The Strida was designed from the ground up to be a very low-maintenance folding bike. It weighs 19-22 pounds and folds down in about ten seconds. Once folded, you can wheel it around (instead of having to carry it like most folding bikes). This makes it easy to bring the bike on trains or into the office. In place of a conventional bike chain, the bike has a simple cogged band to turn the wheels. There’s no grease is involved.

According to the Strida blog:

There is no gear-system to fail, no brake pads to replace, no chain to stretch, no gear teeth to wear out, no rims to retrue, no head-set to loosen, no wheel hub cones to wear-out, no derailleurs to bend / break, virtually no parts susceptible to rust, and no paint to chip.

The latest “5.0″ version of the Strida was released this month. It incorporates alloy wheel rims and hubs (instead of nylon and plastic) and disc brakes (instead of hub brakes).

Here’s a short video (in Japanese) that shows how the bikes folds.

This is a longer, kinda goofy video about the Strida (also in Japanese).

The bike is available for $475 (version 3.2) or $775 (version 5).

You can read a review of the bike on Cool Tools.

Mark Sander, the inventor of the Strida bike has a new folding bike in development.

Link: Strida