A dash of this, and a dash of that....
Dahon's Dash. This is my review, of sorts, of the Dash P18 Disk.
The journey to purchasing this unusual toy was quite a long, arduous and tortuous one. After months of googling, shopping and pondering I had a few options ear-tagged.
The Criterium:
A bike that would:
Behave like a full sized bike
Fit in the back of a car to carry daily
Be upgradeable - no custom bits or too exotic bits...
Not be too expensive
I decided on the Dash P18 Disk after whittling the choices down to:
Moulton TSR 9
Moulton TSR 27 or 30
Airnimal Rhino (Black or White)
Dahon Dash, Dahon Cheetah etc, any one of many incarnations of this frame type.
Final decision was based on:
Available cash (Dash)
Versatility (Moulton and Dash)
Potential for individualisation (Moulton and Dash)
The Moulton was my fave, but lost out on time taken to break apart, and mid range cost. It is still a dream - I love the look, and I love the way it can be accessorised. The Rhino lost out on high cost, and the fact it is mostly a very serious folding MTB - which is great if that is what you need. I still pine over it when I see it, especially the compact drive train with the Rohloff hub, and the unusual, rugged look.
The Dash had... a dash of this, and a dash of that... and that low price. I am still sad it has no suspension, however.
This bike is a real mudblood: Part Muggle, part Wizard :) (aka part road, part MTB).
This photo was taken in a parking lot, within a few hours of purchase. It is stock standard here.
To look at, the Dash has parts from road and from MTB, but instead of just looking like a chunky road bike, the Midtown Mini Frame (mini Velo style, or whatever you like to call it) and 20 inch wheels make this bike a real head turner.
To start, the frame is what is termed a mini, Mini Velo, MidTown Mini, depending on who you are talking to. Dahon apparently calls it the MidTown Mini.
These frames are quite popular in Asia. With 20 inch wheels, the bike can have a wheel base similar to a full sized bike, but can be stored in an area that is a good deal smaller. They just seem to take up less room real-estate.
The unique feature of the Dahon frame that separates it from other Mini type frames, is the folding ability. Similar to the S-S couplings (of yore?), the Dahon "LockJaw" allows the frame to be split in two, with the simple loosening of two 6mm hexagonal bolts. In Dahon's instance, it hinges at this join, meaning the bike will fold, securely, in two. Be warned, when closing, these jaws CAN bite... keep fingers, clothes and, umm other appendages well clear.
The folding ability, along with the smaller wheels, allows the bike to be carried, or stored in small confines - for example the boot/trunk of my Honda Civic. My full-sized road bike must have both wheels removed, and then will only JUST fit across the back seat. I cannot get my roadie into the trunk of my Honda. The Dash? This little beauty fits, folded, in the boot, entire. Take it out, unfold, secure the frame, away you go. Less than 1 minute.
Looks/Quality/Feel
Firstly, the colour scheme is not my choice. I think it is too... something, but it is not what I would have chosen. The paintwork itself seems very thick and gluggy, almost plastic, on the main frame. On the forks, where a good layer of paint is welcome, it seems a little thin. Luckily here it is black so any old touch up paint should be ok.
Drive train - this is Dahon Neos 9. It has it's own rear derallier mounted directly on the frame, just forward of the wheel lugs. Luckily the frame itself has standard dropout mounts, so if should one need to, a non-dahon replacement is possible (pretty much any rear gear would fit, form what I can tell). The Neos 9 and the microSHIFT front derrailluer are of reasonable looking quality. Not up there with race level offerings from the 3 big guys, but definitely on par or better than the "serious amateur" level stuff (eg Tiagra). The shifters click and shift with a decisive click. The rear shift works "backward", that is the movement towards the lowest/largest cog is spring powered (and thus "storage mode when not in use, to save cable stretch), the shift towards the smallest cog uses cable tension and thumb strength. So it's back to front, like some of the older Deore shifters.
There is no real complaints about the driveline, as far as getting along goes. A standard 52/39 crank upfront (Dahon branded) and a SRAM 11-32 9 speed in the back. This covers from about 24-95 gear inches on the road. That's a pretty good spread for most uses, and better than most road bikes (the extra large 32 tooth cog, coupled with the 20 inch wheel makes for a low low road gear). It's not low enough for MTB, but it is still a quite respectable gear range.
The only downside is that as the Neos9 sits forward of the axle, it can make removing the back wheel a real pain - trying to untangle the chain from the cassette and trying to replace it when replacing the wheel, is a bit of a struggle. there's no way of doing it without getting your hands grubby.
