spudston

I have a Dahon Mariner D7 which I like a lot but doesn’t have gears low enough for me. So, after talking to my local bike shop about upgrading the Mariner’s drive train to no avail ( he doesn’t seem to know how) I researched new bikes. I settled on the Dahon VISC D18 TOUR P which has 18 speeds. I had some questions so I called ThorUSA on Friday at 12:30 pm their time but was told Thor had left for the weekend and there was no one who could answer my questions. I then called Dahon and spoke to someone who gave me the information I needed. He said they could ship that day if I ordered within the hour, so I did, adding a white one to the online cart. However, late in the afternoon I got an email asking what color I wanted so they could ship the bike! I responded to the email and called but got no response and apparently they are also closed on the weekend. I was hoping I would receive the bike in time for a trip I am leaving on next Friday but I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

Perhaps this post will help someone who might be thinking of ordering a Dahon online.

linberl

They haven't shipped yet - you can always cancel (or refuse via your credit card) if you can source it elsewhere and get it shipped to you in time for your trip. You also might call Warm Planet in SF - they carry Dahon and might have something in stock you'd like. Hope you can get it arranged in time.

termv

I am sorry about your experience as it pertains to deal with Dahon directly.

However, as it pertains to ThorUSA, whenever I dealt with them/him, I MUST SAY the service was exceptional.

Nothing short of amazement.

I guess Thor was indeed on his way into the weekend, otherwise I am absolutely convinced the deal would have happened right away.

Just my $0.02

towndock

You cite three experiences of failed communication. While your LBS is an unknown to readers, both ThorUSA and Dahon have great customer service reputations.

You may want to consider what all three experiences had in common.

spudston

I have heard good things about him so that was why I called him first. I had asked him my question via email and thought he didn’t respond but his email ended up in my spam folder. I found it too late to do any good.

cudak888 

^
Perhaps this post will help someone who might be thinking of ordering a Dahon online.

-Kurt

Joe Remi

The moral of this story is don't wait until a week before a trip to order a bike for said trip. Also, check your spam folder 👍

tcs

BikeFriday issued a 'handlepost might snap off and you might die' recall on my tikit. I immediately contacted them for a replacement part, which they acknowledged. Five months later I inquired about this and got an email back from BF explaining they were 'just a little family-owned business and did I expect them to go out of business trying to meet my needs?' I brought this up here and was told by BF fanboys that I sounded like a whinner.

So all of your disappointing interaction with Dahon happened on a single Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend? Let's hope no Dahon fanboys read your post!

PS - If your related tale is accurate and complete in all respects, your LBS is inept.

PPS - I finally got that replacement handlepost from BF 253 days after my request.

spudston

I’ll take the Mariner on the trip so not a big deal. My birthday is during the trip and there’s nothing like a new bike to make me feel like a kid again, but I can wait a few days more. I did call Warm Planet and he said he had Terns. He didn’t mention Dahons.

Just to be clear I meant my original post to be informational, not a rant. I do think Dahon should fix its ordering system though. Do their shipping guys have to contact everyone who orders a bike to find out what color they want?

spudston

Yeah, I haven’t posted on here in years because I don’t need to be told every time it’s all my fault. Like I said, I was trying to be informative not critical.

As as far as the LBS goes, he is a super nice guy who means well. He suggested he could replace my derailleur system with an internal gear hub on my Dahon. But he kept saying the ratios would be way too low, despite my directing him to Sheldon Brown’s calculator for these hubs. The calculator showed gear inches right where I would want them. So I gave up in frustration and ordered the Visc 18.

spudston

Interesting. I was on the verge of ordering a New World Tourist from them but I am concerned about leaving such an expensive bike where it could get stolen. When there was a handlepost recall on my Mariner I had no problem having it repaired at my local REI.

wesgreen

I\m surprised to read that. My CS experiences with both of them, especially Dahon, have not been good.

bargainguy

I went back and re-read your original post. It seems you were ordering a new bike out of frustration with the LBS not wanting to regear your last one. When you start from that mindset - I'm gonna get this, and it'll help me over that - you're gearing your expectations way higher than normal, and when the new order didn't proceed exactly as planned, you got frustrated even farther.

While you state you were only trying to be informative, it really seems like you were frustrated to begin with, and then frustrated over an incomplete order, and further frustrated by not having your bike for the upcoming trip.

I get the fact that you're frustrated. I'm just not sure the blame falls with Thor or Dahon. It seems like more frustration with the LBS, and that frustration spilled over into the Dahon transaction.

tomtomtom123

Trying to arrange for shipping before cuttoff time on a friday afternoon will be a bit difficult. Different companies work differently. Perhaps the person who emailed you simply wanted to confirm the color before shipping it out, but perhaps it was the end of the day for them and too late to process. If you want something sooner, it's better to try and place the order earlier or a couple days before because you never know how long it takes to process an order. Courier pickup varies too. For example, one local shipper picks up at 12 noon. A different local shipper doesn't pick up, but drop off cutoff time is at 4pm.

It's also not too difficult to change the gear ratios on your bike. There are lots of blogs and articles on the internet showing how people changed their 7 speed drivetrain on their Dahon bikes. If you do some research beforehand, it would help with your discussion if you go to a different LBS to help you do it. It's also not too difficult to do it by yourself if you're interested in learning more about how the components work.

The Visc d18 will give you a much wider gear range, and probably lower gears than your Mariner D7. But even the Visc has too high of gears for me. When my old Dahon bike had too many problems to continue riding, I wanted to also buy a Visc d18 because of the braze on mount for the FD but I would have still swap the chainrings and cassette for lower gearing, however there were no Visc available for sale. So then I bought a stripped down Vigor P9 and rebuilt it myself, and made my own FD adapter, but it did take me 1 month to complete before I could actually ride it.

linberl

For every negative anecdotal experience, you can find positive ones. BF has been amazing with their customer service for me fwiw, and that includes helping me with a NWT I bought second-hand where they made no $ off me. As to theft of a BF, I had a lot of concerns about that but it's funny that 20" bikes just seem to be overlooked by the bike thieves for the most part; maybe they think it's a kid's bike. Put pinhead locks on the wheels, and a security lock on your seat. Use mini-ulocks that can't be leveraged and you are probably fine unless you lock up in really shady areas or in places that are out of view. It's always good to get a bike insurance rider on your homeowners or renters insurance to be safe; worst case you get a brand new bike. For city use, I have my pakiT which just goes with me wherever I go. It doesn't leave my hands and that's not been a problem - no different than a brompton in that regard.