Reddleman

For those who’ve not seen it, this announcement just dropped. Wonder what they’ve got planned for next week?

https://www.ternbicycles.com/en/join...-big-adventure

Maybe the gravel bug/hype has caught them too?

Ron Damon

There's nothing there at the link you provided, bro.

Are you now shilling Tern products or running a Tern authorized dealership? Be careful or JoeRemiBleu (and his cheerleader Pinigis, ironic ain't it?) will indict you for peddling your wares here. 😭😂

Reddleman

Nothing there of any substance, just thought it could provide oh, hours of meaningless speculation over what it exactly means…

Duragrouch

My wild-@ss guess is, something like the origami bull, semi-fat tires and discs, and no, I'm not a shill for that guy. I just said in another thread, Tern used to run similar products as Dahon, but in recent years they have swung for the fences with bikes like the GSD ($6k to $10K, depending on gearing, I see big profits in those numbers, however, "The business sin of premium pricing", that leaves tons of room for someone to undercut them on price). Would I buy a lesser known brand for 30 or 50% less, no. But I saw on the road an electric that compared well with a GSD, and it was $1500-2000 USD (I can't recall exactly), heck yeah I would go for that, if good reviews, and I wanted an electric. But I'm set for a good number of years with my humble dahon speed with gearing mods and good racks.

By the way, I hate teaser ads, just show the darn product already. I hate marketing.

Ron Damon

I am not holding my breath for Tern to offer anything affordable or that I would actually buy.

Duragrouch

Yeah Tern has gone WAY upmarket on a lot of things. Big profits now, but we'll see how that goes. Dahon kept competitors at bay for decades by offering reasonable quality and moderate price, but now their prices have shot up, which I would attribute to inflation on parts and raw materials, but in the past month I've seen threads on here highlight fantastic looking bikes at 1/2 to 1/3 the cost, made in the same part of the world. If I didn't already have a bike, I'd be jumping on one of those deals.

My LBS that carried Dahon, quit with them a few years back, and that was pre-pandemic before prices shot up. My guess is, not a good working relationship with Dahon, or perhaps the distributer. Better supplies of Bromptons have worked for them, this city has money and those sell. But now REI carries them, and REI has better service at the same price.

Ron Damon

I suspect the likes of Tern and Dahon have nowhere else to go but upmarket lest they be devoured by the much less expensive gear coming out China in the last decade. A big reason is the easy availability of quality, affordable framesets and parts coming form the likes of FnHon and Litepro, among several others.

I've said this before and I'll say it again at the risk of perturbing the Dahon devotees here. Buying a Dahon today, unless it is the more unique models like the Curl, Vybe, etc., doesn't make sense because for less money you can buy essentially the same bike from other brands or...or... here's the kick in the chin...you can build or have built a better specced bike based on an FnHon or Litepro frame for the same and perhaps even less money. That applies too to the crowd favorite the Dahon K3/K3+.

Duragrouch

Oh I agree. The question is, Dahon is manufacturing in China (yes? not just taiwan and macau?). If true, aren't Dahon's and competitor's manufacturing costs the same? Or do the copies have a huge advantage in no development costs, just "reverse engineering" Dahon models?

Going up-market can work, if you have premium features that others cannot implement, or a very high brand value, like Hermes, Ferrari, etc. I don't see Dahon having that. Tern has carved out a premium perception with the GSD, but it's based on superiority of features, I think few are going to pay USD$10,000 for just Tern's brand name, it's the bike, which is a great one. But when copies come on the market for 1/3 the price or less, will Tern keep selling GSDs? A friend of a friend, just bought a full suspension e-bike with outrageous specs on both the motor and battery, 2-3X the power on both of typical on the market, $2000, roaring deal. (I wish I could remember the brand.) If that same brand produces a cargo bike, it won't be that much more.

Ferrari has a premium product. Ford recently produced the GT (2015 I think), absolute world beater, limited production, $400,000. In 2020 GM produced the C8 Corvette, almost as fast as the GT, $60,000. Could not keep them in stock, dealer markups were 100%, still sold. Then a folding hardtop convertible, $6k more, sellout. Now the Z06, 35% more power, twice the price, still selling out. All incredible bargains in the supercar market.

Dahon needs to have great designs, at a *slight* premium, for a known brand, coming fully assembled and not parts, and, *they need to provide excellent customer service, WHICH. THEY. DON'T.* I had a cracked frame, ridden totally on smooth roads, and they blew me off, said the seatpost was too high (it wasn't, I'm short for an american), and I was too heavy (not, I was 50 lbs less than their rated max. The FRAME. On the interwebby, word travels at the speed of electrons. That'll kill Dahon as much as anything else.

Jipe

Tern has a moved from the folding bike market to the electric cargo bike market and earns now much more money with these electric cargo bikes than with folding bikes.

