Let's See Your Folding Bike

[FrankCrank]

Looks like a fuji-ta frame and forks who are the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world and make folding bikes for brands like Dahon, Tern, Carrera, Muddyfox, Btwin etc. I have an old bicycles4u paris explorer that was also made by them. Sometimes they don't assemble the whole bike but sell frames and forks to assembly plants around the world like max.com in Bulgaria I think that assembles Dahons for the European market. For a long time Dahon didn't have any factories at all but they now have a mainly assembly plant in China although many western brands have pulled out of China in recent months. I'm not sure of the details but I've seen it on news reports about China and I'm guessing the Chinese government is making it more difficult to manufacture in China or its simply because of the huge tariffs many countries now put on Chinese goods including Canada's 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Dahon is a brand like Trek, Specialized etc that rely on factories in Asia to make their products for them. Fuji-ta have factories I think in Cambodia, Vietnam and a few other places as well as mainland China.

Makes sense from what I'm seeing over here in Thailand. In the local Decathon store the folding bikes are around half the price of the UK ones, so I'm assuming they're made very locally, not just China. I may purchase one at some point, they look to be well made and definitely a bargain.

 

[bonzobanana]

Makes sense from what I'm seeing over here in Thailand. In the local Decathon store the folding bikes are around half the price of the UK ones, so I'm assuming they're made very locally, not just China. I may purchase one at some point, they look to be well made and definitely a bargain.

To be honest pretty much all cycling manufacturing is dominated by Asia. You have European and US brands that market themselves as manufacturers but then just go to Asian factories to buy the actual product. Yes they might do the paintwork and choose geometry etc and of course its their recipe of components that are fitted to the bike but pretty much all the engineering is done in Asia. There are a few exceptions but not as many as people assume. Fuji-ta are very decent manufacturers despite their cost, they have robot made high tensile steel frames and they are phosphate dipped for zinc plating before painting. Some of the high tensile steels they use are close to chromoly in strength. They are manufactured in huge numbers very efficiently and sold cheaply but that doesn't make them a bad product. Global warming means we should be looking to buy products that require low resources to make and easily recycled instead people are buying products that are inefficient to manufacture have a short lifespan and often can't be recycled so go straight to landfill.

 

[u_i]

To be honest pretty much all cycling manufacturing is dominated by Asia. You have European and US brands that market themselves as manufacturers but then just go to Asian factories to buy the actual product. Yes they might do the paintwork and choose geometry etc and of course its their recipe of components that are fitted to the bike but pretty much all the engineering is done in Asia. There are a few exceptions but not as many as people assume. Fuji-ta are very decent manufacturers despite their cost, they have robot made high tensile steel frames and they are phosphate dipped for zinc plating before painting. Some of the high tensile steels they use are close to chromoly in strength. They are manufactured in huge numbers very efficiently and sold cheaply but that doesn't make them a bad product. Global warming means we should be looking to buy products that require low resources to make and easily recycled instead people are buying products that are inefficient to manufacture have a short lifespan and often can't be recycled so go straight to landfill.

That's all OK, but you need good ideas and proprietary parts to get a compact folding bike. Those proprietary parts need to be available years later. Fuji-ta manufacturing can give you multiple variants of bikes that are equally distant from where you might want your bike to be, here this year and gone later, disposable in practice, if not by intention.

 

[bonzobanana]

That's all OK, but you need good ideas and proprietary parts to get a compact folding bike. Those proprietary parts need to be available years later. Fuji-ta manufacturing can give you multiple variants of bikes that are equally distant from where you might want your bike to be, here this year and gone later, disposable in practice, if not by intention.

Dahon are notorious for not providing spares for their bikes and they are quite proprietary and many are manufactured by Fuji-ta. However Fuji-ta's own brand ''Battle' and other folding bikes they sell are fairly generic. You can certainly find long saddle posts and folding bike stems both threadless and quill on aliexpress etc and recently I saw a posting where someone had got a folding bike hinge and latch from aliexpress too. I think the main issue is the folding bike frame hinge/latch mechanism everything else is well catered for it seems. Sometimes it is not this mechanism itself that needs replacing but the frame has worn or failed especially on aluminium frames and at that point the frame is toast anyway. I feel its worse for proprietary folding bikes generally as more expensive and sold in lower numbers and more likely to innovate and change design. It's only really the Brompton in folding bikes that provides very good spares availability as far as I can tell with both manufacturer support and third party support too. They tend to evolve their design rather than try new things.

