I think the broken frame problem started in the UK several years ago now.

FSIRs sell for about $510, lot less than PC Reach or Birdys.

It's not a particularly cheap bike as it looks like it has as a straight chain to the rear wheel and an oversized hub so I would guess it has hub gears. It looks to me like a generic aluminium folding bike from the far east possibly one of the Tern sourced Bickertons. Definitely doesn't look like a generic low end steel folding bike which I would expect to have a derailleur or be single speed mostly. Also many steel folding bikes with mid-frame hinges etc still working fine from the 1960s. I can see it has the over-sized hinge catch/lever common to aluminium folding bikes. I'd be surprised if the bike that broke apart in that video isn't an aluminium frame.

I can understand having an issue with you not being the original owner, but I'm hoping we all see the trend with Tern in your post above. Poor manufacturing seems to be the cause of these failures, and all Tern does is say, in the end, that EVERY FAILURE IS DUE TO THE OWNERS MISUSE OR LACK OF MAINTENANCE. This is BS, and is why I'll never purchase another Tern folding bicycle.

I have not bothered to read all of Terns excuses but if what you say sums it up then it is strange that Tern bikes break more often than other bikes- or do they claim that the Tern owners treat theyr bikes worse than other bike owners do?? No matter what the reason is it is the Tern name that suffers, not the reputation of the peopel they blame.

Some times when you are trying to run a buisness you may have to swallow some camels to protect your name and your reputation. Looks like they worry about the cost of some broken bike frames more than they worry about a "broken" reputation- unless it is the claims from injured riders that would follow if they did something that could look like "admitting they are guilty" of selling bad bikes that they really fear.

What about the Bickerton models too. As I understand it the range was sourced through Tern so are any of the models effected? Is there a real danger that anyone riding those bikes is going to have the bike collapse under them in heavy traffic? Has this been discussed elsewhere?

Seems modern Bickerton's initially were manufactured in Taiwan and Thailand but then moved to China and Vietnam. I know Vietnam is meant to be a great location for low cost high quality bikes now, undercutting Chinese prices. Not sure where the dubious quality Tern's were manufactured, Taiwan and China?

Bickerton: 'We no longer shape tubing between two truck tyre levers' | Bicycle Business | BikeBiz

It seems to effect a wide range of Tern models over quite a long period so you wonder how Bickerton escaped the issue.

I believe that Mr. Bickerton has stated that they are completely safe :) Nothing to worry about...

Thanks,
Yan

That video above though does look like a possible Bickerton model with its green colour. A bit like the one below, same colour but either the 16" or 20" wheel version with either a shimano 3 speed or 7 speed hub. Only a guess but certainly looks like a possibility. In fact now that I look at it again with the same bare metal post and a saddle that seems to match the outline I'm even more positive its a Tern based Bickerton.

http://road.cc/sites/default/files/c...%20%20%205.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aSCJskZ-O8o/hqdefault.jpg

Maybe Mr. Bickerton would like to chime in? Or maybe he's pretending to care somewhere else?

Bonzo I hope you understand that a warranty is not something that can be put into a table and cross checked. The value of a warranty needs to be earned. Tern has a longer warranty than our bikes, however it's clear to me that our warranty is much better ( since we honor more than what we claim ). Additionally a lifetime warranty from a company like Eurobike has no value until they prove themselves in the market ( and back up their warranty ).

Thanks,
Yan

End consumers can't tell which company can back up their warranty they just have to accept the legality of the company's claims. Most companies aren't going to offer warranties they can't back up. I don't really know any companies that have gone under due to not being able to backup their warranties or simply ceased trading. I accept the law may be different to other countries but in the UK if the purchase price is over £100 the credit card company is jointly liable so if a manufacturer goes out of business and you can't have the device repaired under their free extended warranty you can get reimbursed by the credit card company. Also in UK law your rights are with the retailer where you purchased it. So if a retailer sells a washing machine with a 5 year guarantee and the washing machine manufacturer goes out of business you can get the repair paid for by the retailer.

So as long as you have lets say a 5 year guarantee you can claim against the manufacturer, retailer or credit card company.

Of course how easy a company makes claiming against them is another matter.

I've not checked but I think I read the Bickerton frame guarantee is 5 years which is more generous than most for folding bikes and I'd have no issue with claiming against that. My fear is not, not getting a free repair fairly easily by most companies that offer long frame warranties, my real fear is the bike breaking apart under me in heavy traffic with articulated lorries around.