The GSD is a top seller for Tern, the smaller HSD had a major upgrade for this year, its probably the announcement of the next GSD with a Bosch Smart System drive unit (Tern couldn't upgrade to Smart System end of last year because the Dual Battery wasn't available yet for the Smart System). The move to the Smart System doesn't really bring something for the GSD (excepted maybe the anti theft system with tracking and an even bigger battery capacity) but its mandatory since the previous System 2 will disappear for new bikes.
There will probably be other upgrades (maybe an increase of the max gross weight like happened for the new HSD, a Class 3 GSD like it exists for the HSD ?)

Now about the comparison of the GSD with competitors, yes its expensive but there are no other long tail cargo that combine all features of the GSD:
- first riding: that bike ride great, its not only stable and maneuverable, but its also incredibly fun to ride.
- there are accessories for all use: carrying children's, a second adult (its rear rack accepts up to 120kg), pets, all kind of baggage, bulky objects (there is a range of accessories for professional use of the GSD)...
- very compact storage only 176cm long, 83cm high, horizontal or vertical storage, it enter in most private elevators.
- very strong cargo drive unit with a long range due to the 1000Wh battery capacity.

Ron Damon

Honda 125cc, fuel-injected, disc brake front and rear, rides two out of the box, $1,300 new, 55km/liter. That's 130mpg for U.S. Americans. Light and nimble with a relatively short wheelbase, it's a hoot to ride. Expected lifetime: well, it's essentially a Cub so it's gonna outlive me so long as I change the oil.

Fentuz

I get what you are saying; frame like Fhon etc, 16" or 20" wheelset can be found cheaply but, this is something that works for enthusiasts, people who read these fora and understand what is needed to build a folding bike.
Dahon may still have a place with generic bike shop who sell bike to people new to folding bike. I think one of the big issue of Dahon is that the founder is getting old and it seems there is nobody to carry on and the range is pretty poor and not well specced.
Meanwhile, Tern is consolidating and Brompton is becoming less "boutique".


This was the same issue with Tern. I recall that that when Dahon and Tern were "battling" in the late 2000 early 2010, Tern were terrible for frame cracking and not honouring warranty T&C. Both company frameset came from the same company but I remember talk about poor QC. At the time, Dahon was leading the charge with interesting thing like jetstream, MuSL, speed TT etc. at the time, I was in the market for a 3rd folder and I went for a dahon because of the poor reputation of tern at the time. Tern fixed the quality issues and carried on with interesting things like the X18, X10, X11. their minivelo never worked.

Dahon could try to re-invent itself with minivelos like the dash but the market is small or the clint but this one is too expensive.
May be they should team up with a kids bike company so that they get better buying power on components and then can sell a folding bike for the same price range as a kid bike $300-400.
The dahon dash and the frog 52/55/53 are pretty much the same in base models (20" wheelset with quando hub, shimano altus groupset, 27.2 seatpost, tektro brakes.), the only difference is the frameset. From a logistic point of view, it is no different than having different bike size for a given model.

Duragrouch

I saw a used Tern for sale at a bike shop years ago, looked it up, I can't recall if under recall or just info online about them cracking; I went back to the bike shop and examined it, was obvious why, IMO not a quality issue, but that it lacked the additional gusset(?) (not between tubes, but an additional layer of aluminum with long welds inline with the tube, over the bottom of the main tube, just forward of the hinge) that was present on the similar Dahon frames like the Mariner.

My Dahon frame crack was also due to design, not quality; They put the seat tube slot for the post clamp, on the forward side of the tube, loaded in tension when under seat load, not the back, loaded in compression, like nearly all other bikes. Fatigue failures happen in tension. And, this is exacerbated by the early plastic "shim" (bushing) there, which compressed enough to overstress the area. The revised aluminum bushing seemed to solve this, doesn't compress like the plastic, and reinforces the tube in bending. (I wish I had access to a lathe, I would make a high-strength stainless steel bushing, 3X stiffer than aluminum, and stronger.) Later Dahon Speeds have the seat tube slot in the rear, just like their aluminum frames. I wrote a detailed engineering analysis of the failure, sent to Dahon, requesting they replace the frame, and suggesting they send aluminum bushings to customers to replace the plastic ones, both cheaper for them in the long run, IMO. They blew me off. Fine, be that way. Morons. I filed my report with the CPSC; Nothing happened IMO because CPSC was running scared under Trump, but it's officially on file with them, should a failure cause someone to get injured. For their cost on a frame, and some bushings, but I would have been happy with just the frame replaced, if they wanted to not send out bushings to everyone, just replace frames as needed. My guess is a new frame was well under $200 cost to them. Like I said, morons.