Tyres: Kend Kriterium: When one sees the brand Kenda, one immediately thinks of old MTB tyres that needed replacing ASAP. Not so with the Kenda Kriteriums on the Dash. these are branded with the Dahon insignia, and are quite a good quality road tyre. Durability to be confirmed. I am already thinking of upgrading to something with a little more puncture protection, but Kenda claims the Kriterium has kevlar belts.
I WILL upgrade these - I don't fancy repairing frequent flats, given the struggle to get the rear wheel off the bike.
Disks: The Dash comes with WinZip disks. These are made by a little known company in Taiwan. They appear to be a fairly sound, single caliper disk. I chose the Dash over a similarly priced, yet much better looking Dahon Cheetah, with linear pull brakes, purely because I had reservations on how well I would be able to replace the rims, and just how well the rims would hold up to our local roads, with 3km winding, bumpy downhill stretches with an average decline of 1 in 10. These may find themselves upgraded sometime soon, but I am in no rush to do that at this point. They seem to have decent grip, although they do tend to squeal a bit.
Shifters and brake levers: The MicroSHIFT shifters are clean and shift with a sure, and reassuring click. They are both thumb operated and take a little time to adjust to. Quality here is good. Brake levers are Dahon. Just simple alloy levers. They look a little cheap, but they do the job. I'd prefer an nicer looking lever, but they function just fine.
Head Stem and Flat bar: The grips are "anatomical" and comfortable, for flat bar grips, and the bar is wide enough for the terrain this bike will likely encounter. It's wide enough to give control with small wheels, but narrow enough to not outweigh the "portable" size of the bike. The head stem is Dahon's own - quick release with ratcheting style increments for up or down adjustment of the stem. I find it allows the bar and stem to be dropped and rotated for folding, but it won't lock there unless you fiddle with the quick release pin and loosen it. It's nice that it gives a reassuring click and locks straight ahead, but it would be nice to be able to swivel and lock it at any angle for transport. I guess we can't have all our cakes and eat them too.
I would love to swap the bar out for some drops/bullhorns and road levers, but for now the potential headache finding compatible levers for my brakes and Neos 9 drive train, has left this in the "too hard basket". For now.
Saddle: Ever ridden on a saddle that feels like a person with bad aim is trying to ram a pool noodle up your butt? I guess that's what 90% of stock saddles feel like after 60 minutes in the saddle, but the stock Dahon saddle (Dash branded) felt like that even just sitting on the bike in my living room.
So it found itself swapped out for a Brooks Flyer Special. Yes, I know, sacrilege. How could one put such a masterpiece saddle on a mixed bag of a bike? Or how could one put such an old fogey saddle on such a pimped up cross bike? Whichever view you take...
Well, I am glad I did. And I am glad I got the Flyer and not the B17. The springs give a little under my (over)weight, but they mostly just reduce vibration and annoying road chatter that hard seats put directly into your spine, neck, and jaw. These are subjectively rougher on small wheels running at 100 PSI. Though, frankly I think the extra rubber of the thick tyre makes a big difference, and actually reduces bumps compared to my road bike. But you know, word on the street says smaller wheels makes bigger bumps, and who am I to disagree? :)
Many talk about the "break in" period of a brooks saddle. To be honest, there may be a point where the saddle moulds to your bum such that the sit bones take your weight over a wider area, but still keep the weight off the softer bits, but to be frank, it's a hard seat, it will always be a hard seat. BUT (BUTT??), therein lies the beauty. No soft seat will protect your sit bones, AND stop your soft bits from taking weight. It is just not possible. a hard seat will be more comfortable on the long haul than a soft one, as you won't sink into the padding and have weight transferred to bits that should not be holding weight. The springs have obviously made this saddle much more comfortable, right out of the box.
Why did I dash off to buy the Dash?
Well, it was actually a long decision process...
I wanted a bike that would be small enough to fit in the car. I don't want outside racks (no roof racks or hanging off the boot by straps) every day. For a family day trip, it is OK, but not ideal. I didn't want an extra liability outside the car, and I wanted to be able to carry the bike with me most days. I also wanted to be able to park the car and come back to find the bike was there, no pieces missing. This meant I needed something that would fit in my Honda.
I also wanted a bike that would let me get out of the saddle (stand up, honk, off the saddle, whatever you call it) on a sprint or uphill climb. Any folding bike was going to be in serious strife with a 90kg bloke leaning over the bars or reefing on the bars. So the three bikes I mentioned above were the finalists due to the obvious structural advantages they had over other folders.
Additionally, the Dash (and a select few others) has a proper head stem, which means that the weight of the rider can get over the hub of the front wheel, which tends to add to stability (better weight distribution) as well as better steering control, as our hands are not pivoting about the steering axis, but are well in front. The headstem also means more room for fine tuning riding position.
