Now for Something Entirely Different...

WHAT: Dahon Flo Folding Hardtail WHERE: www.dahon.com/flo.htm HOW MUCH: $1,999

Let’s get one thing straight, right off the bat. Yes, this is a Dahon. Yes, it is a folding bike. But NO, it is definitely NOT an inexpensive, heavy, hard to assemble, freaky folding bike.

I normally don’t begin a review with that kind of disclaimer, but I figure some readers are going to see the “Dahon” name and might dismiss the bike out of hand. That would be unfortunate. This is a damned nice bike. I’ll explain.

For starters, the Flo features a full Ritchey WCS tubeset. Next, it incorporates Tom Ritchey’s Break-Away coupling system to join the two frame halves. Finally, Joe Murray (Racing God of Yore, Mountain Bike Hall of Famer, framebuilder and Shimano SKUNK extraordinaire) designed the bike for Dahon. And if all that doesn’t do it for you, the parts pick is impressive to boot (American Classic Disc hubs, SRAM X9 drivetrain, Avid mechanical discs, SDG I-Beam saddle/seatpost, NVO InfiniAdjust stem and Kinetix CarbonLite oversize riser bars.).

As I noted in the last paragraph, the Flo featueres a thin-walled steel frame. The frame comes in two pieces that are joined by a coupler (near the downtube/bottom bracket junction) and by two pinch bolts on the seattube (your seatpost, in essence, becomes a structural member of the frame).

In theory, you can unpack the bike from its 9”X27”X31” suitcase (your garden variety, medium-sized suitcase) and assemble the bike in under 10 minutes. I put the theory to the test and, sure enough, I slapped the bike together in well under 10 minutes. No problem. You do have to take some care to make sure the frame halves mesh perfectly before you tighten the bolts, but that’s about as complex as it gets. The only tools I needed were three allen wrenchs (4, 5 & 6-mm) to tighten the stem and couplers. A torque wrench is probably a good idea as getting the torque just right is (as you can imagine) pretty critical when you’re talking about binding a frame together. As for the derailleur cables; they’re joined by twist-couplers of their own—no drama here at all. The NVO InfiniAdjust stem allows you to pretty much set the stem at any ride height, without using spacers. Very, very cool.

If I were reading this review, I’d be wondering whether or not a bike like this is even safe to ride. After all, that downtube coupler is Olsen Twin-skinny—it isn’t the massive stainless steel S&S couplers that most of us are familiar with. The whole Ritchey coupler system adds only 98 grams to the bike’s total weight. Then again, Tom Ritchey has been riding Break-Away coupler bikes for something like a decade now and the bikes have been ridden and tested on the market for over three years now. At this point, all’s clear. Still, I too initially had my doubts. Like I said, that coupler is really small…

My fears were unfounded. Out on the trail, you immediately forget that this is a folding bike. The ride quality is absolutely unreal. The steel frameset has that lively forgiving feel of the old Bontrager Race Lites (one of my favorite bikes of all time). Personally, I’m a huge fan of that kind of ride quality. Big Clydesale types and folks who prefer their frames prostate-pounding stiff, however, may not share my enthusiasm for this kind of supple hardtail. Those who worship at the altar of All-That-Is-Stiff might call this kind of frame “whippy”. I imagine you know which camp you fall into, so I’ll drop this subject and move on…

Most of my riding of late has been on fairly tight and twisty singletrack. The Flo excelled in such conditions. Steering was predictable (though it could have been improved with a stouter fork than the Manitou Scareb Elite Air) and rock gardens were just a hair less painful than normal given the just-right amount of frame flex. Acceleration is incredible—due in part to the bike’s super svelte 22.4-pound weight and due to the fact that a lot of that weight loss is felt in the very light American Classic UltraLight Disc hub/Alex rim combo.

As for the geometry…the top tube on the medium model is a wee bit shorter than I’m accustomed to (I measured it as 22.5 effective inches), but I simply compensated by utilizing the SDG I-Beam saddle/seatposts very long internal rail. From that point on, the bike wheelied like a champ, but the steering wandered a tad on steep climbs. No big drama, but if you are over 5’9” and you like really long top tubes, you might want to consider selecting the Large-size frame. Dahon, by the way, suggests a maximum rider weight of 230 pounds.

I rode the Flo at China Camp this past weekend. The place was packed because it was the first really dry weekend in some time and because China Camp is basically the sole legal, public singletrack in Marin County. The Flo received a fair share of stares and a few nods of approval. A few riders were surprised that Dahon made a high-end hardtail. I also got a few nods from guys on Sycips who appreciated the fact that I was on a steel bike. Not a single rider, however, seemed to realize that the Flo was a folding bike.

I met my brother for a ride (a fellow bike geek) and pressed him as to whether he noticed anything different about the bike I was riding. He stared at it for awhile and then tentatively suggested, “Uh, it has really big carbon riser bars…” That was it. I suppose that sounds mundane, but if you’d told me last year that Dahon was coming out with a truly sexy steel hardtail—and a folding one, no less—I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

In short, the Flo is a hoot. I’d praise it to heaven—even without the whole folding feature. The fact that you can pack this bike up and take it on a plane without paying outrageous airline fees (up to $80 per direction) is just the very tasty icing on this cake.