Designing for Reality: What Makes a Bike Truly Portable?

Aug 19th 2025

Most urban trips aren't long. In fact, 60% of all U.S. trips are under six miles, and more than a third are under two. That's not a challenge—it's an opportunity. These are distances too short to justify a car, but too long or awkward for walking.

Biking could be the logical fit. But the practical barriers persist: Where do you park it? Can you show up to work without changing clothes? What if there's a hill—or a thunderstorm?

Public transit, meanwhile, still fails too many people at the edges: a 15-minute walk to the stop, followed by a missed connection, and nowhere to store a bike.

So people default to cars—not because they're the best tool, but because they're the least problematic option.

The PEB: Designed for the Trip That Actually Happens

Urban mobility is full of speculative promises—hyperloops, autonomous cars, air taxis and new business models like ride-hailing, bike/scooter share, Mobility as a Service (MaaS). But the challenge in cities isn't necessarily technological—perhaps what we need is a vehicle that integrates well with the infrastructure we already have.

The PEB wasn't built for athleticism or status. It was built for practical daily use: that 1.3-mile ride to the train, the four-block hop to your child's school, the post-work stop for groceries.

It folds. It rolls. It fits into your hallway, your train car, your office cubicle. You can pedal it, but you don't have to sweat. You don't need lycra or a lock. You don't need to overthink it.

PEB's portability isn't just about how a bike behaves in your hand. It's about how it interacts with the entire transportation system.

Portability enables:

  • A bike that's conveniently nearby and ready for use any time
  • Transport aboard trains, planes, boats, etc.
  • Reduced policy friction for bringing bikes aboard transit
  • Minimized theft risk, eliminating demand for secure outdoor storage
  • Freed up sidewalks and hallways in dense spaces

Portability Isn't Just a Feature—It's a Platform

When executed effectively, portability provides more than convenience to riders. It's what makes the PEB a platform for system-wide integration:

  • Transit-compatible by design, not exception
  • Indoor-compatible for storing and shopping, requiring minimal new policies or infrastructure
  • MaaS-ready, enabling transitions between biking, ride-hailing, and rentals without friction

The result is potentially smoother commutes. It's a distributed mobility network—one where each rider carries part of the system with them, lightening the load on infrastructure and increasing system flexibility.

For cities, this represents a strategic shift:

  • Less demand for bike-specific infrastructure
  • More trips captured within sustainable modes
  • Greater resilience in a transport system under stress

Reimagining the Commute

Consider this scenario:

You leave your apartment with a compact PEB in hand. You roll it to the station, where folded bikes ride free. The train arrives—on time. Your trip continues without delay. At the other end, your PEB is ready to roll again.

There's no hunt for a bike rack. No waiting for a bus that never comes. No sweating up a hill in business attire. No wondering whether your rideshare will get stuck two blocks away.

This isn't science fiction. It's simply a rebalancing of the system—enabled by a vehicle designed not for speed or spectacle, but for the actual shape of urban life.

In the next piece, we'll examine what it takes to engineer that kind of bike—balancing ride quality with compactness, and performance with integration.