I personally would take the Euromini guarantee at its written word and see that as something superior to competing bikes that offer shorter guarantees. The longer the guarantee the better. It's my experience that goods that offer long guarantess are often because the product rarely has issues.

Here in the UK you can see how bicycle manufacturer's carefully adjust their guarantee's/warranties depending on the part. Lifetime on steel frames and possibly aluminium or maybe 1-15 years for a performance frame but only a 1 or 2 year guarantee on the carbon forks. Sometimes with folding bikes the frame guarantee is shortened 1, 2, 3 or 5 years presumably because of the hinge.

Giant offer a lifetime warranty on their folding bike frames, 10 years for rigid forks and a high 136kg/300lb weight capacity. Giant are pretty much state of the art when its comes to frame manufacture though and although I'm not keen on their folding bikes, style, features etc you can't argue with that warranty or load capacity.

I agree with you Yan that a warranty is an honor-based value add as well as a financial one.

That being said, (and Ive stated elsewhere on this forum) my personal warranty experience, albeit not a long-term one, with EuroMini has been absolutely fine and the folks there have acted honorably with me that way.

In this day and age bad news about a company/product typically spreads faster than a good reputation does.....(social media !)

Im purchasing my next bike from Downtube, and I have NO reservations that my experience will be a positive one.

I didnt have that same pre-purchase confidence when I purchased my EuroMini’s....but they’ve proven themselves to me. That said, I’ve recommended them to a friend or three, and expressed myself about my experiences with them here.

I have no doubts that I’ll be so inclined when Im riding a Downtube 8H or MiniB and have my own actual experience with it.

I looked at the video again. What I can see in the video:

- bike has no chain stay (curve config like the Dahon Mu).
- geared hub.
- has rack.
- has fenders.
- tires larger than 16"
- man watching the cctv playback snickering :D
- sounds British/UK?

I think the curved tube from seatpost to rear tire tube support is spaced further than the Bickerton pic posted by Bonzo Banana (min 0:35 in video). Also rack/fenders could be add on thingy. I would say there is not enough info to pinpoint the exact bike model, unless bike owner appears on this forum to confirm.

The picture I posted was because of the green frame colour which matches the video frame colour because I couldn't find an image of the bike (didn't look long though) that was a bickerton with 20" wheels and hub gearing with the same colour frame. However if you look at the rear rack design, chainset, saddle, saddle post, mudguards it all matches the Bickerton. I'm fairly confident but not certain.

Which Dahon model do you think it could be, just for comparison, do you have an image?

I am neither confident nor certain :foo:. Insufficient details in the video. My post (top of this page) was just to say perhaps a bike with no mid frame hinge is worth considering. Also this thread is for hinge bolt breaking. And we're going way off track if we start to discuss hinge failures on Bickerton (or Dahon) bikes, (which may or may not be occuring).

I don't have experience with the Downtube either. But if the ride quality is the same I'd definitely opt for Downtube if they become available here.

I guess Dahon is off topic but Bickerton were sourced through Tern at least early models so may be relevant to a discussion about Tern failures if it also applies to Tern bikes rebranded as Bickertons. There may be someone reading this in the future trying to understand the frame breaking on their Bickerton bike outside the 5 year warranty and may have a right to replacement beyond this if Tern offer a recall but Bickerton don't.

I own a Bickerton MK X and have mentioned the relation to the Tern Link series much earlier in this thread already: https://www.bikeforums.net/19557869-post35.html
I got confirmation from Mark Bickerton via email that my bike would not be affected. Time will tell.

In my eyes this thread has gone bonkers quite a while ago and has become more hysterical than anything else. Not a good place any more to get serious information.

That's great; if you have better sources for serious information, please share.
I can understand a certain level of hysteria regarding a life threatening issue, and am grateful for the warnings.

I don't think it's at all hysterical to say Tern hasn't provided any reason to feel confident their folding bikes won't snap in half. I shudder to think there's people riding their electric model which can be easily modded to top 30mph. I suppose their non-folding models are ok, but I would never ride a folding Tern.

I think the difference between the electric models and non-electric is that they've built the electric bike frames to be quite strong. Their non-electric 20" folders have been deemed "strong enough" by design, and the design has proven to be inadequate. That is, the older frame models,...which are still out there, being sold AND ridden by unsuspecting customers.

You may be right about the electrics, but I would still avoid them myself. It's very hard to get "frame snaps in half in traffic" out of the brain once it's in there. Not happening for me.

Going back to that Youtube video clip again, I believe the only green colour bike Bickerton do is the 16in wheel Pilot which has a derailleur mech so it's clearly not a Bicky.

