Originally Posted by
Fentuz
I get what you are saying; frame like Fhon etc, 16" or 20" wheelset can be found cheaply but, this is something that works for enthusiasts, people who read these fora and understand what is needed to build a folding bike.
Dahon may still have a place with generic bike shop who sell bike to people new to folding bike. I think one of the big issue of Dahon is that the founder is getting old and it seems there is nobody to carry on and the range is pretty poor and not well specced.
Meanwhile, Tern is consolidating and Brompton is becoming less "boutique".
This was the same issue with Tern. I recall that that when Dahon and Tern were "battling" in the late 2000 early 2010, Tern were terrible for frame cracking and not honouring warranty T&C. Both company frameset came from the same company but I remember talk about poor QC. At the time, Dahon was leading the charge with interesting thing like jetstream, MuSL, speed TT etc. at the time, I was in the market for a 3rd folder and I went for a dahon because of the poor reputation of tern at the time. Tern fixed the quality issues and carried on with interesting things like the X18, X10, X11. their minivelo never worked.
Dahon could try to re-invent itself with minivelos like the dash but the market is small or the clint but this one is too expensive.
May be they should team up with a kids bike company so that they get better buying power on components and then can sell a folding bike for the same price range as a kid bike $300-400.
The dahon dash and the frog 52/55/53 are pretty much the same in base models (20" wheelset with quando hub, shimano altus groupset, 27.2 seatpost, tektro brakes.), the only difference is the frameset. From a logistic point of view, it is no different than having different bike size for a given model.
I saw a used Tern for sale at a bike shop years ago, looked it up, I can't recall if under recall or just info online about them cracking; I went back to the bike shop and examined it, was obvious why, IMO not a quality issue, but that it lacked the additional gusset(?) (not between tubes, but an additional layer of aluminum with long welds inline with the tube, over the bottom of the main tube, just forward of the hinge) that was present on the similar Dahon frames like the Mariner.
My Dahon frame crack was also due to design, not quality; They put the seat tube slot for the post clamp, on the forward side of the tube, loaded in tension when under seat load, not the back, loaded in compression, like nearly all other bikes. Fatigue failures happen in tension. And, this is exacerbated by the early plastic "shim" (bushing) there, which compressed enough to overstress the area. The revised aluminum bushing seemed to solve this, doesn't compress like the plastic, and reinforces the tube in bending. (I wish I had access to a lathe, I would make a high-strength stainless steel bushing, 3X stiffer than aluminum, and stronger.) Later Dahon Speeds have the seat tube slot in the rear, just like their aluminum frames. I wrote a detailed engineering analysis of the failure, sent to Dahon, requesting they replace the frame, and suggesting they send aluminum bushings to customers to replace the plastic ones, both cheaper for them in the long run, IMO. They blew me off. Fine, be that way. Morons. I filed my report with the CPSC; Nothing happened IMO because CPSC was running scared under Trump, but it's officially on file with them, should a failure cause someone to get injured. For their cost on a frame, and some bushings, but I would have been happy with just the frame replaced, if they wanted to not send out bushings to everyone, just replace frames as needed. My guess is a new frame was well under $200 cost to them. Like I said, morons.
Dahon had something like two or three times the number of models, ten years ago. Now a lot less. The Curl D9 looks like it might be something. Depends on the price.
Bike Friday made an interesting bike some years ago, looks like their New World Tourist but no folding rear triangle, though it comes apart in the main tube, but that is just for adjusting effective top tube length via telescoping tube. OSATA, One Size Adjusts To All, it was aimed at bicycle schools.
Brompton is going both down and up scale; A-line 3 speed is about $1150 I think, and in the other direction, their full titanium external gear model is I think about $5000-6000. They also sell boutique limited designer series models.