Ron Damon

Right. You as the seller would say that. After all, you stand to make a profit from this statement. We, not you, will be the judge of that.

Here in Asia where you source your bikes no Gust imitation bike frame still matches the build quality of the genuine FnHon Gust. That's one reason why genuine FnHon Gust framesets remain quite popular and still sell well despite the competition of lower price, lower quality bikes like Element Troy and other Gust imitation bikes.
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At the price point of these complete imitation bikes and of the Origami, it's only natural and expected for corners to be cut. No biggie, I get that. Frame set build quality (welds, paint and detailing and hinge quality|durability) is one of them. This is the main reason that I bought a genuine FnHon Gust frameset (two, actually) to build me a steel 305er rather than buying one of the imitation complete bikes as a starting canvass.

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Ron Damon

The Element Troy comes in two specs and price points. The lowest spec, lowest price model is hi-ten while the top spec, the X10 shown earlier, is chrome-molybdenum steel.

tds101 

Is it less expensive if purchased in North America? The Lotus is priced well, considering the cost to import these other bikes into my location. As nice as it is, it's priced out of my range when S&H comes in.




​​​​​​Frame Chromoly
Color Yellow-Red
Fork Chromoly
Shifter Sensah.ion 1x10
Speed Front Derailleur N/A
Rear Dereailler Sensah.ion 10 Speed
Crankset Prowheel Solid 170mm 56T
Bottom Bracket Hollowtech
Cassette Sunshine 11-25T
Chain SUMC 10 Speed
Pedal PVC-Folding
Front/Rear Brake Hydraulic Disc Brake Tektro Rotor 160mm
Handle Bar Alloy
Handle Post Alloy
Saddle Element
Rims Alloy Double Wall T
yre 16 x 1 3/8
Weight 11.8

Ron Damon

I don't disagree with you. I reckon transportation costs must add quite a bit to the final cost.

tds101 

I know you weren't disagreeing. I'm just sad at how hard it is to get nice, quality folders here in the USA. I wish trade was a bit better between North America (mainly the USA) and the rest of the world.

Ron Damon

Probably an issue of demand. U.S. Americans, for a range of reasons, haven't really taken to folders and small bikes.

CEBEP

Is there a website for Fhnon Gust framesets? Google didn’t give any obvious results. Saw some for sale on Aliexpress but not sire if these are genuine or not. Not going to buy one right away, just curious.

CEBEP

As for where frames are build etc, I didn’t really get it. As far as I know, only a section of the fuselage of a Boeing Dreamliner is actually built in US, the rest comes from other parts of the world. Does it make it a bad aircraft?

There were reasons why I bought Brompton and none of them were because they are made in UK. For me, made in Germany still means something, made in UK/US does not. DJI drones are all made in China and they are the world leaders in their industry.

What I care about is the company who makes the product. Their approach to the quality, customer support and lot’s of other factors which are important for me to choose the product of one company or the other. Never the country the product or it’s components are made in.

Ron Damon

From memory there used to be one, but I think it went down. I stick to what's sold locally which is essentially the following list:

• Blast: Alu-alloy, 406|451
• Storm: Chromoly, 406|451
• Gust 20": Chromoly, 406|451
• Tornado: Alu-alloy, 406|451
• Monsoon: Alu-alloy, 406|451 (sometimes built here with 355 wheels and fat tires
• Gust 16": Chromoly, 305|349
• Zephyr: Alu-alloy, 305|349
• Tornado Mini: Alu-alloy, 254|305 wheels, 95mm rear OLD
• Freedom: Alu-alloy, 254|305 wheels, 95mm rear OLD

There are also a handful of different Litepro framesets. In most all cases they cost no more than $300 and they throw in the handle post.

Maybe I'll do a thread on these frames alone with images.

Ron Damon

I've found that a lot of the anti-Asia product rhetoric is dripped in ignorance about how far Asian countries have come along, a bit of thinly veiled racism and a self serving exaggeration of the technology needed to manufacture bicycles. Fear and insecurity.

For example, today the most advanced microchips are manufactured not in Germany, the UK, the U.S. or Japan. They are manufactured in Taiwan. Taiwan has skyscrapers, bullet trains, etc. But apparently the Taiwanese still don't have the chops to build quality on par with the White man. 🙄

CEBEP

I have no doubt about technology development in China. I visited China a lot, probably most of the big cities, also North. When there were talks about electric buses in EU and US, in Beijing they were a daily routine.

The biggest problem of the West is capitalism, culture of consumption and liberalism. You can’t have cheap products there, even if it’s free to produce. My quick observation:

1. Island country surround by sear have record high fish prices (UK)
2. Country having two direct gas pipelines save on natural gas (Germany)
3. Country having highest oil production in the world suffers form high gas prices (US)
4. Country having highest rate of nuclear energy generation have record high electricity prices (France)
5. Country under tens of thousands of West sanctions have surplus budget (Russia)

and it’s from the top of my head.

