The FLIT story

The FLIT story – a timeline

March, 2015

Dave & Alex (Co-Founders of FLIT) met whilst studying in Beijing


Dave & Alex at the Great Wall

Electric two-wheelers were booming in China at the time, and we saw a real opportunity to develop an ebike for European cities. We wanted to design a folding ebike that could be taken on trains, undergrounds and buses: giving people lots of flexibility when travelling through the city.

March, 2015
July, 2016

We relocated back to the UK, to the cycling capital Cambridge to start FLIT

July, 2016
August, 2016

David Turpin, an Industrial Designer, joined our team

David Turpin, Designer at FLIT
David designed the iconic ‘pop phone’!

David’s job was to turn Dave’s engineering drawings into beautiful designs.

August, 2016
December, 2016


We were awarded the Department for Transport grant to build our first prototypes

December, 2016
January, 2017

We were accepted onto the Accelerate programme at the Cambridge Judge Business School (the best in Cambridge!)

January, 2017
October, 2017

We built our first prototype, which we presented at the Hello Tomorrow Conference in Paris!

AM with Bike at Hello Tomorrow (Compressed)
Alex presenting our first prototype (you’ll notice a huge difference to the current FLIT-16 design!) 

October, 2017
February, 2018

Started the Design Council’s Spark Accelerator programme

February, 2018
June, 2018

Awarded a special commendation from the Design Council!

June, 2018
July, 2018

We began working with our manufacturing partner, a specialist aluminium frame manufacturer, in Taiwan


Alex, Dave and Joe at a specialist fork factory

July, 2018
November, 2018

Our first manufacturing prototype (which we named the FLIT-16, after its 16″ wheels) was made

Flit folding electric bike unfolded
Our second prototype – closer to the final FLIT-16 design, but still lots to change!

November, 2018
March, 2019

Initial mechanical testing and tooling complete

March, 2019
May, 2019

Our first round of prototypes built on tooling: Marengo and Maya!

Flit lightweight folding ebike - flit-16 in marengo grey and maya blue
Meet Marengo and Maya, the look is mostly there now!

May, 2019
July, 2019

We launched on Kickstarter! 

July, 2019
September, 2019

Our launch campaign raised over 450% of its target, so we extended our pre-order offer to Indiegogo

September, 2019
October, 2019

Production begins with pilot manufacturing run

Flit lightweight folding ebike - welding has begun!
Welding in the frame factory

October, 2019
November, 2019

Pilot manufacturing run complete

Flit-16 folding ebike - design changes labelled
Meet Blaze: hot off production tooling. Here are all of the design changes that we’ve made based on test rider feedback.

November, 2019
January, 2020

Mechanical frame testing complete, and manufacture of frame parts begins

Flit lightweight folding ebike - yokes boxed up
Parts of the rear frame manufactured and ready for assembly

January, 2020
February, 2020

Dave visits our manufacturing partner in Taiwan

Flit lightweight folding ebike - riding to the factory
Dave’s ride to work – not too shabby!

February, 2020
February, 2020

Batteries complete, Dave brings two demo bikes back for UK test rides

Flit lightweight folding ebike - batteries boxed up
FLIT-16 batteries all boxed up and ready to go

February, 2020
June, 2020

Manufacture well underway – all CNC main frame parts complete

Flit16 ebike - headset
CNC-ed frame parts ready to go! This is part of the headset at the front of the bike. Not sure what CNC means? CNC milling is a process of gradually removing material from a solid block until you reach the desired shape. We have lots of complicated shapes in the FLIT-16 which CNC milling allows us to create.

June, 2020
July, 2020

Welding of the main frames begins

For some behind the scenes welding action check out our blog post here.
Flit-16 welding rear swing arm
Welding up the rear swing arm of the bike (the part of the bike that swings underneath during folding)

July, 2020
August, 2020

Dave oversees final assembly in Taiwan

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dave is granted special permission to fly out to Taiwan so that he can oversee final assembly
Dave en route to Taiwan
Dave en route to Taiwan to visit our manufacturing partner

August, 2020
September, 2020

Final stages of manufacture: painting & assembly

For a backstage tour of what happens during these final stages, have a read of our blog post here.

Hand-finishing marengo grey FLIT-16 frames

September, 2020
November, 2020

FLIT-16 fleet arrives at our warehouse in Cambridge, UK

Team + bikes
The FLIT team with some of the first FLIT-16 fleet
Quality checking begins – we check and test ride every single bike to make sure that it’s perfect before sending to customers

November, 2020
January, 2021

All bikes from our first manufacturing batch delivered!

Happy customers all around the world.
FLIT celebrations, all FLIT-16s delivered
Time to celebrate! Thanks so much to one of our customers who sent this photo all the way from New York City

January, 2021
February, 2021

#FlitFoldFast Competition

We ran a competition to see which one of our riders could fold their FLIT-16 the fastest.
The answer… an incredible 7.43 seconds!
Flit Fold Fast Competition - celebrating
Meet Stuart, King of the Fold

February, 2021
April, 2021

We built our dream workshop

The perfect space for our engineers to develop new ideas
Wide Angle of the new workshop
Our R&D workshop

April, 2021
May, 2021

Great to see our riders enjoying their FLIT-16s

… and leaving such lovely reviews on Trustpilot.
Happy riders + Trustpilot review
Happy riders

May, 2021
July, 2021

#FlitTightFit Competition 

We ran a competition to see where our riders could fit their FLIT
Jeremy's winning shot
The winning entry! Jeremy fit his FLIT into the back of his Austin 7, Chummy – the perfect road trip set up with the picnic basket too.

July, 2021
September, 2021

Full Charged OUTSIDE

Our first live event since the pandemic!
Fully Charged OUTSIDE 2021
Dave and Matt demo-ing the FLIT-16

September, 2021

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