Folding bikes are passion here at Bike Hugger, Byron and I both have travelled the world with our bikes and have relied on them for transportation and sight-seeing everywhere form Austin to Beijing. That’s why we’re so stoked to be at the brand launching event for Tern, a new company founded by many of the players behind Dahon.
Joshua Hon, the son of Dahon’s founder, has announced a line of bikes for 2012 with 21 models ranging from $400 to $3500 and has focused on the quality of the ride. In their launch statement Joshua makes the killer point that it doesn’t matter how small your bike folds if it rides like a dog because “no one will want to ride it.” I’ve ridden my share of test bikes that are pretty but useless due to harsh or uncomfortable rides.
The new company has about 70 employees and the creative team is cherry picked from Dahon. You might be wondering (as were we) why a company with an established name in folding bikes might pick up and start from scratch. In a bit of surprising candor in the bike world Joshua explains that the factory that makes the Dahon branded bikes in many of the company’s territories has had quality control issues, and so Joshua and his team decided to start from scratch.
Byron, who is on the ground in Taiwan is reporting that the bikes look great. Expect to see a stream of photos over the next week, but check out some of these killer shots. First is a photo Byron grabbed there:
and this shot from Tern showing the disc brakes(!) spec’d on the Tern Eclipse.
We’ll have a ton of coverage on these bikes, but you can also see them at Interbike and Eurobike. And you can check out Tern on all of the usual social media haunts.
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tern-Bicycles/133834186683122 Twitter: http://twitter.com/ternbicycles YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/ternbicycles
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