Originally Posted by
George3
The introduction of the Dahon Curl suggests that is possible, to produce a compact folding-bike,
This is true. There's the Brompton, didn't need Dahon to prove this. It just took Dahon more than 15 years and countless announcements of the model until you could really buy it. It is however still not out on the streets...
Originally Posted by
George3
that can compete with the Brompton,
That yet has to be proven on the road. The Brompton in it's current form started selling 1987, so 30 years ago. Dahon needed more than half of that time to copy it (starting to count from the first public announcement of the Curl in
AFAIK 2000 - therefor probably copying started even earlier). The Brompton Mk1 (designwise not too different from the current one) started selling in 1980 - before Dahon was even founded. Brompton as a company and the basic concept of the bike are more than 40 years old. Therefor it had really long time to mature - which it did, year by year, enhancement by enhancement.
From what you can see today despite the long copy-process there are still some major downsides even on a basic level with the Curl, compared to the Brompton:
- no hub dynamo possible (due to 55mm OLD)
- no front luggage
- max handlebar height even below a Brompton M-type (despite having a telescopic stem)
- currently only available with three speeds
- folding seems to be more complicated - despite Dahon claiming the opposite. (steps necessary in additon to the Brompton: take out seatpost, lower stem, turn handlebar)
- etc. etc.
Plus at least here in Germany Dahon's reputation in terms of service and availablity of spare parts couldn't be worse. The exact opposite of the Brompton. Still at least the list price of the Curl is on level with the Brompton (again in Europe) - doesn't sound like a setup for success.
So they invented a challenger by cloning the original - time will tell if it will be a serious competitor as well. If it will ever be I suppose it will only be through a discounted initial buy-price and definitively not through longtime quality.
Originally Posted by
George3
without legal copyright infringement of the Brompton design.
Well, this is probably dependent from whom you ask. Brompton's patents expired long ago. In terms of copyright or visual similarity an innocent viewer would probably consider them very similar. Nobody can tell what a judge would say as nobody seems to have asked one. But Neobikes got sued for their Brompton-Clones under brand-names like "Merc", "Flamingo" etc. when trying to sell them in Europe just ten years ago.
And - aside from copyright - it seems a bit of a capitulation that the bike that Dahon invents for the company's 35th birthday is basically a copy or clone of a 40 year old design of a competitor - and at the same time Dahon irritatingly claims in the (childish) kickstarter campaign for the curl to be the oldest company of it's kind in the world...