I just noticed this promo of the Dahon Mariner GT.

https://youtu.be/534-2NhrHVI?si=8ntXOwwh4WxrUgG4

It looks the same to me, except:

• Deltech cable
• Disc brakes
• 10-speed cassette
• new rack?

Either Mariner D8 will soon go on sale or this one will cost significantly more.

I saw this before, can't recall if on another thread. Looks good, questions are:
- brakes; cable or hydro, quality, and whether offset inboard 15mm, or gone back to "standard" mounting, so easy to replace calipers.
- if they went 10 speed, IMO they should have done a wider range cassette, at least 400% range, however that should be an easy swap if the RD can handle it.
- like you said, price, current list price of current/old Mariner is $949, that's too high versus Zizzo.
- and, whether it will be available in the USA. Dahon USA is showing 71 of the old design still in stock, and they haven't been moving quick.
- rack looks improved, able to mount panniers further aft and a bit higher, for heel clearance.

I do like the way that one looks, but having owned two Dahons in the past, and being twice burned, I am doubly shy about Dahon.

Video says it's an 11-32 cassette. 10 speeds with 291% gear range would just be annoying; as Russ says on Path Less Pedaled, cutting the same pizza into smaller and smaller pieces and calling it progress. Manufacturers are either cynical, or just as naive about gearing as their customers. I corresponded a bit with the CEO of SoloRock, distributor of a Mu clone I bought. During the pandemic, they couldn't find appropriate 10-speed cassettes for their Pro line - so they put on the 10-speed they could find, 11-25 (!!) and sold that for a higher price as a better bike than the 11-32 8-speed on their non-Pro bikes. A small pizza instead of a medium, sold for more to poor schmucks who have never heard of range but figure more gears just must be better.

I do not agree with you: 10s 11-32 provides about 12.5% average difference between gears which is good because it allows to have always an optimal pedaling cadence.

11-32 with 8s has too big gaps between gears.

Having decided on 1x10, their challenge was to pick a sensible cassette for the general market. Are you saying that 11-32 - 291% - is the range you'd pick for a 1x10? When it could just as easily be 11-36 or 11-38? The dismaying thing is not having too many gears; it's having paltry range. Fine if you live on a floodplain, but a poor choice for the general population.

For a wider gear inch range, I would take a 11s transmission.

Me too. How were you burned? Something breaking and failing to honor warranty? Poor customer service? Mine was frame fatigue crack (due to their earlier plastic seatpost bushings) and them blowing me off, and much later, bike for sale on their website with specs that differed significantly in very important ways from the bike that was shipped.

I had a Boardwalk and a Mariner. Both road poorly. I was just flat out disappointed. If I recall correctly one was steel and one was aluminum. I do not remember the particulars as to which. This was a good while ago. I am told they are both much improved now, but I wonder. Neither seemed solid. Both were prone to creaking.

To be fair, the Dahon Mariner is corrosion resistant, so the ZiZZO Marino is the competing model, and it’s $700. Dahon must figure their brand reputation is worth the $200.

i disagree. If you don’t have a low enough low gear to climb what you want to climb, tighter gear spacing is irrelevant. It’s also less important on a folding bike than a road bike because we’re not racing. Just pick the lower gear and go a bit slower.

That’s not on offer though, so it’s irrelevant too. We’re talking about factory made bikes here, not “Jipe’s Special Customs”. ;-)

Boardwalk is steel but a smaller diameter top tube, and since torsional stiffness is a 4th power function of diameter, it should be a lot less stiff and more noodly when climbing standing. Mariners of the last decade are aluminum frame (some earlier or non-USA ones were steel or had skinny frames like a boardwalk). To keep the frame and (old style) handlepost hinges from creaking, they need to be adjusted really tight, and also a drop of oil on the hinge pin. But my improvised deltech cable has made a huge difference in the frame hinge, tightened that right up, and I haven't needed to adjust the hinge since, three years now. Also, adding a lock nut to the frame hinge adjustment helped too. Used to be adjusted monthly.

As far as riding... regarding ride quality, yeah, not much to do about that. If you mean shifting, my early Speed had both the terrible forward-mounted Dahon rear derailleur, and really terrible cogs with semi-circular impressions that were useless compared to real hyperspaceglide, but it only mattered on the big low cog, where it was dang near impossible to get it onto the cog without adjusting the RD so it frequently overshot the chain into the spokes. But, changing to a conventional derailleur (Shimano Tourney TX 6/7 speed with claw mount as no standard RD mount), resolved that, shifts perfect even with those poor cogs.

