Dahon Jifo 16

The great thing about a folding bike is how well it integrates into an urban lifestyle. It can be stowed easily indoors. It can be brought inside less strict commercial establishments. It can be used for multi-modal commuting via carpooling (I do this when I go to dragonboat training in the morning) or in the trains. Folding bikes definitely helps reduce those ridiculously short car trips.

A few weeks ago, I saw the 30th anniversary video of Dahon. Around the 20-second mark, the video showed a guy in a suit emerging from what appears to be a stairway leading to a subway station. The guy is carryign with him a green folded Dahon. A few seconds later, he unfolds the bike with ease. The speed of the unfolding and the apparent lightness of the bike intrigued me so I researched the bike online.

The Dahon Jifo 16 is one of the newer folding bicycles of the company. It's a 16-incher that employs a new lateral folding technology (that apparently, Dahon bought from this company). It's a single speed bike and is marketed as a bike for the last mile of a multi-modal commute. Although it's more suited for flat cities (like my favorite Dutch and Danish cities), I'm really tempted to get one for myself. Although I love my Flamingo bike, it's still heavy (about 13kg), that's why I don't bring it up to train stations. The Jifo, on the other hand, weights around 9kg.

The bike is also available in Sierra

Aside from the weight, the best selling point of the Jifo is that it folds "in a jiffy". It may not fold as neatly as a Brompton, but I think a Jifo can be folded faster.

Another positive thing about this bike is that although it looks small, tall riders can use it comfortably. My only serious problems are its $900 price tag (I think I'm better off saving for my Brompton) and its limited availability.