Ron Damon

In the bike industry, a lot of it has to do with a captive, cult-like audience. Why reduce the cost of manufacture while maintaining quality by manufacturing abroad when you've got a captive audience who see buying your product as the privilege of an elite group whose identity, satisfaction and loyalty depend on the product remaining expensive and out of the reach of their social inferiors? Companies ain't dumb. They exploit that, naturally. I mean, in some instances you may only join the cult when you are invited to purchase. Jim Jones had nothing on these folks! An acquaintance in the arts world once told me, 'if a painting doesn't sell, raise the price.' 😉

Jipe

The problem with many Chinese manufactured products is not that they are manufactured in China but the way they are designed and manufactured.

To save cost, many companies do not implement valid quality control. Lack of quality control from design till manufacturing.

As said, its not a problem of competences but of cost.

Quality control take time: when designing a product, it must be tested and validated with often several iterations to come to a working and reliable product. Manufacturing requires also quality checks at all stages of manufacturing with rejection of de bad items.

All this increase the cost.

So, to save costs, several companies (but not all), do not design products, they just copy products designed by others (Litepro is a typical example of such a company), this saves all development costs that must be amortized in the price of the product. But it leads to problems especially when they also save costs by changing the material used to build the product (type of aluminum or steel alloy for instance).

Then, no quality check during and at the end of manufacturing and reduction/no check of manufacturing tolerances.

I saw several Ti seatpost for the Brompton with the same brand name J&L, some could easily be installed, others not. Some where too easy to introduce in the frame and couldn't be well tightened (seatpost was going down while riding). I measured their diameter and there was small differences that explained the problems.

Another problem is how the product are commercialized.

Its an evidence that offering a wide resellers network with after sales customer support cost money. Selling online without any local resellers save a lot of money.

FNHON has been mentioned, OK they seem to develop themselves their frames and manufacturing seems excellent but no resellers network, no after sale support and no bike manufacturing, its just a frame manufacturer what makes things much easier, no parts sourcing problems, no parts after sale support. That's much easier than what for instance Origami is doing who has to source not only the frame but all parts and then support the customers if any parts fails (since they sell the whole bike, they must also assume the warranty on the whole bike including all components what requires effort and costs money).

CEBEP

A producer/company matters, not the production country. Production and quality control can be discussed forever.

It’s not the goal to produce a product with perfect quality that doesn’t brake. If you do this, you will deprive your company from earning on after sales service/spare parts sales and users will not buy a new model. And secondly, production cost of such product will be so high, that you will never be able to sell it.

Unless it’s military/space/civil aviation and alike, quality control is not meant to be 100%. Production is supposed to produce a product with an acceptable % of defects finding the balance between production cost and rate of failure/defects.

We, the users, don’t have access to internal information of producers about how they design, source raw materials, produce and manage quality control. Beside advertising, the only thing we can rely on before committing to purchase is reviews and references from other users.

Hence for me, a country where product is made doesn’t mean anything, company producing the product does.

CEBEP

I think it will be a good idea.

Jipe

[QUOTE=Ron Damon;22606141For example, today the most advanced microchips are manufactured not in Germany, the UK, the U.S. or Japan. They are manufactured in Taiwan. Taiwan has skyscrapers, bullet trains, etc. But apparently the Taiwanese still don't have the chops to build quality on par with the White man. 🙄[/QUOTE]

The problem with products bought from shops in Asia vs. buying from shops in EU is not competence its legal: when you buy from a shop in the EU, the seller must give a two year warranty and if its an online shop, then the customer has the right to ship back the product and get refund.

This prevent EU shop to sell products that do not work or aren't reliable because if they do, they will have to first refund if the product doesn't work out of the box or make it work if it fails during the two year warranty. So, its not profitable for them to sell crap, not reliable products, those who do so go bankrupt.

FYI, together with its first CEO, TSMC was founded by white men from Philips.

CEBEP

Found the website, which was printed on a grame you’ve posted before.

Ron Damon

Yes... You'll note, however, that it's an old site because it doesn't have the disc brake, front-block models which are more common nowadays. It doesn't have the Gust 16" which came out in 2017-2018, lists the Breeze, the predecessor to the Tornado Mini, and omits the Freedom.

tds101 

It won't load for me,...the link is DOA!

Ron Damon

Worked fine for me just a few seconds ago ...

tds101 

Still DOA, and my chromebook won't allow me to screenshot it to show you.

CEBEP

Website seems to be floating online/offline. Lost in space and time.

Ron Damon

vpn

jfouellette

Just to let you know I have a Mini velo for sale in the marketplace section of this forum. Thanks