It's back on the road - my daily commuting bike from the days when I rode to work in London every day in the mid '90s. My Brompton has a new chain tensioner and handlebar grips, and works like a dream.The genius in the Brompton is how it folds and unfolds. Around 15 seconds each way, leaving people gawping in amazement. I can zoom up to a bus stop as a bus pulls in, fold the bike and hop on before the doors close.
To prove just how useful a commuting tool it is as part of a multi-mode transport solution - take a look at my travelling day today.
Home - station by bike. Train into town, station to office by bike, then on by bike, jump on bus for three stops to get past an unpleasant stretch of roadworks, cycle a bit, train again, bike again to lesson, then bike to the Central Station to meet Moni off a train from Poznań, then taxi home with bike and suitcase in the boot.
As a full-size bike, it handles well enough around town, accelerating away briskly from traffic lights, yet the small wheels don't like Warsaw's pot-holes and it's best on runs of up to 10km (6 miles) although I once rode this bike 160km (100 miles) from West London to Bath.
No worries either about having to padlock it outside shops - just fold it up and take it in.
The Brompton is becoming as iconic a part of London's transport as the red bus and the black cab. Wear a dark suit and tie, a helmet, a fluorescent Sam Browne belt and you're looking as London as can be.
You can now buy Bromptons in Poland.
The Brompton comes in several flavours - there are options to do with gears (from one to six), dynamo lighting and luggage rack, and titanium components to save weight. For unhilly Warsaw, a lightweight single-speed Brompton would do the trick admirably - mine has three (hub) gears and a rear rack. I bought my Brompton (Serial Number 2892) from Andrew Ritchie, the company's founder, back in 1991 when I reviewed it for Bicycle Magazine. I liked it so much I bought it.
UPDATE: This very day, Brompton won the Queen's Award for Enterprise - for International Trade (for the second time, the first being in 1995), and for Innovation. The Queen's Award for Enterprise is the highest honour that can be bestowed on a British company).
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3 comments:
Yes, but they are extremely expensive: http://www.bikekatalog.pl/2010/index.php?query=&rodzaj=rowery%3ASk%B3adane
Mine is 19 years old and still works like a dream, wows the crowds when I fold it up in seconds. In other words you get what you pay for. A supermarket mountainbike is extremely cheap compared to a Cannondale or Klein; I'd rather save money on motoring and have a first-class legendary bike :-)
A clever idea. I designed and built my own folding bike back in the 80s, I like the concept.
Trouble with Bromptons (etc) are the jerks who think that they have the right to barge onto crowded London commuter trains with them as if the bike were a battering ram, scraping people with the pedals, getting chain oil onto people going the other way, as if they were morally superior. Believe me, amongst rank and file commuters, there is some hostility towards folding bike owners.
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