Also this issue: Antique Car Show and Flea Market -Paul Burress Mobile Investigation Unit tour -Paul Burress

May 14-20, 2003

mixpicks

Round Up USA

To fully appreciate a folding bike, you must a) live in an approximately broom-closet sized pad, with b) virtually no storage space accommodating something larger than a suitcase. Oh, and you¹re not really cool with leaving your bike outside, on account of c) having seen the stripped-down, plundered bones of others¹ once-favored rides still laughably locked to lampposts in your ¹hood. I assume you¹re all with me on this so far?

So Mike McGettigan of Trophy Bikes brings us The Round*Up USA, a weekend-long love-in for fans of folding and small-wheeled bikes. The Brompton folding bike (pictured), hailing from the U.K. and now available in the U.S., will be in attendance, along with models by Bike Friday, Swift Folder, Airframe and many others. Besides a MicroSwap Meet, where vendors can bring and sell bikes (registration necessary), you can hear first-hand hilarious biking tales from traveler and writer Lynette Chiang, who¹s taken her customized Bike Friday rig all over the world from her native Sydney. And if you stick around for Sunday¹s Tiny Time Trial, featuring small-wheelers such as Moultons and Bromptons, you¹ll recognize that a bike like this can shave minutes off your commute -- unless, of course, you carry it onto SEPTA.

Round*Up USA, May 16-18; kickoff Fri., May 16, 11 a.m., Trophy Bikes, 311 Market St., 215-625-7999.

—Juliet Fletcher