Dahon Boardwalk Review
08-12-18, 05:08 AM
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Dahon Boardwalk Review
Hi all,
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
08-12-18, 05:14 AM
#2
Senior Member
Hi all,
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
08-12-18, 05:40 AM
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08-12-18, 06:52 AM
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Hi all,
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
With no small help from this forum, I just completed a 1600km tour from Bucharest to Corfu on a Dahon Boardwalk. You're welcome to read about it here if you are interested: https://bucharesttocorfu.wordpress.com/
I thought I'd throw my two cents in about the bike itself. Overall, I would have rather had a D8 (which I've owned before) as it seemed sturdier with better components. I was a bit worried about the proprietary derailleur after hearing some comments about it on this board. It started to ghost shift around 300km into the trip and eventually got to the point where the shifting was happening every 60 seconds or so. Fortunately when that happened we were right outside a large town with a Warmshowers host who also owned a bike shop. He was a bit mystified as to the cause, but he tightened this and sprayed that and I had no other issues with the derailleur for the remaining 1300 km. Before the trip I replaced the saddle with a Brooks and popped some GP4 bar ends for additional comfort. I rode with a rear rack and rear panniers and was very satisfied with the bike's performance, particularly uphill as it's relatively light.
So really that's about it. There's just an overall feeling of "cheapness" that's hard to describe, but the point was just to make it through the Balkans. A few flat tires on glass and metal, but never a worry about the stock wheels even when doing some unintended offroading. Those Serbian roads can turn poor in a heartbeat!
Thanks again for the help from everyone who was responding to my questions.
CW
Thanks for a very well written and picture-perfect account of your journey.
08-12-18, 11:13 PM
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Bikes: Trek 730 (quad), 720 & 830, Bike Friday NWT, Brompton M36R & M6R, Dahon HAT060 & HT060, ...
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Wow, this is great! Congratulations on the trip!
From our two Boardwalk-like Dahons, one has maybe twice the mileage of yours and the other less. The one with the longer mileage had by now quite a bit of work done on it. The spokes were breaking and one wheel got rebuilt and the other swapped. Shifter cracked and had to be replaced. The chainring was on the soft side and got deformed in some mishap and had to be changed. A shop discovered some problem with a pin in the main hinge and fixed it. Finally the headset had to replaced, but I suspect an operator error there - a family member used the bike over an extended period and first let the headset go loose and then overtightened it. Still for the price, this has been plenty of a bike. The other Dahon performs fine so far with no serious service involved.
P.S. Come to think of it, there had been also there cheap pedals that fell apart and got replaced with better ones. Oh, well.
From our two Boardwalk-like Dahons, one has maybe twice the mileage of yours and the other less. The one with the longer mileage had by now quite a bit of work done on it. The spokes were breaking and one wheel got rebuilt and the other swapped. Shifter cracked and had to be replaced. The chainring was on the soft side and got deformed in some mishap and had to be changed. A shop discovered some problem with a pin in the main hinge and fixed it. Finally the headset had to replaced, but I suspect an operator error there - a family member used the bike over an extended period and first let the headset go loose and then overtightened it. Still for the price, this has been plenty of a bike. The other Dahon performs fine so far with no serious service involved.
P.S. Come to think of it, there had been also there cheap pedals that fell apart and got replaced with better ones. Oh, well.
Last edited by 2_i; 08-13-18 at 07:15 AM. Reason: P.S.
