Returning to Cycling? Here's How to House Train Your Bike.

KIRKLAND, Wash., March 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Storing a typical bike in a small space is now easier than ever, simply by swapping out a couple of bike components using Flatbike's Flatten Your Bike Kit. The issue of challenging bike storage has huge implications for individuals and communities, especially now in the COVID-related bike industry whiplash years.

Bike storage is a big problem that can get smaller.

No matter what type of bike a rider has, storage becomes a consideration at the end of the trip. This is especially tough in urban areas and apartment living.

Over time, parked bikes tend to migrate towards out-of-the-way spaces where they get used less, or even out-of-the-building spaces, such as decks or balconies, where they face increased risk of theft and rust damage.

Much of the current bike lane backlash in cities from Washington DC to Sand Diego and Milwaukee to Houston can be traced back to less community ridership than expected. That, in turn, is a result of low individual ridership because new or returning bike riders have not yet integrated their bikes into an active riding lifestyle.

When a bike is stored, much of the bike footprint is wasted space. At best, a bike stored indoors is inconvenient, with handlebars sticking out, catching pockets and tipping the bike over at awkward moments. At worst, large cleated pedals that are great for riding traction can become dangerous to shins and ankles.

A Flatten Your Bike Kit, from Flatbike, fixes these problems. It combines two destruction-tested products into one solution to fold a bike quickly into 1/3 the space without any tools:

• Flatbike Pop-Off Pedals are removable pedals designed with two independent latches per latch head, making them far more reliable during adventurous rides.
• A THINstem is a threadless stem with a built-in cam latch to allow the handlebars to rotate 90 degrees for easy storage, then lock back into place as security as a cam-mounted seat post.

Bike storage is a big solution that is about to get bigger.

To Bob Forgrave, founder of Flatbike, the issue of making a bike easier to use is personal. Returning to cycling after years as a runner, he experienced the frustration of trying to find the right balance between a bike that is as convenient to grab on the way out the door as a pair of running shoes and a bike that is conveniently out of the way for his wife.

Forgrave saw this as an interesting engineering challenge, not for a new bike design but for a component-based approach that anyone could use on their own bikes. "The answer was to quickly change the shape of the bike—to house-train it by making it flat on demand." And Flatbike Inc was born, relying on third-party products until moving into its own internally-designed components late last year.

After selling 500 sets of Flatbike Pop-Off Pedals for mountain bikes and e-bikes in a successful Kickstarter last October, the company has moved quickly to plan for retail distribution and will be at the CABDA West bike shop expo in Las Vegas on March 26-27 (Booth 806).

The message is simple: Convenient daily bike storage, coming to a city near you.

About Flatbike, Inc.
Founded in 2016, Flatbike is a Pacific Northwest company focused on simplifying bike storage and transportation. It offers folding bike stems and its own design of rugged removable pedals for any bike, as well as full-size folding bikes.

CONTACT: Bob Forgrave at [email protected] or 425-985-6219.

SOURCE Flatbike, Inc.