folder fanatic

I got this email in my inbox today. I will pass it along to possible interested parties.

Dreaded Deadline - September 14th!

Dahon has been holding their ground on prices for the last few years despite industry wide increases in the cost of components and production. That's about to change. We've just received word that on September 14th Dahon the new prices will go into effect. That means our large stock of Dahon bikes are currently available at the lower price.

Get your Dahon while the getting's good!
Although Dahon has not announced firm numbers for the price increases we expect most bikes will go up. We expect to receive more precise information on the price increase early next week.

I am not really all that surprised at this news. My 2 purchased new & 3 years apart Dahons showed an increase of about 50 dollars a year. Nothing is safe from price increases I guess.

Dynocoaster 

And it seems they are going up by quite a bit. Mu Uno from $599 to $899!

chagzuki

Eh? What the hell?

vmaniqui

you can't be serious. that's a big jump in price.

Dynocoaster 

News from Thor in September https://www.thorusa.com/dahon/current/news.htm

CSG

Frankly, I hope it puts them out of business. It's insane. The whole family seems to have gone off the deep end. Sorry to Thor and all the fans of Dahon but they've lost any chance of me ever being a customer.

chagzuki

That must be a mistake, it's a 50% price rise. Thor states 20-25% which would put the Uno at $700-$750. Why would the Uno be singled out for a larger price hike than the other bikes?

Dahons are already too pricey, there's no way I'd buy one new other than via the cycle-to-work scheme which must be artificially distorting the bike market in the UK.

DVC45

That's okay, ebay and craigslist is still around.

CSG

That's the thing, most bikes don't have great resale. It will simply drive the used market more as well as send people to the other folding bike companies. For me, it will help justify finally getting a Brompton!

gringo_gus

Here's a question. Is there any Dahon bike which beats whats available from the competition on other than price ?

Recognizing that price comparisons vary from country to country. However, for example:

A curve is better vfm than a brompton, but not if the price difference between the two narrows (in the UK)

A speed TR (is it still available?) is better vfm than an equivalently specced BF NWT (racks and gearing and all); but again, not if differential narrows.

Is there any Dahon folks would buy because it is the best of its category ? Smoothhound ? Dunno

folder fanatic

Due to the present bike boom going on right now, the increase costs of raw materials, massive import fees, Dahon's probable woes of many recent employee & corporate officer defections plus growing legal fees, and lack of new folding bike consumer's basic bike knowledge or pricing, I am not surprised at all. And this goes for the whole global market, not just any one country.

As far as the used market goes, I don't think there is enough bikes to meet demand-even before this price increase.

Dahon always prided itself on it's affordable-i.e. relatively inexpensive/cheap-prices-to the average joes of the world. I don't think that moving on to other folding bike companies happened all at once. People change their bikes when they gain knowledge or their needs change. And that usually causes them to move up, not get another same old bike.

Diode100

I would imagine that Dahon makes its money worldwide from its bread and butter bikes, the high end stuff (relatively speaking), the bikes that for the most part get discussed on here, I can't imagine they make much profit on, or even sell that many of. So maybe they think they can jack the prices up and create themselves a niche position in the market place, a la Toyota & Lexus, albeit without the step increase in technology, or is that where Tern was supposed to come in ?

kamtsa

It is surprising that the alleged competition between Dahon China and Dahon Taiwan did not result in lower prices but after all these are their businesses and thus they should know better what price points are the best for their bottom lines.

Hopefully it will help smaller companies to compete. I already noticed a recent increase in Brompton presence in stores around here.

Diode100

Dahon's have all but disappeared from the floors of london bike shops in recent months, still a lot of online marketing going on, although the model range does seem to be a bit limited.

pacificcyclist

About 6-10 years ago, you can find some affordable triathlon bikes. Nowadays, there are virtually few to no triathlon bikes that doesn't start at a $1600 to whatever price tag. Prices go up because tri-bikes manufacturers do not see a value in trying to sell cheap bikes. The value is in the innovation and frame technology and most notable veterans like Cervelo, Quintana Roo (QR), Felt, Kuota and Guru Bikes to name a few are not selling cheap bikes. You think $50 price increase is new -- price increases are the norm to high valued bikes. We are used to low end bikes that you can buy from Nashbar, Bikesdirect.com, Performance to name a few and you think prices are stabilizing or going down. That's really further from the truth.

Number 1 problem is the economy. We are still in the midst of a recession, which means that most people are in savings mode. They DO NOT have extra discretionary income to spend in buying a second, third or perhaps their 10th bike year over year. The fun money times for some people had ended! This means that going forward, there will always be lesser people buying bikes which means less supply need to be off-set by higher prices. That's how you are going to justify wages and operating costs to keep your staff and everything running. Therefore, in order for people to justify those higher prices, the newer bikes must have innovative technologies that make people want to upgrade. Otherwise with money tight, they will simply keep what they have and upgrade theirs piece meal as there is no real reason to be spending more money buying the same bike with a different color, etc..

