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The Decahlon folder folds faster than a Brompton. A friends of mine has both and he's trying to convince me on buying the cheap decathlon bike over a Brompton. The demonstration was convincing.

I'm a big fan of the fact that you can push a Brompton while folded. A feature that other folders miss.

by Liftyee2 hours ago|

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Praised by most customers, probably. As an engineer I appreciate Bike Friday's attention to detail and I own a good few "artisan" devices myself, but the reality is that most people want a mass-produced bike that is "good enough" within their budget.

There's no doubt that your bike is higher quality than the Decathlon one, but the average customer doesn't appreciate how well engineered it is or how many patents (??) are involved.

by SeanLuke1 hours ago|

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Having lived in Italy and used the btwin folder quite a lot, I can assure you there are lots of basic folders in its category and price range which are much better. I'd look into Dahon and Tern for a basic folding bike.

Folding bikes are complex and hard to make safely, and the folding mechanism is costly to engineer right. This means that the manufacturer of a cheap bike is either providing you with a dangerous folding mechanism, or is putting a lot of the cost of the bike into the folding mechanism, so there's not much money left for the rest of the parts. Either way, it means that cheap folding bikes are a bad choice, and the btwin folder is a good example of that.

As to patents: yes, there are patents.

by Ylpertnodi1 hours ago|

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I have several bikes. My decathlon foldy is great.