brakemeister

ridden most of the Terns
thor

Jiten

The market will probably self-correct.

They still seem to be available at the old prices at various places.

sniperwolf17

My Dahon Mu P8 is made in Taiwan. Does that mean Dahon Global/Tern factory built the bike?

mulleady

I never claimed the half-fold was bad, I was merely pointing out that Dahon isn't always more innovative in every respect. We are talking about people making claims in absolute terms. I wouldn't agree the Jifo is as good as the Brompton but I would need to see and ride one. I doubt the frame would be as strong. The Brompton, Tikit & Pacific IF folds are definitely better than the half fold IMHO.

mulleady

You make it sound like Brompton's factory in Brentford, London is simply some final assembly operation in the manufacturing chain of the bike. That could not be further from the truth. Better check your sources. I also remember the Titanium seatposts being contracted to Russia when they were avaiable.

Come clean Juan as you have a particular bias in favour of Taiwan don't you?

mulleady

Were you suitably impressed?

chagzuki

It is, isn't it? Do they manufacture anything other than the frame? Maybe the folding pedal?

mulleady

What about the R&D, marketing & financial activities, never mind the manufacturing process? It is natural for any indigenous manufacturer to source certain inputs from overseas. Isn't that what the Japanese did for years and the Taiwanese do now? Please don't tell me they are rich in natural resources or all the manufactured inputs or produce all the parts. That does not make a Brompton any less British in origin and the only major Taiwanese contribution was for Neobike and then Grace Gallant to cheat on Brompton's IP and copy it when it was even still under patent. Brompton is a British bike despite some overseas sourcing of inputs and parts. They are made on specification from them. Apple design everything in the US and outsource most of the manufacturing to the Greater China region yet they are perceived to be largely an American brand. Brompton's activities are predominantly British.

Now don' get me wrong the Taiwanese are great engineers and I love many class-leading brands from there. Asus brought us the netbook and make the arguably the best Tablet (Asus Transformer), HTC make some superb smartphones and Apple or Dell would be nothing without their Taiwanese partners. Enter the bike industry there and some absolutely excellent bikes are made there, some which we don't even get to see. We all recognise the excellence of some of the Dahon range and the potential of Tern and Pacific's bikes

Why do some people have to keep on about Brompton? Unless there is a specific reason to compare bikes directly, what has this got to do with Dahon & Tern?!!

PS The Brompton frame is the main component in the bike's manufacture anyway!

chagzuki

I don't attach any qualitative assumption to the manufacturing location of bike stuff. The Brompton 'hand-made in England' tag keeps being brought up as it seems to be misleading, as is often used to justify Brompton's comparative higher price, which is particularly interesting now that other companies are raising prices.

mulleady

Not misleading at all. It is totally justified to claim the Brompton is 'made in England'.That's unlike some manufacturers in textiles and other industries who outsource everything abroad and only do the basic assembly in the UK with few other value added activities and use the loophole to put a domestic 'made in' label on the product. We live in a global society and economy so some outsourcing is inevitable, especially given the lack of manufacturing clusters in Britain these days but that does not mean Brompton are misleading.

The Brompton justifies a 'higher price tag' because most of its costs are incurred in the UK allied to a premium quality bike which possesses great durability and folding dimensions. Just as some people believe Tern bikes will sell if the market supports the quality, service and pricing point, Brompton having proved their price strategy works. If anything there is an excess demand relative to their productive capacity. I doubt any of the workers in their Brentford HQ & factory are worrying about redundancy right now. The same goes for Bike Friday in Oregon.

Returning to Dahon, the entry level price for the Curl will be higher than the Brompton. The cheaper Dahon Jifo may be very close on folding dimensions to the Brompton but does it latch together as well and possess a similar frame strength? Let's see.

pacificcyclist

To be best in the class, you need to take business risks. And they are taking that.

pacificcyclist

If you meant along the Olympic Peninsula, Oregon Coast all the way to California, the answer is yes and on my Bike Friday New World Tourist close to a decade ago. I have not ridden a Pacific bike. My issue isn't with the bike. My issue is with their marketing and price.

Folding-Bikes

I just enjoy the Banter


Seriously, I hate this snobbery about what country products come from, its 2011!

How about instead of asking WHERE? we ask HOW? how much resources are they consuming, what is the life cycle of their product? what are their values and ethics? do they practice what they preach?


Juan

Source: https://www.brompton.co.uk/page.asp?p=3088 (last line)

mulleady

Indeed, the Reach IF is a wonderful folder and ride but it's current retail price is a cool £1500 in the UK and Pacific want £49 for a pair of mudguards (fenders). I know custom parts tend to be at a slight premium but that much?!

mulleady

I have no problem with made in Taiwan, in fact I associate quality and innovation with its national brand. There is nothing wrong with having an association between the product brand and the national brand. Often there is a mutual trade-off. There is some pedigree involved from Bike Friday being in Oregon, Pacific in Taiwan and Brompton in England. It's only when someone completely writes off a brand outside their nationality without sound reason that jingoism enters the equation. Most of us here just love bikes and don't care for that.

