Brompton back in action - fully

Over a year since it had to go in for a service, my Brompton is now 100% what I wanted it to be - thanks to Brompton's superb customer care (stepping in when the local agent couldn't get the parts). I finally got the 44-tooth chainwheel needed to make the bike ride and fold properly. The 46-tooth chainwheel - fitted when the bike went for a service three years ago was a disaster - only two teeth more, and yet twice the chain tensioner snapped while the bike was being folded; and when folded, the rear wheel became immobile, preventing the correct stowage of the left pedal.

Along with the chainwheel, Brompton sent me the basic rear mudguard (the bike was originally fitted with a luggage rack, which I neither needed nor wanted, but it was there on the ex-demo factory bike I bought). This is lighter than the rack and not prone to rust. And a new-style Brompton saddle, which doubles as a carrying handle when the bike's folded.

The bike is easy to work on. To remove the luggage rack and replace it with the new mudguard, I needed to replace the rear wheel. This is slightly harder than on a bike with derailleur gears, because the shifter chain needs to be carefully replaced in the same position as before so that all the gears work. But fortunately, Brompton has a whole lot of technical videos posted on YouTube to help you out (see below).

I fixed the rear mudguard, replaced the rear wheel, pumped up both tyres and moved onto the saddle. This is a huge improvement over the original. The Allen-key bolt allows easy and precise adjustment (it is crucial you get the angle right for comfortable riding). Under the saddle's nose is a sculpted handle that just begs you to pick the folded bike up by it. The new-style Brompton saddle is probably the greatest single innovation brought to the bike since it was originally launched.

Finally onto the chainset. I removed the old, 46-tooth chainwheel using a crank extractor (a very simple procedure if you have the tool), and replaced the new, correct, factory-issue 44-tooth one. Excellent! All of a sudden, the Brompton returns to its original glory. Now it folds and unfolds easily and quickly, just like it did when it was new - I don't need to worry that the chain tensioner will snap or that the chain will come off.

So then - here it is - back to life - my Brompton. The ideal form of urban transportation, used in conjunction with a quarterly travel pass. Lively to ride, a real bike - not a toy like some folders. I've ridden this bike over 100 miles (from Ealing to Bath) and can vouch for its seriousness. Below: as nature intended - no third-party bolt-ons, all pukka factory bits once again.

Below: new Kevlar tyres, new mudguards, grips, cables, brake blocks, chain, saddle - and most importantly - crankset. Note the small wheel on the rear mudguard - this provides rolling support to the back end while the bike is being folded.

Below: the crucial still from the Brompton instructional video, explaining how to correctly adjust the gear-change chain in the three-speed Sturmey-Archer hub. My one's 24 years old and still working fine.

Below: Once folded (which is quick and easy) the Brompton takes up little space. I have no problem stowing it in my office. Here it is in the garage.

Below: the serial number stamped on the frame - one of the first 3,000 built. Since then, over 300,000 more have left the factory, so mine's an early one. I've had it since 1992. Since 1997 it's been in Warsaw - probably the very first Brompton here. Despite the problem with the wrong chainset, the frame remains in perfect working order. Now the drivetrain is fixed, I intend to keep it this way. The most important lesson - had I checked that the right-hand pedal was screwed tightly into the alloy crank-arm, it would not have stripped the thread, leading to a problem that took a long time to fix.

Below: the crucial bits - the rear-triangle fold, crankset, chain tensioner and new Brompton Kevlar tyres.

The Brompton is not a cheap bike, but it is built to last - it is an investment; buy one and it will serve you well and hold its value (like a Morgan or Harley-Davidson). In Poland, you can buy Bromptons at AirBike, just off Al. KEN in Ursynów.

Brompton's website is excellent as is communication with its technical staff, who are very keen to help the customer. Not something one would expect from cheaper Far Eastern fold-up bikes.

The Brompton's fold, invented and patented by designer Andrew Ritchie in 1979, has yet to be bettered by a more practical and robust system. Evolving all the time (minor improvements boosting ride and strength), the Brompton is without doubt the best folder in existence and well worth the investment.

This time two years ago:
Pl. Zbawiciela rainbow gets torched for the first time

This time three years ago:
Why no one is Occupying Warsaw

This time four years ago:
Of electoral sausages and town drains

This time five years ago:
In search of the Sublime Aesthetic at 36,000 ft

This time seven years ago:
London from the air

Riding my Brompton to work

Today, Thursday 4 September, is Cycle to Work Day in the UK. Here in Poland, Monday 22 September will be Leave Your Car at Home Day. So today, along with 73,000 Brits, I'll get to work on two man-powered wheels. The choice of bike? My Brompton, which I picked up from the bike shop (AirBike in Ursynów) 11 months after dropping it off for a major overhaul.

The work has still not been done. No one could find the right chainset; so I'm left with a chainwheel with the wrong number of teeth, which leads to the chain skipping when I'm pedalling hard, and - worse - the chain tensioner snapping in half when the bike's being folded too quickly. Neither AirBike, nor Brompton's Polish agent, nor Brompton could suggest a fix after months of e-mailing. Secondly, I wanted to replace the rusting, heavy, useless rear carrier with a rear mudguard with jockey wheel that allows folding, keeps my back dry and doesn't add an extra half-kilo of useless weight. Again, no can do (after 11 months).

