Originally Posted by Nyah

I was asking in the context of smaller wheel bicycles. Since the ChangeBike and Mantague are close to 700c wheel size, they were off my radar. But, yes, they follow a suitable folding design for aluminum frames. I guess Dahon GB-2 uses the Lockjaw system. I'm not yet sold on that one,.


The Tern Eclipse and Node do not have predictable durability. They try to follow the good design of chromoly frames like the Dahon Speed, but, aluminum isn't suitable for that design. The aluminum suffers accelerated fatigue in the hinge area and fails catastrophically, without warning. We see Dahon trying to address this with their Deltec reinforcement invention.


I'm not convinced that beefy aluminum frames such as the Terns are lighter than their chromoly counterparts. Even if they were, the inherent nature of aluminum stress fatigue is bad enough for me to stay with chromoly. As long as the chromoly looks sound, I can be sure that it is.


Regarding the statement of the D5 frame model as "unwanted and un-noticed" - I take that to mean un-hyped and disrespected. That's OK by me, though, because those qualities in a bicycle do not always put me off. I want my bicycle to look good, sure, but don't necessarily want it to attract attention. If the paint design really bothers me, I can always get it re-powdercoated to whatever I want. Yes, I don't want to to pay for the junk parts that come on a complete Boardwalk D5. The only thing about the D5 frame that currently concerns me is whether or not it can take a 9/10spd freehub wheel. Everything else looks suitably upgradable to a good, fast, 16" bicycle which gives me the same options that an Fnhon Storm does.