PS Brompton RULE OK!

mulleady

Don't just pass it off as banter Juan, you are trying to claim that Brompton contradict their espoused values. One can play games all day with selective quotes and semantics. You need to read that page in its entirety to claim whether Brompton are being hypocritical or not. They tooled most of the parts here, they do the R&D here and they still do most of the production here with selective outsourcing of 'some' of the 1200 parts. Brompton have the nous to know that they can be more efficient and get quality inputs by targeting European & Taiwan for some components made to their specifications. I find it an entirely honest and transparent passage on their domestic production and selective outsourcing policy.

Are Brompton less honest than say Pacific? If anything, I find most manufacturers in the folding bike sector far more ethical than other industries on average.

Perhaps we can turn the focus on Pacific? Let's take some quotes from their equivalent 'about us' ('Company') page:

Do they? Will we get a reply and acknowledgement? What if we email them and say 'we really like your bikes, but can you lower the price or increase the spec of the components at that pricing point?'. Will they listen?

Is it? Where are the CRM processes & marketing channels in Pacific's overseas markets to enable this to happen?

I really like Pacific bikes, including the original Reach range and now the IF ones. However there is no point finger pointing at Brompton Juan and trying to pass it off as banter. As a key player in Pacific in Europe, both you and the mother company have quite a long way to go to live up to some of the visions & claims from your own website!

brakemeister

Thats really the beauty about folding bikes. With a marketshare of 0.678 % they tend to be a niche product. The companies have all their own little corner of that niche carved out, and usually tend to be much less full of corporate BS....
They do have the opportunity to listen to their customers and they do have the opportunity to react to their wishes, if they just listen and put some effort into it.
They need to understand how valuable their respective fan clubs on the Internet are. If they do business as usual, or want to copy the Treks or Specialized of this world they ultimately will fail after a long struggle of mediocracy.

Does it really make a difference where a bikeframe is built, and the bike is assembled from parts which come from far away? Maybe for some it does, and thats quite ok. Pay a few extra bucks and be happy. I am not talking thousands or even hundreds, the real cost difference between assembling a bike in GB or Taiwain or China is how much ? Lets pretend it takes one hour to built a bike ... what is the difference in salary for ONE HOUR ...

One major price difference is coming from the amount of stuff you buy. Shimano and Co give very different prices to small medium or large orderes. Thats one point where Dahon has a huge advantage they pay less for stuff they hang onto their bikes... considerable less as they built 10 times as much as Brompton and maybe 100 times as much as Bike Friday ... just as examples.

Most people think that the frame is the most expensive part on the bike. Take note: it isnt .... if you have a IGH that one is usually very much more than the frame and the fork for example...

just 2 cents...

and yes ... to the question above .. I was indeed very impressed with the Terns....
small positive with the LinkD7 as it has an off the shelf handlebarstem and only slighty larger clamp.
the other " real" Terns felt much better.
majorly impressed with the Verge/ Eclipese models
Castro felt solid as well ( as expected )
Joe never had a problem with similar designs anyhow, acyulaly have to admit I didnt ride this model
....

now "trying out" for stiffness while riding down the road is a somewhat wild guess and hardly provable if you really want to dissaprove. In ather words not really a good measure. Independent lab tests are much better as they take the emotions out of the equaesion....
And its difficult to compare if you not have different brands right there together.
The different tire pressure can throw one off in a heartbeat for example.
but no excuses : Yes, I was suitable impressed Mulleady

mulleady

Yes some of the designs and styling look great.

ratdog

In this case, is that best in class for performance or perception? Let's not anoint them so quickly, they (Tern) haven't even rolled out their bikes yet.

kamtsa

Do you say that Brompton get the frame tubes pre cut and bent from Taiwan, braze them and send back to Taiwan for painting and then get them back and assemble?

My impression from yourube videos is that they manufacture the entire frame in the UK from scratch.

