When it comes to folding bicycles, there’s one name in the game that deserves more credit than any other for putting these compact transportation machines on the map. Dahon has been behind some of the biggest innovations that have turned folding bicycles from quirky newcomers to mainstays of urban transportation. The company has offices in the US, Europe, and China. And it was the third I went to see, hopping a ride to Shenzhen to meet the company – and its maker – face to face.

Folding bikes are considered an integral part of city cycling these days. Believe it or not, the best-selling electric bikes in the US are folders. But that wasn’t always the case. It took someone with unconventional thinking to rewrite what the world considered a proper bicycle.

Aerospace physicist Dr. David Hon founded the company in 1982 (and put the “Da” and “Hon” in Dahon). As a lifelong cyclist, he was frustrated at how bulky bicycles were. Their size made for a good ride but complicated the ability to transport or store them in a home or office.

So he went back to the drawing board, working on ways to fold bicycles to be more compact in size yet still offer a sufficiently robust and comfortable frame for proper riding. The goal was to make bicycles fit better into an urban dweller’s life without sacrificing ride quality.

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The first commercial Dahon bike hit the market two years later in 1984, setting new standards for folding bicycles. There were other folding bikes around, but models from companies like Brompton, Raleigh, and Bickerton were niche and expensive, not to mention suffering from frame rigidity issues that often plagued folding designs. Dahon focused instead on targeting mass market appeal with something that was both affordable and durable.

Over the next few decades, Dahon became the world’s largest manufacturer of folding bicycles, at times claiming over 60% of the global market. They expanded production to multiple factories, introduced a wide range of models for different riding styles and budgets, and licensed some of their technology to other brands. Their designs influenced the entire folding bike industry – pushing competitors to improve folding speed, weight, and ride quality – and helped popularize the idea that folding bikes could be not just a quirky niche, but a serious transportation tool.

As electric bicycles grew in popularity over the past decade, Dahon began developing folding e-bikes, but with its own signature flair. That meant a growing number of lightweight, compact electric bikes that bucked the industry trend towards heavy, high-power models. And as much as I enjoy a relaxing pedal, those new folding e-bikes were what I was most interested in seeing on my tour of Dahon’s design headquarters. And I was not disappointed!

The offices house many of Dahon’s teams, from the designers to the marketing team and more. The walls are lined with all of the components used on different models produced by the company, which doubles as cool wall art and a real-world reference so that designers can walk over and touch the very parts they use to build bikes.

Just off the main office area is the showroom, which is packed with what looks like over a hundred different bikes. Many of them reminded me of traditional Dahon styles I’ve seen before, but just as many were shocking new styles I never knew existed, like full-size road bikes that still fold into compact packages, folding mountain bikes and even carbon fiber folding commuter bikes. I was especially surprised to see a folding e-tricycle with a giant wooden cargo box up front!

One of the first new electric models I was able to get an up-close look at was the new Dahon K Feather, an electric bike that weighs a mere 12 kg (26.4 pounds). For an electric bicycle, that’s very much a featherweight! In fact, later in the day when we took the bikes outside, a gust of wind literally blew it over while I was getting ready to ride.

This was just before the public release and so I was getting an early look at an e-bike I didn’t think could have even existed. For comparison, the lightest folding e-bikes I’ve been used to riding are nearly twice as heavy as this.

Of course, the K Feather doesn’t exactly have a massive power rating, but it’s plenty sufficient for an average city commute where the rider simply wants to get some assistance so they don’t arrive at work sweating. Once they get there, the bike folds up into something small enough to easily carry up the stairs and hide away under a desk.

Next up was the E Hemingway, another folding electric bike that I didn’t think could exist. This is basically an electric folding gravel bike, something that can handle being loaded down by big cargo panniers and take on traditional gravel biking or bikepacking, yet is still so small and compact when folded down. It even has mounting points all along the frame and fork to add more accessories, such as fork racks and frame-mounted attachments, offering even more possibilities.

But what really blew my mind was the new electric cargo trike from Dahon, known as the Cargoe T8. It has a number of impressive features. First of all, it’s a tadpole trike, meaning the two wheels are in the front instead of the more traditional two wheels in the back design. That makes it much more stable feeling as you ride it.

Next, it’s a front loader, as evidenced by that olympic-sized swimming pool of a wooden box in the front. Not only does it look beautiful, but it’s actually huge. I took it for a test ride with two adults sitting in the front cargo box and the bike felt like it was being ridden empty. More on the test rides in a moment though.

It’s also got an impressive powertrain, with a 48V 20Ah battery (960 Wh) powering a mid-drive motor that gets matched with a Shimano 8-speed internally geared rear hub. Then there are hydraulic brakes on top of that to give powerful stopping force – which is exactly what you want on a cargo trike rated to carry 190 kg (420 lb).

And of course, the cherry on top is that it’s got a folding design (of course, it’s a Dahon after all). There’s even a cute little “fourth wheel” caster that drops down below the motor mount so that you can push the folded trike more easily, such as if you needed to wiggle it around a garage or into an apartment building’s elevator. It truly is one of the best-designed tadpole cargo e-trikes I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a LOT of trikes.

