Just spotted this in the latest Velovision (www.velovision.co.uk/) (The World's best bike mag!) It's called the Hasa Minimax (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://www.revu.co.kr/revureview/8F7680BA-2C96-4179-90EE-8F5186071A7A&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhasa%2Bminimax%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN) Has titanium bits too! Weighs in @ 7.5 Kg! It's in Chinese so you'll have to do a google translate. I haven't found a price yet.
Enjoy! Safe riding

Price: about the same as a folding car.

CE

Just spotted this in the latest Velovision (www.velovision.co.uk/) (The World's best bike mag!) It's called the Hasa Minimax (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://www.revu.co.kr/revureview/8F7680BA-2C96-4179-90EE-8F5186071A7A&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhasa%2Bminimax%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN) Has titanium bits too! Weighs in @ 7.5 Kg! It's in Chinese so you'll have to do a google translate. I haven't found a price yet.
Enjoy! Safe riding

The page is actually Korean, not Chinese. Anyway, I did some search on "Hasa Minimax". It turns out someone in Taipai is selling a second hand one for 45000 NT$ (about $1400) since his girlfriend doesn't like folding bikes. Well, so much for the globalization.

Just spotted this in the latest Velovision (www.velovision.co.uk/) (The World's best bike mag!) It's called the Hasa Minimax (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://www.revu.co.kr/revureview/8F7680BA-2C96-4179-90EE-8F5186071A7A&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhasa%2Bminimax%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN) Has titanium bits too! Weighs in @ 7.5 Kg! It's in Chinese so you'll have to do a google translate. I haven't found a price yet.
Enjoy! Safe riding

Oh, by the way, someone in some Chinese bike forum says Hasa Minimax doesn't use full carbon. Instead, it is just something wrapped with carbon.

Oh, by the way, someone in some Chinese bike forum says Hasa Minimax doesn't use full carbon. Instead, it is just something wrapped with carbon.

Now, I found where this guy got the information. Someone else (a 110lb guy) snapped the seatpost while riding and took the following pictures. It seems Hasa is selling Minimax with carbon seatpost in China and some customer got pissed off by its quality.

http://www.chinabike.net/newbbs/UploadFile/2007-8/200782023422534588.jpg
http://www.chinabike.net/newbbs/UploadFile/2007-8/200782023404884686.jpg
http://www.chinabike.net/newbbs/UploadFile/2007-8/200782023403644624.jpg

Smart detective work Kabir - So much for eye kandy - that seat post is just some aluminium with a thin layer of carbon (or something that looks like carbon ?).

The pix on the Korean site look slick - maybe its already been 'knocked off' and the broken seat post is from a fake ?

The pix on the Korean site look slick - maybe its already been 'knocked off' and the broken seat post is from a fake ?

The info on the Korean site is also a little different. First, it claims the weight is 9KG, not 7.5KG. Second, it has a titanium seatpost, not a carbon one. I don't think I would seriously look at this folder unless the information becomes consistent and there are more positive comments around.

Nice find CHOP...

KAB: A few MTB buddies stay away from CF seat posts and handlebars for this reason. I'm not saying they all break, but I hear there's a lot of CF knockoffs on the market that are really not manufactured to specs.

Too bad... such a nice bike... such a crazy price!

The page is actually Korean, not Chinese. Anyway, I did some search on "Hasa Minimax". It turns out someone in Taipai is selling a second hand one for 45000 NT$ (about $1400) since his girlfriend doesn't like folding bikes. Well, so much for the globalization.

Oops, sorry Kabir, I actually thought it was Korean, but google said translating from Chinese!
I also found the lad that was selling his girlfriend's but having seen the Mickey Mouse seat post, I won't be busting a gut to find one! :eek:

I commented previously about the rear fork's attachment to the seat tube - doesn't inspire confidence.

This bike is distributed in Thailand for 85,000 baht, or about $2700. Of course, that's just 1300 GBP, more of a good deal. http://www.kosmikbike.com/bikes/show.php?model_code=minimax&type=FOLD

On Interbike for US$1200.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1031/1471251488_c6b2afec51.jpg?v=0

Another one from Giantetti (http://www.lmdigianetti.it/bike.html)

The challenge of high technology! Today during a ride I came upon a roadie who had stopped and was looking at his bike. I asked him if everything was OK, and if he needed any tools. He said his rear wheel felt loose and he had just figured out the problem with his $6000 Cervelo carbon-fiber race bike (he told me the price, I'm not guessing) -- the chainstay on the derailleur side had cracked and was beginning to separate! His wheel was floating around and the tire was all chewed up from rubbing. I gave him directions to the nearest exit from the park path system. He had a long walk in his super stiff roadie shoes!

I guess the higher the technology, the greater the need for superior quality control.

The challenge of high technology! Today during a ride I came upon a roadie who had stopped and was looking at his bike. I asked him if everything was OK, and if he needed any tools. He said his rear wheel felt loose and he had just figured out the problem with his $6000 Cervelo carbon-fiber race bike (he told me the price, I'm not guessing) -- the chainstay on the derailleur side had cracked and was beginning to separate! His wheel was floating around and the tire was all chewed up from rubbing. I gave him directions to the nearest exit from the park path system. He had a long walk in his super stiff roadie shoes!

I guess the higher the technology, the greater the need for superior quality control.
D'oh! I wish I hadn't read this.

Those bikes are nice! If you have a truck following you with a bike mechanic and the equivalent of 3 other bikes as spares, they are nice. If someone else is paying for this to take place, they are really really nice.

I visited the Hasa booth at the Taipei Bike Show in 2006. The bike had just been released for sale at that point. Given that it was a Folder, I was surprised at how light it was. 9kg seems about right as that is 19.8 pounds. The Korean won figure of 3,330,000w translates to 3,625usd. Their products seem to be pretty decent. They also make titanium, titanium/carbon and carbon road frames. Not sure if they do MTB frames...

9kg? It's not hard to get a folder weight to that. Won't cost $3k either.

9kg? It's not hard to get a folder weight to that. Won't cost $3k either.

There could some duties in Korea that jack up the price for imported goods...