The wife has been musing since last year whether we should enjoy Singapore in more outdoor fashion, especially given how much money the government here has pumped into building numerous parks, outdoor facilities and nature reserves and sanctuaries just so that Singaporeans can enjoy healthier lifestyles. No small feat there too in all these outdoor spaces, considering that our island is land scarce. The pandemic for several months this year saw all of us hunkering down at home to wait out the storm. But now that Singapore is finally on its way to Phase 3 re-opening, what better time to finally get onto enjoying the outdoor amenities the island has?
Our daughter Hannah, coincidentally, had also been asking us if she could learn cycling. We’d done a little of that of course, including in Taiwan two years ago when H and myself went on two person bikes – though I was the one supplying all the leg power then haha. There are actually cycling schools in Singapore, surprising to the missus and myself since we both learned cycling the hard way (training wheels, then a lot of falling) when we were kids. One popular teacher we checked out was so popular his next available lesson slots would had been next year in February. Undeterred, the wife went online for learn by yourself methods for cycling, and found one such technique on YouTube. And within 20 minutes of H using this technique on a rental bike at Punggol Park last week, she was happily cycling unsupported on her own thereafter.
H learning how to cycle was the easy part. The much harder question and exploration was what bikes to get. From the get-go, we agreed that:
We would get two bikes: one that’s teenager friendly but with space to grow, and another that’s for an adult to accompany her. We weren’t gonna trust her to go off cycling on her own at this point.
The bikes needed to be foldable.
The Rolls Royce of foldable bikes for many enthusiasts would be Bromptons, and we have close friends in our small group who own them and frequently post pictures of their cycling trips on their Bromptons around Singapore, and in one case, in Japan even when they went on a major cycling expedition. We tried out Bromptons at their showcase shop at the newly renovated Funan Mall. We came away quite impressed with their build quality, engineering and ease of collapsing the bikes. The prices, not so much. An entry-level Brompton with variable speeds would have easily cost us at least SGD2,500 – or SGD5,000 in all for two bikes. We weren’t sure if H was going to take up cycling seriously, and in view of that, thought SGD5K was just too much to spend on something we weren’t confident we would end up enjoying that much or have a lot of time to spend even if so.
So, it would have to be cheaper alternatives. And of that, there’s really no lack of options, especially considering the flood of Made in China foldable bikes that you can buy both online and in brick and mortar shops in Singapore. Apart from the usual online searches, we visited a couple of shops, including FootLoops, and Decathlon. And finally decided on a pair of bikes from Passion Gadgets. I’d bought the old eScooter from them some years back, so had no small measure of confidence that they were honest retailers and weren’t gonna sell us lemons.
And one visit later to their shop that’s a quick 6 minute drive from Minton, here’s what we ended up with:
3sixty 3 Speed (Orange) – SGD900
Litepro Foldie 5S Foldable Bicycle (Oil Slick Rainbow) – SGD749
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