I love my Brompton as a complete all-around bike, after this episode, I really feel that the CarryMe might just be the perfect multi-modal bike, something for that first and last mile-or-two. Folding is non-complicated, takes up less space than a typical umbrella-fold stroller, light enough to lift using one hand, easy to roll.

I guess the best part is, at the end of it all, my wife really loves the bike.

And she has started browsing for cycling accessories.

Here is a pic of my wife with our younger boy when we picked him up after the ride. Our two bikes which you can't see, is actually on her right side. Really wonderful space-savers. Will try and grab a picture at the next opportunity.

In short, we are really enjoying these bikes. At the end of the day, it is a purchase, not really a need, but times that we get to spend together like this are priceless, especially after having our two boys.

Here's a video of the ride where you'll  get to see the CarryMe and many other wonderful bikes in action.


Earth Hour Promo Ride with LoveCyclingSG from Khairul Rahim on Vimeo.