Tern Verge X30h

The Tern Verge X30h is a small-wheeled folding bike, but it displays none of the utilitarian features usually associated with this genre. Instead, it's a sporty little number, with slick tyres, aero-wheels, some nice kit and a fancy paint job. Without doubt, it looks fast. And, as folding bikes go, it rides pretty fast as well. But when it comes to the actual folding, some features leave a lot to be desired.

Tern may be a relatively new brand, but it has an impressively large range of bikes, ranging from a chunky urban workhorse called Castro to the svelte and slinky Verge series, which has six varieties, including this X30h that I've been testing for the last month or so.

With any small-wheeled folder, comparisons with bikes such as Brompton and Dahon are inevitable - the latter especially so as the Tern company was founded by Joshua Hon, the son of David Hon, the founder of Dahon.

But we're not here to talk about family intrigue. Let's talk about the bike, and see what the Verge x30h is made of.

Frame & fork

The frame is made from welded 7005 aluminium. There's a short head tube, a long single tube joining the front and back of the bike (with the main vertical hinge halfway along), and a small rear triangle with the seat stays divided in front of the seat tube to provide extra stiffness in what's called 'Double Truss technology'.

The seat tube (and contiguous seatpost) is very upright - measuring 80 degrees on the road.cc protractor. In reality, it's a slightly less severe angle (around 77 degrees) because the seat tube comes down behind the bottom bracket shell, rather than bang on top of it, as on most conventional bikes.

That's still pretty steep though. With the saddle central in the seatpost clamp, the tip of the saddle is about 30mm behind a vertical line drawn through the centre of the bottom bracket. With the saddle pushed back as far as it would go, I managed to get this distance to about 40mm. This compares with 65mm on the bikes I usually ride. Unsurprisingly, I felt I was sitting directly above the bottom bracket rather than a tad behind it.

The headtube is short and stubby, with an angle of about 75 degrees. The 'handlepost' (effectively an extension the head tube, with a hinge at the base - part of the folding mechanism) is bolted on top of the forktube/steerer and is at an even steeper angle of 85 degrees, mirrowing the upright position experienced with the seatpots.

Bullhorn style handlebars give you two main riding positions that mirror the tops and hoods of conventional drop bars. The brake levers are connected to the ends of the bars, but it's not possible to ride on the real hoods.

The handlebars are connected to the handlepost by what Tern call a 'stem' manufactured by Syntace. In reality, this stem is a pair of clamps. It's not the sweetest thing to look at, but via a pair of bolts it can be swivelled which allows the reach and height of the bars to be adjusted about 25mm forward/back and up/down. The angle of the bars can also be adjusted this way.

Equipment

The transmission and gearing consist of FSA cranks and single front chainwheel, combined with an Ultegra rear mech on a SRAM 10-speed 11-26 cassette, plus a SRAM dual drive 3-speed hub gear. This gives a total of 30 gears with a massive range from 28 to 121 inches. That's roughly equivalent to a lowest gear of 34x32 on a bike with 700c wheels, and a highest gear of 50x11. All of these gears are usable (unlike a 10-speed cassette with triple chainrings) with no uncomfortably big jumps between the ratios.

The combined brake levers and gear shifters are Tiagra STI. Using the mech or the hub gear, I found the gear changing slick and precise - in fact it was smoother than using triple rings or a compact.

An oddity on this bike is the 'window' on the top of the levers with a needle that indicates which gear you're in. Handy on a conventional bike, but the angle of the levers on this Verge means there's no chance of seeing the needle unless you lean so far forward you're in danger of tumbling over the front wheel.

The 20-inch wheels are a mix of American Classic alloy rims and front hub, with Sapim spokes (just 14 spokes in a radial pattern in the front) and a SRAM rear hub (more on that later). The wheels have medium-depth aero rims, which look cool, although whether they actually offer any real aerodynamic advantage might be open to dispute.

The wheelbase is 1020mm - about the same as my touring bike.

The tyres are 28mm Schwalbe Duranos - the Kevlar-beaded puncture-protected version with a recommended psi of 100 to 120. Throughout this test I ran both tyres at 120psi.

Other bits of kit include a Kore saddle, Kinetix brake callipers, Live Wire cables and Flux Pro headset. All in all, a nice package, giving the bike a total weight of 10.65kg.

Ride

Nice kit means nothing if a bike doesn't ride well. However, as small-wheeled folders go, the Verge rides well. The hinges on the handlepost and main tube are very firmly locked together and show no sign of movement. And despite having only one main tube between the front and back ends of the bike, the ride is positive with only a bit of perceptible flex.

It might be conscious design decision to allow some flex (and call it 'compliance') to counteract what might be a harsh ride from the small wheels and high-pressure tyres. Or it might be luck. Either way, the ride was comfortable without being sloppy, and I found the bike cruised along very happily during some 20-mile test-rides on the flatter country lanes around road.cc Towers.