So - my Brompton - bought directly from the factory over 20 years ago, when I used to write for Bicycle magazine, is still not 100% as it should be. But it's had a lot of work done on it - new tyres, new chain, new brake blocks and cables, new front mudguard, new chain tensioner; 920 złotys worth of work.

Anyway - here it is (below) ready to go for a shake-down ride to work. This will be the first time I ride to my office on ul. Marszałkowska, where we moved last November.

Below: close up of the clever bits. Note the non-standard, 46-tooth Raleigh chainwheel - the best the bike shop could do. A 44-tooth chainwheel is needed here. I must source one myself. As well as a rear mudguard to fit this 1991-model Brompton. Second-hand, maybe.

Below: I cycled all the way in, a total of 15km. Up ul. Puławska (still largely bereft of a decent cycle path - the only exceptions are the new bits around the S79 interchange, and the old bits by the race-track and from Domaniewska to Dolna. The city roads authority, ZDM, is building a new stretch along ul. Waryńskiego, from Rondo Jazdy Polskiej to Pl. Konstytucji. Only a short stretch, but welcome. Below: on the last lap, along ul. Marszałkowska, north of Pl. Konstytucji.

Below: at my office, proudly folded up showing the amazing compactness and brilliance of the design - now over a quarter of a century old and never bested by any other folding bike. In terms of size, speed of folding and quality of ride, the Brompton remains unbeatable. Folded up, it sat safely all day long in the corner of my office, out of harm's way.

On the way home, after a few ales with the Błękitna Trójka Warsaw Chapter. I wheeled the bike to the station, and folded in the rear triangle, posed it for a photo while waiting for a train bound for Jeziorki.

Postscript, Friday 5 September: My colleague Ewa calls me at the end of the working day. Someone has stolen her bike, which she parked outside our office, on ul Marszałkowska. Cutting through the chain on Warsaw's busiest thoroughfare, in full view of security cameras. Her bike is a red and grey Gary Fisher Tassajara, with non-standard brass-coloured stem.

Postscript: By October 2014, the Brompton was restored to full functioning, thanks to the direct intervention of Brompton. Thanks guys!

This time three years ago:
Bike ride to Powsin as summer fades gloriously

This time four years ago:
Compositions in yellow, blue and white

This time five years ago:
When the Z-9 used to run, temporarily, to Jeziorki

Cycle-friendly London

Despite the explosion of bicycles and cyclists in Warsaw, in terms of absolute numbers there are far more in London. When I left London nearly 15 years ago, I was quite a rarity - someone who cycled to work daily. Today, encouraged by politicians, cycling has become mainstream. The optimal solution for me was the Brompton fold-up bike, a gem of ingenuity that folds up to tiny proportions in less than a quarter of a minute. From home in Perivale, two miles to Ealing Broadway station, thence to Paddington by mainline train (eight minutes) and onwards another two and half miles from Paddington to Centre Point. Today - cold (+8C) and wet - I was amazed by the sheer volume of cyclists commuting through Paddington Station.

Above: the bike park at Paddington. Hundreds of bikes left here overnight - they are generally inexpensive bikes of non-nickable character. In the morning, their owners will pick them up for the last leg of their journey to the office. 

Left: Cycle hire points, by Transport for London* (TfL), have popped up all over the place. I counted three between my hotel in Bayswater and Paddington Station. First half-hour is free, pop your credit card into the slot to release the bike. I shall experiment with this form of transport before my week is up in London! (Kraków already has these and central Warsaw will be getting them too).

Right: I saw more Bromptons in and around Paddington this evening than I see bikes of all kinds in Warsaw. Dozens of them. They are not cheap, but they are excellent (my own Brompton is over 20 years old and has now been taken off to Łódź by Moni. I must say, I'd love another - titanium parts and single speed for maximum lightness. When I bought mine, they were available in black only; today, I saw a huge variety of colours - but the same classic design. The Brompton costs more than two Dahons (the only other fold-up bike seen in appreciable numbers), but in London the home-grown folder is the only way to go. As iconic as the red bus or black taxi.

Left: Only in London. To those who've never seen Bromptons in their thousands, this TfL notice at North Greenwich tube station must appear puzzling. A Brompton, once folded, is no bigger than a small suitcase, unfolded, pushed through the automatic barriers can cause chaos when they slam shut trapping the rear wheels between them. If you had a Dahon folder, it would a) take you hours to fold and unfold and b) even if you did manage to fold it, you'd be hard pressed to heave the thing through the barriers.

Above: fixies - they're also to be seen in London, although there's so many normal bikes out there they become a bit of rarity. This one, with white aero rims, matching crankset and saddle, has a track frame with reverse rear drop outs and flat bars, just slightly narrowed. Brakes front and rear testify to the rider's common sense.

Cycling has become a hot political topic in the mayoral elections that take place on Thursday 3 May, with current Conservative mayor Boris Johnson a keen cyclist and his Labour opponent Ken Livingstone (former mayor of London) someone who did much to boost cycling in London. Check out how well organised the London Cycling Campaign is in terms of political mobilisation in advance of the election.

I hope that it will take less than 15 years to get cycling so well rooted in Warsaw commuters' minds.

* TfL used to be London Transport (pron. Lana Chainspaw) until 2000, when 'passengers' became 'customers' and a 'target-focused modal delivery approach based on the ongoing optimisation of key performance indicators' replaced 'good service'.

This time last year:
End of the azure week

The answer to urban commuting

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).