Brompton Folders - Origami For Cyclists (Bikes in general)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Bikes in general
Date:	07/03/02 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Folds really small, More likely to get used, Very rideable

Disadvantages: A bit heavy, Pricy

Question: What does a man (whose job as a schools cycling trainer requires him to use a pushbike), buy himself for his birthday, when his new car only has a very small boot?

Answer: A folding bike.

Yes folks, I'd seen the wear and tear caused to my trusty Nissan Micra by a full-sized mountain bike (admittedly, with the front wheel removed) and I'll be bu*****d if I'd let my new car go the same way.

Of course I could always CYCLE to the work locations, but some of these involved a long ride on London's South Circular in the rush hour, and these days, I'm rather fond of life, what's left of it!

So some sort of folding bike it had to be, either that or a bloody-great rack on the back of the car, blocking out the rear view, or a very expensive one on the roof. No ta!

I knew a bit about "folders" in advance, having been to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight one day when they were holding a Folding Bike Convention at the Winter Garden. A pal and I got talking to one of the sales reps, and this led to the trying out of many bikes.

From this, Billy Nibbles First Laws of Folding Bikes evolved.

1. To be any use, a folder has to FEEL like a full-sized bike, even if it doesn't LOOK like one.

2.To achieve this, the wheelbase, i.e. the gap between where the tyres touch the ground needs to be of similar length to that of a large-wheeled bike.

3.Also, the handlebars need to fall to hand in about the same position as per normal.

4.The saddle needs to come to about the same spot, as you'd expect to find it normally, with a full range of height adjustment.

5.And the pedals should allow for an almost straight leg at the bottom of their travel, whilst being close enough to the ground to allow at least one foot on the floor when standing still.

There are also certain "nice-to-haves" like a bike that feels steady when riding one-hande
d (i.e. when signalling - what did you think I meant, on the phone?).

It would also be nice if it folded up really small, so that it qualified as a piece of luggage on public transport.

Well, I've been riding a new Brompton L3 for the past few days, and it fills all of these criteria some of the time, or is it some of these criteria all of the time? I'm not quite sure yet.

At "a round of drinks" under £500, it's not the cheapest bike I ever owned, that's for sure, but its ability to fold into ever decreasing circles, finally "disappearing up its own saddle bag",is what sold it to me ultimately.

So what's it like to ride? Well, apart from the fact that its little wheels go down pot-holes further, which makes the ride rougher, it feels much like I expected.

This phenomenon is exacerbated by the need to keep the Kevlar (bullet-proof? moi?) tyres pumped-up really hard. These tyres aren't the grippiest availible for the Brompton, but there are others, all with their pros and cons, i.e. the better the grip, the quicker the wear and tear.

Purist admirers of the conventional diamond shaped bike may also comment on the slight increase in "whippiness" induced by the somewhat more spartan frame, which manifests itself in a slight flexibility of the handlebars when pulled back, but all in all, it feels normal like a Dutch-style sit-up-and-beg tourer.

It is easy to ride steadily whilst signalling, and stops well thanks to Brompton's own design of brakes, both of which are callipers controlled by normal cables. (Some folders have a back-pedal brake to simplify the folding operation by reducing the number of front-to-back linkages).

Decent mudguards, a soft(-ish) saddle, reflectors (essential to make it street-legal), a pump and a three-speed hub gear* are included. It also comes with a folding left pedal, which makes sense of its total fold-ability -
I'll come on to that later.

(*there is also an L5 version with five gears.)

Having done most of my riding on road, I can safely say that I'm heartily sick of "multi-speed" derailleur gears, and their intransigence to being changed just when you want to the most, i.e when standing at a traffic light. A hub gear like the good old Sturmey-Archer is much less fussy, and only refuses to change if you are pressing hard on the pedals - standing still, freewheeling or pedalling lightly, it just shrugs it off.

For that reason, I find this gear type so much more useful on a commuter bike more likely to be used in traffic than over the Wrynose Pass, and with only three or five to choose from, I find I can concentrate on my own safety more. Don't assume that small wheels mean that you have to pedal like mad - this is all compensated for in the final gearing.

Now for the really clever bit - folding it up.

For a start, the whole back wheel assembly swings in under the rest of the bike, coming to rest on a rubber bump stop and two castor-wheels. This is in fact its normal "parked" position, and takes non-believers somewhat aback, when they first see it happen.

"Mummy, that man's just kicked his bike in half!"

(The fact that the rear wheel assembly is hinged also allows for a modicum of rear suspension to be in-built, thanks to a rubber block between the two halves of the frame.)

Then you undo a couple of tough-looking clamps, the first of which allows the frame to swing round back on itself, and the second allows the handlebars to swing down. Both of these bits click into place to stop the whole thing trying to turn itself back into a bike with your fingers in there somewhere!

Last but not least, you lower the saddle, which also has the effect of locking the whole shebang together. Oh, I nearly forgot, this is where the folding left-hand pedal comes in
to its own, since this reduces the overall width of the folded entity by about 3".

What you end up with is a neatly tucked-in parcel over which you can slip the shopping bag and zip it up. The neck of the saddle provides a good balance point for carrying it, although without any form of shoulder strap, I'm not sure how far I'd actually want to carry it. My local bus stop is about 300 yards away, and that seems plenty!

Once you've got a folding bike like this one, all sorts of opportunities open themselves up, which might not with a full sized bike.

You can throw this in the car and drive off to a location where you've never ridden a bike before, without having to struggle with refitting the roof bars to your car, the awkwardness of which is inversely proportional to the likelihood of your bothering. Is this another BN Law, I ask myself?

Likewise, using tomorrow as an example, when I have to take a bike with me for the on-road training of school children, the permutations of journey are greatly increased.

If it's raining when I leave, I could take the bike on the bus.

If it isn't, I could ride there, and then get the bus home if I'm knackered or if it's raining (or both!).

UPDATED TO REFLECT THE FIRST DAY'S HEAVY USE

Eventually, as it turned out, it never did rain, nor was I too tired to cycle home. The whole day came to about 25 miles, which is a lot for me, the man who normally thinks 10 is a long distance. This all goes to show just how rideable the Brompton is, as a workaday bike, not just a folding novelty for those that want to park a mile from the station car-park and thereby avoid the fee. This is of course a perfectly valid use for a Brompton, and would be one way a commuter could justify the £500 price tag. Who knows, as they get fitter, they could park nearer and nearer to home, cutting down on petrol use as well!

Of course, the fac
t that I DIDN'T need to come home on the bus did lead my wife to make the comment, "Now remind me again, you've just shelled out £500 for a bike that you can bring home on the bus, and you've CYCLED both ways?"

One cautionary note: Never assume that the whole thing is already fully tightened up. I had the odd exeprience of finding my legs getting longer, (or was it the ground coming up to meet my arse?). Convinced that my stamina must have taken a real dive as pedalling started to get harder after the first 4 miles, I realised that the seat tube was slowly sinking back into the frame, thereby lowering me to the ground an inch at a time.

Anyone who has ridden a bike with the saddle too low for them will appreciate how difficult pedalling becomes when your knees are always bent, even at full stretch.

This was quickly rectified by tightening the clamp.

Yessiree, I'm certainly going to have to do some creative accounting to justify the £500, including selling my other bike, but all in all, I think I'll be doing more pedal-miles now, which is good for me (and the air you breath, unless you're right behind me on a day when I had beans on toast for breakfast!)

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