Hills, however, were a different story. Standing up with hands on the 'hoods' bit of the bars was a precarious operation. The frame flexed considerably, and combined with the upright position, high handlepost and small wheels, the whole bike felt unstable. Sitting down with hands on the tops (and using that 28-inch bottom gear) provided a much more successful ascent.

Going downhill also took some care. Leaning into a corner on a fast descent, the bike became unstable again and I nearly ended up in the ditch. Keeping to a steady speed, everything was fine.

So overall, the ride on the Verge is great as long as you remember it's a small-wheeled folder, and don't try to climb or descend energetically as if it was a conventional bike.

On hills or on the flat, the riding position of the bike took a lot of getting used to, but with some tweaking (moving the saddle back as far as it would go, and dropping the bars as far as they would go) I managed to get it close to the position on my touring bike - although the bars were still much higher and the reach shorter than on my racing bike.

But just because it works for me, it doesn't mean it'll work for everyone of course. I'm 5ft 10 - wonderfully average - and that seems to be the size this bike is designed for, give or take a couple of inches. Tern claim anyone between 4ft 8 and 6ft 3 can ride the bike, but I'm not so sure. For anybody shorter than 5ft 6, the reach would be OK but the bars might be too high - even at their lowest setting. For anybody 6ft or more, the bars might be at the right height, but the reach would be too short.

I can't help wondering why the bike doesn't have a conventional flat handlebars with a conventional A-head stem attached to the top of the handlepost. This would allow riders to fit a long or short stem (with a steep or shallow angle) to suit their height and riding preference. The hoods position could still be achieved with a set of bar-ends, and the 30 gears still controlled with hybrid-style thumb-push levers. This option is indeed available on some other Verge models, so maybe the drop-style bars and shifters are deliberate to give this X30h its more sporty looks.

Talking of looks, there's no denying this bike is a stunner, with sexy swooping lines and a beautiful yellow and grey paint job. The aero-style rims may be just for looks, but in matching yellow they just add to the glamour, as do the yellow bits on the saddle.

Back to reality, other features include an optional front luggage rack - which fits onto a neat little boss ingeniously disguised as the head-tube badge.

Folding

Last but very definitely not least let's talk about the fold. The Verge is one of the best small-wheeled folding bikes I've ever ridden - but it's still undeniably a folding bike. So let's look at the way it folds in more detail.

There are two main options: the first is what might be called the 'half-fold'. You flip a handle on the side of the vertical hinge on the main frame-tube, and fold the bike in half, at the same time turning round the front fork, so the bike concertinas, and the front and back wheels are side by side. It's exceptionally neat and quick. It might be all you need to do to get the bike in the boot of your car or the cupboard under the stairs - without needing to fold the seatpost or handlepost.

The way the handle covers the inside of the hinge when the bike is folded is a simply beautiful design feature. As is the pair of little magnets near the front and rear dropouts, to hold the two halves of the bike together and stop them swinging on the hinge.

Or it would be if the magnets touched each other properly. The one on the front is adjustable, but on our test bike no amount of tinkering could change the position so it fully engaged with its partner on the rear. So the bike swung around on its hinge as I lifted it into the car - exactly what it's not supposed to do. We've subsequently been told that our test bike was a production prototype which may account for the problem of alignment and which we've been assured was also the cause of our other big niggle with the Tern when folded - it kept falling over when folded. As I say Tern assure us that this was a problem confined to our test bikes and that production versions do stand up when folded - assurances we're happy to accept. You however, might still want to try folding it and then seeing if it will stay upright when your're in the shop.

All of which means I've rather jumped ahead of the second folding option which is what might be called the 'full-fold'. First you open the quick release lever on the seatpost clamp and drop the seatpost down as far as it will go. (The base of the seat post with the two wheels in the folded position together form a tripod so the folded bike can stand up on its own.) Then you fold the bike on the main hinge and reverse the forks, as described above. Then you open another handle on the handlepost hinge, and swing the bars down so they're level with the front wheel.

It sounds neat, but even when folded, the bars and shifters still stick out perpendicular to the rest of the folded bike. To get them closer to the frame and front wheel in the folded position requires loosening the clamp that holds the bars to the handlepost. This needs an allen key - there's no quick release lever. So it's not the work of a moment. That of course brings us back to the eternal compromise inherent in any folding bike and the question it poses anyone buying one - which side of the equation is more important, the folding bit or the bicycle bit? If you want ride performance in our experience you are going to have to give a little on the size and neatness of the folded package, as the Tern proves yet again.

Apart from that apparent design oversight in the folding system on our test model, the Verge is a lovely bike. The ride-quality is great for a small-wheeled folder, as long as you don't throw it around on the hills. It might be the perfect mount for the commuter who likes to ride fast but still needs to keep the bike under their desk at work. In the same way, it might be ideal for those with limited storage space at home but still wanting a performance-orientated bike to do some fast miles at the weekend.

Verdict

Performance orientated folding bike, with good spec and impressive ride - and some limitations. The folding itself is let down by a few peculiar design features.