With my mods, 2X gearing, deltech, mine climbs darn nice for a folder. Bigger tires should help ride, I've only used 1.5" and 1.75", I'm gonna go to 2.0".

Exactly. When I went 2X gearing on my Speed D7, I biased it to the low end for sufficient climbing, my top gear is just enough to be able to pedal down a mild grade where coasting is not enough. Steeper down, I coast. So perhaps the lower 2/3 of mountain bike gearing range. That 50/34 crank just makes a huge difference uphill versus the original 52. Or 400% 1X gearing, either one.

I have a 44/24, gives me about 14.3 gear inch. I used it on a 5-hour climb up 1,400 m while loaded with 20 kg of baggage and water. I had to keep switching between the 34 and 28 cogs from the constantly changing road gradients. Instead of the standard 27 30 34, I took one out and stuck a 16 in between 15 and 17 because I didn't like that jump at the higher end. But wished I had it at the time.

There are 3 parameters to take into account, the gear inch range defined by the min-max cog sizes of the cassette, the spacing between gears defined by the combination of the gear inch range and the number of cogs and the shortest and biggest gear inch defined by the min-max cogs sizes of the cassette and chainring size.

if the shortest gear inch isn't short enough, its possible (to a certain level defined by the crankset) to reduce the size of the chainring. This is an easy and most of the time cheap modification.

So, concerning the short enough gear inch you shouldn't mix up short gear inch and cassette size. And it was not the topic on which I answered, I answered about a manufacturer moving from a 8s to a 10s transmission supposedly for commercial/marketing reasons and the fact that 10s doesn't bring any benefit vs. 8s for a 11-32t cassette.

About having the transmission parameters that fits, its often necessary to modify what the manufacturer mounted on a bike.

Man that's some climb!

For lower than 34, I'll need a different crank than 110 BCD; Sure hope I can find a 2-piece hollow spindle one, because I love that setup. But I don't want a lower high gear than 50-11-406 so 85 gear inches, I need that as a minimum high. A tourer of renown needed to go down to about same as you, 15 gear inches IIRC, after some loaded tours where he was up around 20 and that wasn't low enough. But 50/30, and going bigger on the low cog from 30T to 34 or 36, should get me there. Others have said that 20T jump is doable. If I get a freehub that will do a 10T high cog, I could probably go down to a 44/24.

There is a fairly affordable crank sold in Japan called the Dixna La Crank that is a hollow spindle and with 110/74 bcd and also comes with 130-170mm crank arm length in either 5 or 2.5 mm increments.

There is a Japanese exporter that sells it but you can find it cheaper if you buy it in Japan on rakuten or Mercari for 20,000 jpy

It's probably an import from somewhere in Asia so I don't know how good is the quality. I am using sugino.

A reviewer says the q factor is actually 150mm.

But I cheat with my sugino to get more spline engagement by using the Shimano MTB BB cups instead of the road cups because they're 1 mm thinner on each side, but I have to use a road sleeve in between and shave one end of it. Reduces the q factor by 2 mm and gives me some tolerance to shim the drive side to adjust the chain line if needed since the outer chain ring is mounted on the inner face of the spider.

I like bikes with a stiff frame. I liked the Raleigh 20, at least as far as the ride quality and stiffness.

For me, now, a requirement would be that the bike take be capable of mounting 2-inch diameter tires with fenders. Will your bike take 2-inch tires with fenders. Here, you need fenders. Lots of rain. Many of the bikes that I had, would not take 2-inch tires with fenders. If the frame has good stiffness, and takes 2-inch tires, it does not matter that much whether it is aluminum or steel. Gearing is not so important to me, though it would likely be if there were hills.

I had to remove the Dahon Speed OEM fenders when I went from factory 406/1.5" to 1.75", so most certainly won't fit fenders with 2.0", at least OEM ones, but perhaps would work with 2-piece fenders that don't go under the fork crown or rear bridge, but attach on each side and stay above that. But I think the tires will fit fine.

Lots of rain here in winter. I've avoided riding in rain like the plague, not only due to no fenders, but more importantly, it grits up the rim brakes and eats at the rim sidewalls. Hence, next bike will be discs.

Stiffness normally comes down to the sophistication of the folding joint in bending and torsion. However, I think an improvised deltech cable greatly reduces that need, forcing the hinge closed more tightly. I have not yet applied that theory to another folder besides Dahon. For tightness, the Dahon Jaws and New Jaws hinges should not require deltech for tightness, at least on paper, but deltech sure does reduce bending load on the hinge joint for both. But of course a folder with no main beam hinge, like a Bike Friday and many others, is best of all, obviating that question.