Edit: I pressume that this video was filed entirely in the UK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sysopTpKIn8

mulleady

+1 and absolutely spot on. I have no doubt that bikes involving Josh Hon will be good but there is absolutely no guarantee they will be 'best in class'.Tern have some worthy rivals out there. To be perfectly honest, I like all of most folding bike manufacturers depending on the model in question. It is a very creative and relatively ethical sector overall. The rate of innovation is both exciting and mind boggling these days and it is not about to slow anytime soon. It is good for the consumer and fabulous for us geeks :-)

brakemeister

about the terns not being "rolled out"
they were indeed rolled out last summer to a big group of journalist/bloggers/and VUPs ( various unimportant people ) like me. The Launch in Taiwan was not just look and make pics and drool and and and .. there was a 20 mile bike ride through the mean streets of Taipeh for everyone to participate in, all on the Tern bikes which minutes before were the stars of the show. During the ride bikes were switched back and forth. After the conclusion of the ride everybody could take a bike and toil around with it.
Furthermore on Eurobike demo days as well as Interbike Demo Days tern had a truckfull of bikes for every dealer who wanted to try them. And a lot of folks did ride the bikes over various terrain and without any supervision....
The same bikes were than later used by all tern employees as they stayed away from the strip in a rented house and they were riding back and forth to the show at all times ( same as at the German show )

so in all actuality they are already rolling .... just no consumer bikes yet .... but its getting close
thor

pacificcyclist

The folder market is a small teeny weeny pie in the big picture of bike sales. So it's a niche play. But Dahon is not a small teeny weeny player. It has a huge market share on the folder market, so it is difficult for other folder players smaller than Dahon to break into some of their core sales group. Not to say that they hadn't tried hard enough. However, when they are slowly nibbling over huge market share by having models to eat into the outskirt of their model lines and if Dahon does not do anything about it, sooner or later Dahon will cease to exist as a company. I suspect David Hon and Josh Hon know this, but to each on their own have different visions where they want to take the new vision to restore their lead in this niche market. That vision is emphasized on Thor's (Mr. Meister's) signature line!

They know they aren't going to win over a ton of brownie points, because they are NOT playing into what you want. But that's your current vision; not what the future may hold. It takes guts, lots of guts to play the future. The competition can play whatever song and dance they want to tell you different. But at the end of the day, who maintains the largest market share of folding still counts. Just like sports and golf. Tiger Woods can play whatever excuses he wants to claim he's still the best. But honestly, people look at the score board and he's not at the top as he was. Name itself does not buy leadership if you don't show results!

Just take a look at the Dahon Jifo 16. Currently only single speed offered, but I suspect that this might become a platform for a complete new line if this sells well. Maybe next with a SRAM A2, SA3x, Alfine 11 etc... Who knows.

Just take a look at the Tern Verge and Eclipse range. When I looked at those hinges on the frame and handle post, I finally vent a sigh of relief when someone puts an effort to improve ride quality on folding bikes. To take it to the next generation.

I suspect that these 2 visions conflict in the same company, so 2 companies are better to pursue their own unique visions and base future products on that new platform. This is HOW a business survive to continue its existence longer into the future. Many of you play the now in vogue vision and accept what works best today will continue into the future. We have seen companies that seize to exist because of that.

frank13

I believe Terns are a known quality, after all, they are built and designed by the same guys that designed and built Dahons. I have no doubt they will ride well, very similar to Dahons, but with some improvements to stiffness due to frame and hinge enhancements.

However, I don't see cause for Tern to price their bikes so much higher than what the the Dahons models cost last year. Tern bikes are just a slight evolutional improvement over Dahons. Which is what companies do to get you to buy their newer products. In some ways the Terns are worse, as they are slightly heavier than older Dahons, and have a larger fold. Which to me is the wrong way to go on a folding bike. They should be improving stiffness and ride with technology/design improvement while at the very least keeping the better older fold dimensions and weights.

Dahon and Tern raising prices is just because they can due to (temporary) large demand. But I think their demand is going to take a large hit, because value conscient customers like me wont pay these crazy (almost custom hand built) prices for a mass produced in Asia 'so so' folding bike. Its as if Honda tried justifying to raise prices to hand built Ferrari levels. Good luck with that marketing. Just cant buy it.

Dahon is really off their rocker with prices charged for their new small folders. First of all, sorry the bikes are ugly as hell. The Jifo would only be good looking to people who like transformer cartoons. The Curl is just plain fugly. Both are on the heavy side for small expensive bikes. I would take a great looking lightwieght hand built Bromton over those two any day, especially now that the price is so close.

I bet we see Dahon and Tern losing sales, then lowering prices to get sales back on track. They should stick to what they do best, mass produce decent folders at reasonable prices. They just pissed off their core customers with these prices. I like my Mu, but it will likely be my last Dahon bike if they dont lower prices back to reasonable levels.

mulleady

The same goes for a number of other new kids on the block.

I do know that Josh Hon was behind some of the more upmarket Dahons so it is best to reserve judgement on the Tern range. Thor openly has a vested interest in these bikes but I've never seen him make false claims or slag off the competition. He says some of these Terns are pretty good so I would be inclined to accept that from someone in the trade. What remains to be seen is whether the market will support a high rather than medium price position. I think a lot of us predict there will have to be some revision on this after the initial launch.

@frank13 I'm not so sure Tern is interested in competing directly with more compact folder manufacturers such as Brompton or similar models.