Last Friday night, The Mechanic and I visited friends for dinner – friends who live in Fairfax County. We examined all the options, and finally decided that we would take Metro to East Falls Church Metro Station and bike the rest of the way. But because we needed to arrive at 7pm, and bikes are not allowed on Metro until after 7pm, we took… the folding bikes!
This turned into a fun and naturally well-photographed trip, and it was so much easier than we expected (thankfully we had no problems with Metro, either). The Mechanic made convenient carrying straps for the bikes in their folded position, so of course now I’m considering making reflective straps, especially one to hold the wheels of my Tern together. The magnets aren’t really strong enough to hold. This was an easy way to carry them and not have to worry about a giant bag once unfolded.
Folded up and on the Metro platform around 6:30pm.
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- Folding up at Virginia Square
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- Unfolded once outside East Falls Church
On our way home, we again biked to the Metro, but since it was after 10pm, didn’t bother to fold the bikes up. We were both thrilled to discover how easily the tiny bikes fit in the Metro elevators! Normally, with a full sized bike, this is a Tetris-like challenge. 
Another bonus of the small size of the folding bikes is that they more or less fit on the landing in front of our apartment door. With my commuter bike, I end up with it hanging off the top ledge onto the steps below, angled and still banging into the stair railing and doorway. Big win for this! 
Although the bikes are larger than we anticipated while folded up, and don’t easily fit into a smaller suitcase, this date night proved that even if we don’t travel with them as we’d planned, we will still get plenty of use out of them. I purchased inexpensive bike lights for mine – I still am not sure I’ll use mine enough to justify expensive lights. But these worked great in the evening on our way home. 
Knowing that we can take the folding bikes on the Metro before 7pm with little hassle opens up a wider range of date night destinations, allowing us to get near a location and bike the rest of the way. I’m all for these sorts of multi-modal adventures!
Mmmmm…. grilled pizza! Our folding bike date night reward (thanks for suburban friends with a huge outdoor grill!)
tinlizzieridesagain 
Folding bikes can sure be handy. We’ve bike toured with our panniers on them. Here I am in Copenhagen on my Dahon: https://thirdwavecyclingblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/jeanalien.jpg
Did you get special panniers to fit the smaller frame? I noticed that my regular Basil pannier tote practically drags on the ground! But the NewLooxs pannier fits fine. The biggest drawback to those to is that the clips aren’t adjustable, so they don’t fit as easily onto the Tern’s curved back rack. But it’s not a big enough deal to go out an buy new ones! : )
I’m not surprised large panniers that are boxy too, wouldn’t be best for folding bike frame. Sure it’s important that the 1 rack clips on top of the bike rack are firm and held down by pannier weight.