Halfords have been selling the fuji-ta sourced Carrera Transit for years and it just looks the same and I have the same bike under the Muddyfox brand as the 200 model but that has a 7 speed Nexus rather than a 3 speed Nexus. I'm not using that bike at the moment but if I did and the latch mechanism failed I would probably pester Halfords for a replacement.

 

[Gunk]

Here is my latest, I already have a black 2011 M3L, but Mrs Gunk has bought this for me for my 60th in Jan. It's a 2021 S6L but has never been ridden, so was still in the box complete with flat tyres! even the saddle hasn't been attached. Plans are to remove the rack (I've never liked them), fit a Brooks Cambium C19 Saddle and keep it nice, simple and unmodified.

Personally I prefer the silver cycle parts as it looks a little bit more like a traditional Brompton so I'm really pleased with it. I wasn't supposed to take a peek until my Birthday, but with the house to myself this morning I couldn't resist, so I carefully unboxed it placed the saddle on for cheeky photo!

 

[EltonFrog]

Here is my latest, I already have a black 2011 M3L, but Mrs Gunk has bought this for me for my 60th in Jan. It's a 2021 S6L but has never been ridden, so was still in the box complete with flat tyres! even the saddle hasn't been attached. Plans are to remove the rack (I've never liked them), fit a Brooks Cambium C19 Saddle and keep it nice, simple and unmodified.

Personally I prefer the silver cycle parts as it looks a little bit more like a traditional Brompton so I'm really pleased with it. I wasn't supposed to take a peek until my Birthday, but with the house to myself this morning I couldn't resist, so I carefully unboxed it placed the saddle on for cheeky photo!

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Enjoy it in good health.

 

[Gunk]

Enjoy it in good health.

Let me know if you fancy a brand new rear rack?

 

[EltonFrog]

Let me know if you fancy a brand new rear rack?

I was considering getting one a while back. How much do you want for it?

 

[Gunk]

I was considering getting one a while back. How much do you want for it?

send me a PM, I owe you a favour for the Salmon

 

[tinywheels]

Here is my latest, I already have a black 2011 M3L, but Mrs Gunk has bought this for me for my 60th in Jan. It's a 2021 S6L but has never been ridden, so was still in the box complete with flat tyres! even the saddle hasn't been attached. Plans are to remove the rack (I've never liked them), fit a Brooks Cambium C19 Saddle and keep it nice, simple and unmodified.

Personally I prefer the silver cycle parts as it looks a little bit more like a traditional Brompton so I'm really pleased with it. I wasn't supposed to take a peek until my Birthday, but with the house to myself this morning I couldn't resist, so I carefully unboxed it placed the saddle on for cheeky photo!

View attachment 750581

🤣 unmodified eh! I await with interest. Can't remember the last time a bog standard one was spotted round here.

 

[Drago]

Here is my latest, I already have a black 2011 M3L, but Mrs Gunk has bought this for me for my 60th in Jan. It's a 2021 S6L but has never been ridden, so was still in the box complete with flat tyres! even the saddle hasn't been attached. Plans are to remove the rack (I've never liked them), fit a Brooks Cambium C19 Saddle and keep it nice, simple and unmodified.

Personally I prefer the silver cycle parts as it looks a little bit more like a traditional Brompton so I'm really pleased with it. I wasn't supposed to take a peek until my Birthday, but with the house to myself this morning I couldn't resist, so I carefully unboxed it placed the saddle on for cheeky photo!

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Strewth! Gunk's kitchen is so big he needs a bicycle to get round it!

 

[EltonFrog]

Strewth! Gunk's kitchen is so big he needs a bicycle to get round it!

That’s quite funny. It’s not like you to be funny.

 

[a.twiddler]

Here is my latest, I already have a black 2011 M3L, but Mrs Gunk has bought this for me for my 60th in Jan. It's a 2021 S6L but has never been ridden, so was still in the box complete with flat tyres! even the saddle hasn't been attached. Plans are to remove the rack (I've never liked them), fit a Brooks Cambium C19 Saddle and keep it nice, simple and unmodified.

Personally I prefer the silver cycle parts as it looks a little bit more like a traditional Brompton so I'm really pleased with it. I wasn't supposed to take a peek until my Birthday, but with the house to myself this morning I couldn't resist, so I carefully unboxed it placed the saddle on for cheeky photo!

View attachment 750581

That's very nice! But...but... if you're taking the rack off and changing the saddle (even if it wasn't actually fitted), doesn't that count as modified?

 

[tinywheels]

I reckon the grips go in the bin within a week.

 

[Gunk]

I reckon the grips go in the bin within a week.

They’ll stay for the time being, I’ll only do short trips on it