There's also some thought about this current bike boom being people who are getting into cycling to save money, do local trips until good times come back again and they will go back to their cars. I am not so sure about this. We are so used to having short recessions. The last one before 2008 only registered as a blip. The current one is going to be much longer.

pacificcyclist

About 6-10 years ago, you can find some affordable triathlon bikes. Nowadays, there are virtually few to no triathlon bikes that doesn't start at a $1600 to whatever price tag. Prices go up because tri-bikes manufacturers do not see a value in trying to sell cheap bikes. The value is in the innovation and frame technology and most notable veterans like Cervelo, Quintana Roo (QR), Felt, Kuota and Guru Bikes to name a few are not selling cheap bikes. You think $50 price increase is new -- price increases are the norm to high valued bikes. We are used to low end bikes that you can buy from Nashbar, Bikesdirect.com, Performance to name a few and you think prices are stabilizing or going down. That's really further from the truth.

Number 1 problem is the economy. We are still in the midst of a recession, which means that most people are in savings mode. They DO NOT have extra discretionary income to spend in buying a second, third or perhaps their 10th bike year over year. The fun money times for some people had ended! This means that going forward, there will always be lesser people buying bikes which means less supply need to be off-set by higher prices. That's how you are going to justify wages and operating costs to keep your staff and everything running. Therefore, in order for people to justify those higher prices, the newer bikes must have innovative technologies that make people want to upgrade. Otherwise with money tight, they will simply keep what they have and upgrade theirs piece meal as there is no real reason to be spending more money buying the same bike with a different color, etc..

There's also some thought about this current bike boom being people who are getting into cycling to save money, do local trips until good times come back again and they will go back to their cars. I am not so sure about this. We are so used to having short recessions. The last one before 2008 only registered as a blip. The current one is going to be much longer.

folder fanatic

Actually about 6-10 years ago, your could have found far more bikes to choose from, and affordable to the average budget too. I do agree with you about technological advances padding on increased costs. But only up to a point. After that, you are still paying for only an ego enhancement machine.

The economy has been rollar coasting up and down for the last 40 or so years. Recessions are for the folks that were unfortuanally got caught up in the latest layoffs, a bad boss, or other severe hard knocks. They might put off a very big major purchase (car, house), but a bike is still attainable even for the newly unemployed or underemployed-especially if the purchase is chosen wisely with no fancy frills or features, just a basic bike. If financial problems persist beyond a certain period of time (usually about 6 months for most), then the person drops down into the desitute crowd. And that is another story entirely.

I live in a run down, high crime large metropolitan area. It now has a mix of anything from recent immigrants to young brainless hipsters. And what do you see every time you step out of your hovel? Bikes everywhere. Cheap department store specials, Nice late models bike shop tuned, brand new fixies, and everything in-between. If the recession or whatever it is continues (which it probably will), you will see the family car being babied to last far longer than what was populary done just a few years ago-chuck it after 3 or so years and get a new one. And bicycles again taking up the slack.

Jyyanks

Sorry to be dense but will the price of the "old" models (2010, 2011) also go up or is this just for the new models?

jobtraklite

pacificcyclist seems to be saying that when the recession caused demand to go down, the price went up. Bicycle economics might very well be different; but this certainly isn't classical economic theory.

mulleady

Dahons had already rocketed in price in the UK. Not all Dahons are premium models so there is danger of killing some of their lines.

mulleady

If I remember rightly the entry level Curve was still 60% the price of a basic 3 speed Brompton. I would have to disagree it was a better 'bang per buck'.

The Dahon Curve SL is a good bike but does not meet the overall quality and design of the Brompton and it's just as expensive.

https://www.google.co.uk/products/cat...ed=0CH0Q8wIwBw

folder fanatic

I assure you, all prices are bounding upwards, and not just for bicycles for both the used and new markets. The sewing machine purchase I was planning to do later this year had to be quickly moved up to now as the same exact model I was looking at actually doubled in price (from $115.00 to $240.00 US dollars) this month at various different competitor stores. I did not factor in the additional costs of taxes & shipping-which would surely add even more expense to the total cost. I did manage to get the lower cost taxed at that price, along with free shipping, but it was close.

The folding tricycle purchase will just have to wait when things settle down some. I will have to absorb the cost when the time comes to purchase it, but at least the long line up of my various sewing projects won't suffer. Now it comes to the question of buying fabric. Which is also shooting upwards in price......but that is another story for another day.

Dahon.Steve

It's a good theory but we are also seeing rapid increase in food prices and the demand did not decrease. I believe we are seeing the effects of inflation on all imported products. The experts have been saying all this printing of money would do this and it's finally here. Also, the dollar continues to fall making imported products more expensive each year.

chagzuki

Trying to make sense of base metal prices, looking at some charts aluminium peaked between 2006 and 2008, it dropped massively at the start of the credit crunch and has been trending up since, but is still some way from its peak. The yuan has been slowly gaining strength against the dollar for several years. But that doesn't explain the huge price rises of recent years. . . I spose it's limited factory output and strengthening consumer demand which would mean there's scope for more players in the market.

Edit: or it's far eastern wages rising.

folder fanatic

And no alternatives for the average or middle income consumer as we no longer have a real-or at least large enough-manufacturing base to create in-country tangible products on these shores.