Foldable bike genius: David T. Hon
Dahon was founded in 1982 by former physicist David T. Hon. The Dahon brand, inspired by its name, is based in California. After establishing its facilities, it began offering the most compact foldable bikes of the time in 1984. In 2006, it became the largest manufacturer in the bicycle industry.
Dahon's R&D is done in America and its production is done in Taiwan.
David T. Hon (born 1941) is a Hong Kong-born American physicist, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known as the inventor and founder of Dahon folding bicycles. Dahon has since grown to become the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of folding bikes with Hon still CEO to this day.
The Hon brothers started the radical change in the world of bicycles with the world's first foldable bicycle, small enough to fit under the train seat. With more than 220 patents and 30 years of silent change and technology, DAHON is now a leading brand in folding bike technology.
Dr. As David T. Hon commuted to the University of California in the 1970s to do his PhD in Physics, transportation became more and more difficult. Every day he had to remove the tires to fit his bike in his car, which was far from campus. Years later, after successfully pioneering laser technology at Hughes Research Center, he abandoned his career to focus on his dream of "foldable green transportation." Along with his brother Henry, an industrial engineer with a computer science degree, he set about making his dream come true and obtained the first 7 patents for his invention.
In design competitions all over the world, the unique foldable bike model produced by these brothers won prize after prize. After registering the first 7 patents, David set out to find a bike company that could license/manufacture his unique vehicle. Despite its overwhelming success in the design world, no manufacturer has dared to deal with such a niche product.
In his late twenties, Henry, with his wife and three children, had collected his earnings from his high-income computer programming days and had amassed his first $60,000. Together with this and 35 other visionary promoters, he raised $2 million and launched the first bicycle production in Taiwan. The Hon brothers sold their first 6,000 foldable bikes in just 6 months.
Pioneering a convenient and environmentally friendly mode of transportation has always been David and Henry's passion.