Dahon had something like two or three times the number of models, ten years ago. Now a lot less. The Curl D9 looks like it might be something. Depends on the price.

Bike Friday made an interesting bike some years ago, looks like their New World Tourist but no folding rear triangle, though it comes apart in the main tube, but that is just for adjusting effective top tube length via telescoping tube. OSATA, One Size Adjusts To All, it was aimed at bicycle schools.

Brompton is going both down and up scale; A-line 3 speed is about $1150 I think, and in the other direction, their full titanium external gear model is I think about $5000-6000. They also sell boutique limited designer series models.

Jipe

Let see what Tern will announce next week.

But its clear that the folding bike market didn't grow like other bike market segments, the folding bike growth that several companies were expecting in 2015 didn't happened, the segment that had a huge growth was the ebike market, not folding bikes market.

So I don't expect that the big announcement will be any folding bike but an ebike, most probably the next GSD cargo ebike and maybe a folding ebike (an upgraded Vektron or successor of the Vektron which is actually a small folding cargo bike, Tern is working with Bosch and had several folding ebikes with Bosch mid drive motor and Bosch has now a new lightweight mid drive engine, the Performance SX that would be ideal for a folding ebike, combined with the 400Wh new battery, the total weight of the eassist is about 4kg, same as the eassist of the Brompton Electric with more eassist power and much more battery capacity).

seat_boy

If Tern is making an off road bike, let's hope they've reinforced their frame joints and have some better QC processes!

tcs

His serialized autobiography has been interesting so far.

Let's see if this works (I'm getting an advertisement before the video starts, so don't get your knickers in a twist):

https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTg5M....0&isextonly=1

tds101 

It's an "off road e-cargo bike"... YUK!

Jipe

Yes, a huge long tail cargo with big wheels: https://www.ternbicycles.com/en/bike...ST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Tern is moving out its usual markets, it will be difficult to compete against well established competitors like Riese & Müller that use same Bosch components.

The lack of suspension (no rear suspension but even no suspension fork) is a real weak point for such an off road bike. Wide tires cannot replace a real suspension.

CrimsonEclipse

using a 27" fat tire
ugh!

(26x4 or 5 or go home)

tds101 

Definite PASS for me...

Duragrouch

Front suspension would be easy, just different fork.

Rear suspension on a long-tail, it can be done, but it's more difficult with the longer moment arm, both vertical loads, and also lateral loads transmitted through only that pivot point, so greater moment with the longer swing arm.

From the truncated picture and only a glimpse in the video, I'm not liking the frame design aft of the rear axle; under vertical load it's gonna have a stress concentration where that short horizontal meets the seatstays just forward of the rear axle.

Market: An off-road e-bike could be very useful in the third world, with solar or wind generator charging. Tern has done well with the e-bikes, especially the GSD to the affluent in the USA. This model has larger wheels and tires, perhaps needed with heavy loads uphill on dirt. Otherwise I don't see the advantage over the GSD. Where Tern could have an advantage over R&M is in pricing, if they desired to undercut them, but the GSDs haven't.

Jipe

I do not see for what kind of real off road this bike will be better than the GSD:
- for muddy trails, the mudguards are much too close to the tires and will quickly be full of mud, blocking the wheels.
- for rocky trails with stones and potholes, the lack of at least a front suspension is a major issue.

For easy trails, the GSD with its wide tires (62mm rear, 55mm front) and its suspension fork does a very good job.

For the price, I read that it could cost 7K USD, more than a Riese & Müller Multicharger!

Duragrouch

Yeah my thoughts were the same relative to the GSD. Smaller diameter tires have a bit worse "cone index" for the same width, sinking more in soft soil, but wider tires help mitigate that. For normal packed soil on trails, a GSD would do fine I think. Much greater difference is that the front wheel is unpowered. Some company decades ago designed an (engine) motorcycle dirt bike with 2WD for the military, complicated to send the power to the front hub, but I heard it was unstoppable. Now, with an e-bike, it's easy, you just have a front hub motor, with rear being the same or a mid-drive. And increasing number of larger "e-motorcycles" being available.

tcs

Rokon.

Duragrouch

Thanks, I think that may ring a bell, not certain. I'd only heard of it briefly back in the day, never researched, looking on wiki now, it's much different than I expected, I thought would look like dirt bike, it looks more like oversize mini-bike, with hugely wide tires.

Now, with electric, piece of cake to do that. If fact, I've wondered about front-motor e-bikes like a Brompton, how much advantage that would be, if climbing on soft soil, to power the front while pedaling the rear. Granted, a bike with just the rider and no front cargo, the front will probably be a good deal unloaded and less traction, if going up a steep hill. But a touring-loaded bike, that could help.

tds101 

Damn!!! That Rokon is a BEAST!!!