You like bicycling. You like being out in the open, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the world. Maybe you’re thinking of buying a folding bike. Maybe you like the idea that you could pitch one in the trunk, take it on the bus, ride home from the train. Whatever.
Here’s the problem: You’re more interested in bicycling than in educating yourself about all the different folding bike brands. In other words, you’re not looking forward to the selection process. However, you have to make a choice before you can ride a folding bike home. So how do you choose a brand?
Up until this year, that particular task was pretty easy by eeny-meeny-miny-moe standards. In fact, if you walked into a dark room filled with 100 folding bicycles, chances are pretty good that the first one you touched would be a Dahon. Depending on where you get your information, Dahon owns anywhere from 60 percent to more than two-thirds of the folding bike market by volume.
That may start to change this year, as container ships full of Tern bicycles start unloading around the world. On August 1, Tern updated its website with pictures and specifications of its folding bike lineup, which includes 22 folding bike models in five families: Verge, Link, Joe, Eclipse and Castro.
The power behind the Tern folding bike brand…is familiar
Tern represents some serious competition for Dahon because almost all the people behind Tern are former Dahon employees, including Josh Hon, son of the founder of Dahon and the company’s former vice president of sales and marketing.
The Dahon/Tern split may end up being good news for folding bike buyers who like choice: they’ll have more models of folding bikes to choose from than ever. But if you’re simply looking to choose a brand and get on with your life, things just got a bit more complicated.
Tern is marketing a simplified line of bikes with 20-inch, 24-inch and 26-inch wheels, all aimed at urban folding bike enthusiasts, while Dahon’s line (at this writing, the 2012 Dahon line has not been announced) includes 16-inch-wheeled folders and mini-velos, the latter category being small-wheeled bikes with a more traditional diamond frame.
Dahon’s the established company, so let’s focus on Tern for now. It’s tough to decide upon a Tern bicycle if you don’t have one in front of you, but the information I’ve gleaned from online descriptions and interviews with Josh Hon and Steve Boyd (in charge of North American distribution) is promising.
Four things to like (or understand) about Tern folding bikes
#1. Tern is making the right noises about parts availability. First, there aren’t as many parts to keep track of. Tern folding bicycles will use one of two handle posts and one of two frame joints. (The three bikes in the Joe family use stems similar to standard and adjustable mountain-bike stems.)
Time will tell whether Tern will continue that degree of standardization in coming years, but it’s an excellent start.
Tern has also thought through the logistics of delivering parts. According to Hon, Tern dealers will order the usual parts from local distributors. If, however, a certain folding bike part is unavailable, Tern will airfreight the part within two days from one of three service centers. (Service centers are located in Taiwan, the United States and Germany.)
Tern folding bicycles
#2: Tern sure likes to brand technology. In connection with the frame alone, there’s DoubleTruss technology, which refers to the way the seatstays extend forward of the seat tube to connect to the back of the folding hinge and improve frame stiffness. The OCL Joint is one of the two Tern folding bike frame joints and it features NorGlide Bearings for smooth operation. AutoLock Technology provides extra security when you close the folding lever, and Folding Point Technology allows the lever to fold flat again the joint.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Tern has a special name for everything (so does Dahon). If you’re a fan of Brompton bikes, all this technology naming probably seems like a pretty foreign idea. But it’s just like the world of kitchen appliances. Whirlpool sells Resource Saver refrigerators with MicroEtch spill control shelves and FreshFlow air filters, while SubZero sells…SubZero refrigerators.
#3: A Tern folding bike is not a rebranded Dahon bike. The frame is different and the hinges are different. Even the fold is a little different. Front-end and handlepost geometries allow for the use of N-Fold Technology, which means you turn the front wheel around before the main fold. Tern claims the resulting folded package is 1.5 inches shorter.
#4: That dark room with 100 bicycles in it is likely to get a lot more interesting.
a guest blog by Sam Joslin…
Check out some awesome Tern folding bike videos