So, the ride?...
On the road, the small wheels take a moment or so to adjust to. The front IS more responsive than a larger bike. After that, because the seating position is identical to a "real" bike, there is no real indication that you are riding small wheels. The forward position of the handle bars, and the geometry of the frame seem to negate any "twitchiness" that people brand these bikes with. The steering is "responsive" but not twitchy.
And, apologies to those who swear big wheels/small wheels make you go faster/slower, accelerate faster or slower or have amazing theories of physics on why big wheels/small wheels are better... I am sorry, but this bike just goes, no better or worse than my full sized roady (which is saying something, as it weighs 13kg, and my roady weighs 9.5kg). For every theory that says one wheel has less moment/friction/rolling resistance blag blah, there is another theory that debunks it... in theory...
The Brooks saddle has to be tipped nose high to prevent you sliding down to the "hammock". Whilst this feels fine, it looks odd.
In summary, we have a bike that feels essentially like a "real" bike, but takes up a footprint not much bigger than a "real" folder. The poor Dash (and it's siblings) sits in no mans land, it's neither a compact folder nor a real bike. A dash of this and a dash of that....
In use, it's great to be able to stash in the car. On days off, no matter where I am, I can find a country park to go for a spin in. Waiting for my son I can do laps of the local circuit which has a good uphill and a good downhill, great training circuit for getting the hill climbing strength up. For carrying on public transport - the size is not that compact, but I have carried it on an almost full train in HK MTR, with very little issues at all. Obviously a Brompton would fold to a smaller package, but there's no way I'd be "honking" up hill on a Brommy. Most shop sales assistants laughed when I asked if a guy of my size could do that on a Brommy. Enough said.
Recently, I have found myself drifitng toward the Dash even when riding from home. A lot of this is due to the lower gearing, a lot to do with the fun factor.
As for the durability of the "LockJaw" hinges on the folding frame - I'll get back to you shortly.
Next step - I'll probably swap out the flat bar for a bullhorn and some road levers, but keep the Dahon shifters. I'm finding the reach a tad short, which makes standing up when going uphill, or during a sprint from the lights a little twitchy.
Update, 1 month on:
I have gone ahead and made a few major changes to the bike. On the whole, they have immensely improved the ride.
Firstly, though I loved the quick release head stem that comes standard with the Dash, it would not allow me to feed a set of drops through it. I removed it and replaced with a standard stem that I had just removed from another bike, and placed a 25.4mm x 42cm set of drops (Salsa Poco anatomic)
This of course necessitated changing the levers. I wasn't keen on forking out a lot of money on low end Shimano levers, and the drive train was already Shimano compatible MicroSHIFT, Dahon Neos9 and SRAM 9 speed cassette. I would love to have taken the opportunity to changed to Campy drive train, however this would have meant a total change out of everything (except the frame!), including hubs etc. It would not be justifiable at present.
So I settled on another offering from MicroSHIFT. The R9 double shifters. I found these on eBay. These are Shimano compatible for the 9 speed system, and are about half the cost of the lower end/equivalent Shimano shifters, eg Tiagra/Sora.
You can see from the image, the microSHIFT R9 have a slight lateral deviation to the brake lever axis. This makes reach for small fingers much easier, and is actually much more comfortable in my opinion.
You can also see the two levers, both with a long travel and not a lot of effort, but a nice resounding click.
Once this was all in place and a nice wrap of Brooks tape was on the bars, I realised that the WinZip brakes, though short pull, didn't have any cable adjustment, so it was difficult to get the brake pull comfortable. They stopped well, and were responsive, but the lack of cable adjustment was a pain.
So the next step was to upgrade the disk calipers - I got a nice deal on some TRP Spyres. These are one of the more popular short-pull disks on the market used on many cyclocross bikes. These were simple to swap out, and the inline cable adjustment made adjusting the lever pull a cinch. The Spyre is quite a compact calliper, as you can see below, compared to the WinZip:
And here you can see the cable adjustment, in addition to the to calliper adjustment.
So now we have it. The Dash is now a mean little road bike, with a bit of attitude.
The disks mean long downhill descents carry a lower concern (whether real or imagined) of overheating the rim, and the drop bars are (for me) much more versatile on longer rides, as well as providing a better fit, and a more stable ride.