What we know is:

- there have been problems with the frame breaking with a number of Tern models, resulting in several (relatively small) recalls. This is not nice but can happen. And a recall is the proper way of dealing with the issue.

- the reason given for the recalls was (if I remember correctly) problems with a certain subcontractor in the early days of Tern. Based on the recalls and some of the defects this seems only to be part of the truth - along with bad craftsmanship there possibly seems to be a construction issue (that may have been fixed through changes in the construction at least with the latest verge-model some time in the past, I do not now how the situation is on the Link-model). Not totally convincing but also not necessarily frightening.

- Additionally there have been issues with the hinge bolt getting loose or lost on a number of Tern Links (and also Bickerton Mk Xs) - basically all Links until the change of the bolt-design are possibly affected - that are caused by an unclever construction of this bolt. No recall has been made regarding this issue as far as I know. Unfortunately the possible (!) impact is similar to a breaking frame in the worst case. But you can change the bolt to a revised design and/or have an eye on it both of which hopefully will solve the issue. Not brilliant and not good for building trust in the brand, but manageable.

- There are furthermore reports about a number of breakages of frames that have not been part of any recall and at least one that has even been testified by Tern before the breakage that the bike would not be affected. This is somewhat frightening. Especially as the possible impact of a damage is massive - death in the worst case.

I can absolutely understand anybody who has lost any faith in Tern by this situation. I myself did not ride my Bickerton Mk X after years ago I got aware of the first breakages that were reported and the recalls were made afterwards as it's frame number met the schema of the potentially affected bikes. Neither did I sell it because I did not want to possibly endanger a buyer. A pity, as it was a pretty expensive bike and barely ridden until then - list price something like 1800 € if I remember right. This situation went on for years as my request to Bickerton regarding the situation with my bike kept being unanswered until via this thread I got finally confirmation from Mark Bickerton that my bike was not affected.
Noticing shortly after that that even bikes that got clearance from Tern still broke did not make me happy. So yes, I can fully understand any bad mood, the more as I am potentially affected by the issue myself.

On the other hand we have no idea how many bikes were built, how many broke and how many are really affected. We probably can assume that over the course of the last six(?) years up to a couple of 100.000 Tern bikes have been built. And we only know of a handful of breakages and even less aside of the recalled bikes. Thousands and thousands are bing used out there on a daily basis w/o problems, at least as far as I know. So maybe the ratio of breakages to bikes built is within industry standards - just our emotions tell a different story. Emotions, not the brain. It may even be the case that the changes in the design may have been made to strengthen the frame but that frames w/o these enhancements are generally safe apart from a tiny amount that have issues resulting from problems in production. Or the opposite - we simply do not know and as we do not now the numbers we cannot objectively judge on the risc.

An unknown risc probabilty combined with a possibly deadly impact leads to avoidance - which is a pretty rational strategy but possibly an over-reaction. As said before: We don't know and unfortunately we cannot judge on that.

Until here everything seems pretty reasonable to me. The hysterical part comes in when Mark Bickerton gets attacked personally for being part of an "evil empire" and held personally responsible for things that other parts of the company did. To my knowledge did he neither construct or weld the frames nor write letters to Downtube in the name of Tern nor do we have proof that he is part of a Tern-wide conspiracy or something like that.
I call it also hysterical claiming from a very unsharp video where one can barely identify anything to have proof that Bickerton bikes also broke.
Or when claiming to have proof that Tern bikes in general are dangerous or "all break", based on reports of breakages of bikes with unknown frame number and build date and Tern as a company and Josh Hon as it's leader endanger their customer's lifes on purpose. Things like that are not helpful and do not foster a clear view on the situation.

I personally would probably currently not buy a Tern and even less a used one - which is a pity as they seem (apart from the issues) to be proper bikes for the money. On the other hand I own enough bikes that I do not have this problem - do not need another one. I have not yet ridden my Bickerton Mk X again and am not sure if I ever will or if I will dare to sell it - result from the unhappy situation with Tern bikes. Still not happy.

This is from post #98. From my understanding of this, the bolt change is from two bolts to a single rod. So you can't do the bolt swap unless you get the new frame. Since there is no recall for bolt breakage, you have to buy the new frame.

I don't agree with your summary of the thread, hardly bonkers or hysterical especially with the risk of death when a frame fails but my post was in response to the video showing what looks likely to be a Bickerton bike that fell apart underneath the rider in that short video. What looks to be a relatively young bike just getting normal use.