Test riding

After touring the Dahon headquarters and meeting the team, the friendly folks at Dahon prepared a number of their new e-bike models outside for me to test ride. And as you can imagine, riding is the best part!

I started on the E-Hemingway, and despite not having any true gravel to test it on, the urban riding loops I did were still an excellent test for the bike’s feel. I was surprised by how nicely stiff it felt, especially considering folding bikes are notoriously flexy in their frames due to the long, spindly nature of the stems and tubes.

I was also unsure how it would feel with all of the bags mounted on either side of the front and rear wheels, but it didn’t offer me any issues. If anything, it was weird how much of a non-issue it was. The mounting points were obviously well thought out, and the fork mounts keep the weight close to the axis of rotation, further reducing any strange feeling from excess weight on the fork.

Next was an even lighter feeling bike, the K-Feather. At just 12 kg (26 lb), this is definitely a featherweight in the e-bike world, folding or otherwise. And while the bike’s 16″ wheels do make it feel smaller when you ride it, the bike still feels good in the handling department. It takes some getting used to, but it was very confidence-inspiring.

I just kept thinking what a perfect e-bike this would make for my mother-in-law, who needs to carry an e-bike up the stairs to her second-floor walkup apartment, and so she needs something as light as possible that can still take her to the train station she uses to get to work. Plus, the fact that it folds up so small makes it even easier to stow on the train. She’s a great example of just how many people could use a tiny, lightweight e-bike for a last-mile (or more!) type of ride.

To be honest, I’m rarely ever on folding e-bikes this small, and yet it still felt quite natural to me after the few seconds of “Whoa, those are little wheels!” feeling when you first get on.

The most interesting of all my test rides though was definitely the Cargoe T8, which was even more impressive than I expected. First of all, I didn’t just want to test it empty, so two of Dahon’s team members kindly obliged me by going for a ride together. They hopped in the front box together and we were off, like a father and two adult children. The bike pedals nicely, and the rear internally-geared hub is a key piece of kit to ensure you can downshift when you inevitably forget to before coming to a stop. Getting this thing rolling from top gear, even with that mid-drive motor, would be difficult if you forgot to downshift with a regular derailleur. That’s one of many reasons I love those internally-geared hubs.

The rear rack battery isn’t the most elegant-looking solution, and I wonder if it could have somehow been built into the wooden cargo box, though that would have made battery removal more difficult and robbed some of the cargo capacity. So instead, it makes sense to keep it easily accessible on the rack, especially since most people will be charging this e-trike by bringing the battery to the outlet and not by bringing the entire bike inside.

The clever folding option may not get used by everyone, but if someone did want to bring it inside, this would be the way to do it. It also allows you to more easily fit the bike in the back of a large SUV or pickup truck bed without needing to leave the tailgate open. It’s a niche feature, but if you ever need it, you’ll be glad to have it.

I was also surprised to see that the front end actually steers. This isn’t like those big cargo e-trikes where the bike just has a central articulation, which means you’re effectively rear-wheel steering by bending the rear of the bike around. The handlebars actually have linkage up to the front and steer a front axle, to which the cargo box is mounted. It turns so far that you can do tight donuts, even in a big cargo trike! It’s another thing that will likely take a bit of getting used to, but in the few minutes of city block maneuvering I did with the trike, I felt comfortable enough to risk my two riding companions in the front box!

Final thoughts

As my day at Dahon’s Shenzhen headquarters wrapped up, I couldn’t help but reflect on how far the company – and folding bikes as a whole – have come. What started as Dr. David Hon’s garage project has grown into a global force, one that helped shape the very idea of what a bicycle could be. Standing in that showroom surrounded by decades of design evolution, from simple steel commuters to featherweight electric gravel machines and full-blown folding cargo trikes, it was clear that the same spirit of experimentation still runs deep here.

Dahon’s influence is found in more than just the bikes they sell – it’s also felt in the market they helped create. The fact that folding bikes (and especially folding e-bikes) are now among the best-selling two-wheelers in the US owes a huge debt to their early persistence in making the concept practical, affordable, and appealing to everyday riders. Even now, in a market crowded with newcomers, Dahon continues to push into niches most companies wouldn’t think to touch, from featherweight e-commuters to apartment-friendly cargo trike heavy-haulers.

Rolling away from Dahon’s Shenzhen HQ, I felt like I’d just stepped out of a living history book for folding bikes – except this one still has blank pages waiting to be filled. These folks aren’t just cranking out bikes; they’re still experimenting, still asking “what if?” in ways that keep the whole folding bike category fresh.

Sure, the K Feather and E Hemingway wowed me, but that Cargoe T8? That thing was the mic drop. If there’s a better example of Dahon’s “folding without limits” mentality, I haven’t seen it.

So yeah, you can say I left impressed – not just by the bikes, but by the sense that after 40+ years, Dahon still has more tricks up its sleeve. And if the next few decades are anything like the last, I can’t wait to see what unfolds next.