The drops have that bit more forward reach, which now puts my hands firmly over the front hub, maybe a tad in front. I find this adds to the overall stability immensely, and being a short frame bike, this has made the overall geometry much better suit to me. The flats are where the old flat bar used to be, and the hoods, where I spend most my time, are nicely forward. The bike now feels very comfortable, much more stable. The only thing that I find different now to riding my full sized bike is that I am 3 inches closer to the ground :)
The added benefit of removing the original headstem is that the bike is now weighing in at right on 12kg - less than it did stock standard, even with the Brooks Flyer on. Sweet! It does mean I need to remove the drops to get the bike in the car now, however this takes very little time at all.
In the back of a 2005 Hyundai Tucson (these SUVs have a small "boot/trunk")
EDIT 2/4/16
After previously saying that removing the handlebars takes little time at all, I became extremely frustrated with the process. Having the drops flopping about held on by the cables was annoying to move and to transport. It also meant getting on the bike, from pulling it out of the car to actually hauling ass on a ride, took anything from ten to fifteen minutes of fiddling. This was not the "oh just pull over and go for a spin" bike I dreamed of... I had to find a solution.
The space constraints in my car meant leaving the drops on was not going to work... so I decided to try an adjustable stem. I was hoping by lowering the angle of the stem it would fit in the car, with or without twisting the stem as well. After trawling eBay and almost purchasing, I stumbled across a non branded stem in my LBS. It is longer than I would like, and heavier. It is clunky to use, but it locks very solidly and does the job. No need to remove the bars now, just lower them over the bike once folded. Neat! The original Dahon stem was a similar concept that sadly did not work with drop bars.
The upside of this is the bike is set to go at all times, and i can adjust the height of the stem to suit what I am doing - from straight out and long for cruising, to upright and a little back for hills and riding with the fam. Rock on!
[pic to come]
Two months on.....
So I tried the local hills... a 1:5 grade in parts, average 1:10. I did it on an empty belly after no climbing for years. I disgusted myself and gave up! I had only managed about 1/3 of the "easy" side of the hill when I just ran out of puff.
So I embarked on yet another "improvement". A lower gear.
The dash already has a 26 inch low gear. That's pretty darn low for road bike standards. For those too young to know what this old term is, it's actually an incorrect term used to compare gears... more precisely it should be 25 x pi road inches. The lowest gear is 39 (smallest chain ring) /32 (largest rear cog) x 21.5 inch (outer wheel diameter) = 26 inches.
My road bike with compact cranks has a low of 34/28X28 = 34 gear inches, which is also quite low for a roadie - lower than most fit blokes use on the Audax Alpine Classic...
But alas, these hills are steep, and I am fat!! I want to claim these hills, and I want to know I have a gear to fall back on in case of a bad day. So... I NEEDed a compact crank!
So the next adventure was finding a compact crank for the Dash. The Dash comes standard with the old, ultra reliable sealed cartridge bearing, with a standard square taper axle. The number of varying axle lengths etc became mind boggling, and they were only really available on eBay. I didn't fancy buying, trying, then having to re-sell if it didn't fit... so I ended up taking the bike to the LBS, and getting them to put in a new bottom bracket (some shimano outboard bearing thing, Ultegra maybe) and a new 2 piece Ultegra compact crank. Yes is is probably a bit expensive for a minor upgrade, however it was essentially all I could find in a few shops, and I was getting tired of wild goose chases in trying to find a compact crank. HK is one of those markets where the latest and greatest mainstream items can be had at very competitive prices, but anything that is oh so yesterday... good luck finding it!
The cost of replacing the bottom bracket and putting a new double compact crank on, was only a bit more expensive than sourcing a square taper compact crank and buying a crank removal tool to do it myself. It was also 100% going to work, versus trial and error of trying to source bits on eBay. Now if I feel like upgrading bits it should be easier as I now know what is compatible with my bike. It does mean I am probably stuck with SRAM/Shimano/MicroSHIFT as I have too much invested in these now - a change to campy would be far too much of a loss now.
Q: Was it worth it? To gain a lower gear, and lose a top end gear?
A: Is that really a question? Ha ha haaaaa. I now have a gear range of 22-95 gear inches, previously was 26-99 gear inches. To me that's a loss of a gear I never used and a gain of one I will use!
So, to date I have spent just shy of 15,000 HKD on the bike - purchasing, and upgrades. This is still much less than the Moulton TSR30 (I still dream) or the Airnimal Rhino. Both these bikes are in different leagues, however.
Today I have a bike that I am very happy with, and it has been an adventure just to get to this stage. I have no doubt the Moulton will have had several upgrades had I gone that way too. The Rhino... I could not have afforded any upgrades! Ha ha!
Now it's time to follow the advice of one of cyclings greatest... Eddy Merckx...
Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades
.... (until I decide to upgrade the whole wheel-set to something nice :) )
