Folding Bikes In Emerging Economies

Going Against The Flow

by Larry Lagarde

Last month, Richard Pierce, a Family Health International aid worker in Vietnam contacted me. He was looking for a good quality folding bike but all the folding bicycles available at shops in Hanoi were of very low quality. He wanted something that was beefier and would hold up on the rough streets of Vietnam's capital. Specifically, he wanted to purchase an E-Z Pack folding bike. He wrote...

I've discovered that the bikes that China makes for Western markets and those that it makes for Southeast Asian markets are two vastly different things. There is one single model of folder available here in every single shop and it's rubbish. They just paint it a different color and put a different nonsense label on it, or worse, a fake "Dahon" label. The quality of the welds, the paint, the quality of the plastic, etcetera, it's all low. As soon as you get it home it starts to break.

By the way, if you're wondering why the surge in popularity of folding bikes worldwide, based on what I've seen here in Asia: overcrowded roads, pollution, and hard economic times. People actually have no choice.

Initially, I was skeptical; however, over the course of some correspondence, I realized that the request was real. We were able to work out the details and I shipped the bike off but with one request - that he write me more about the transportation situation in Hanoi. And he did.

Yesterday, I received an amazing story of what it is like trying to get from place to place within Hanoi. Titled "Negotiating The Hanoi Traffic Jam: Folding Bikes Take Their Place In Post-Modern Indochina", the story is a telling reminder of the huge challenge the world faces regarding the reduction of pollution, congestion and global climate change.

Due to the story's length, I'm publishing it in 2 parts. Here is a link to Part One. If you have a moment, it's definitely worth reading.