See that house there. I’m pretty sure I used to live in it. The white one.

really? cool as was taken on the A82 on way to fort william… awesome scenery round there.

2 Speed; the way forward

SL2-X Clear by Flamejob, on Flickr

I should have not open this thread now I WANT one…..

Horrible ride get a Kansai.

Personally, having ridden quite a few different folders, the only single plus point I can see in a Brompton is that it folds down smaller than anything else.

Which is good, as it’ll then take up less room in a bin/skip/landfill.

A 20″ wheel bike will not fold up as small, but be loads better to actually ride. And offer far greater possibilities for upgrading/customisation. Loads cheaper and easier for spares.

Bromptons are ridiculously overpriced for spec. Come with kit barely better than on a Halfords special, yet cost almost seven hundred pounds new for the cheapest. Which is twice as much as they cost just five or six years ago (seems they’ve become ‘trendy’). You can get a decent ‘proper’ bike for that. And if you do have any problems, spares/servicing will cost a fortune. Proprietary accessories are mediocre quality at best, and again stupidly overpriced. And you will need to upgrade certain standard items straight away, cos the OEM bits are crap. Really rubbish brakes.

I once rode one a few miles, and felt propperly beaten up at the end of it. The tiny wheels make riding anything even slightly rough than a perfectly smooth flat surface very uncomfortable, as they give a really harsh unforgiving ride. Potholes and kerbs; no no no. As for folk who do tours on them; sure, but then some people enjoy being kicked in the nuts. Just because you enjoy it doesn’t make it ‘right’. Wobbly, twitchy nervous ride. Horrible in heavy traffic, none of the stability of a proper bike.

Nasty nasty hateful little things.

+1 for Birdy. Vastly superior. We own one of each, and the Birdy is just better for everything.

Yu don’t mind my dear elfin if I don’t take any riding advice about someone you walk more than he rides ;-).

If it’s for something to fold so it fits in your car/boat/caravan to use once or twice a year, sure. For people who use the train, the difference between a Brompton and most other stuff is the difference between sliding it away between the seatbacks or in the luggage rack then sitting down and standing like a lemon by the doors, hanging on to your bike. All the other places you’re likely to go with a folding bike (restaurants, cloakrooms, etc) are usually OK with Bromptons but may not want anything bigger and in more awkward shapes. The whole point of a folding bike is to have something that’s quicker and easier than walking, that you can take with you on public transport if needed, and have it with you, not being nicked from the pavement outside. Having a bigger, less convenient one just to get some extra ride quality seems to be missing the point, at least for London use.

Brakes (on current ones at least) are fine. Yep, they’re expensive, but then every bike is way more expensive that it was 5 years ago, and you have the “made in Britain” premium.

Plus, my dear elf you are a bit talking rubbish. Very little bikes come close to a brompton in term of quality and functionality. No other bike in the market are rust proof through electro-chemistry. Mudguards/paniers/racks/crank are stop on in term of use and way better than most of the stuff you can find.

Plus your neighbour might build them. So yes they are more expensive than halford special, but the yield quality/money is actually better on a brompton than a halford special.
If only they built them with disk mount…

Pigface – Member

Horrible ride get a Kansai.

Great advice – they recently recalled and stopped selling them after some frames snapped. Due a relaunch next year apparently.

Birdy? Great until you want to get them fixed, tried getting hold of any replacement rims lately? took 6 weeks last time we had to do it.

There’s a reason Bromptons are so popular – smallest fold and an extensive dealer network for support and made just down the road.

They fold and piss passengers off on the Tube in London, especially in rush hour

Yu don’t mind my dear elfin if I don’t take any riding advice about someone you walk more than he rides

Yeah right. I hate walking anywhere more than a mile (1.6km).

Plus, my dear elf you are a bit talking rubbish. Very little bikes come close to a brompton in term of quality and functionality.

Right.

My Dear Juan; I’ve sold more Bromptons than you’ve had clean pants on. Ridden quite a number, as if we needed to take a bike from one shop to another for a customer, we’d grab a Brompton from stock to ride back as they’re small enough to stick back in the vayn when it came round. Hated the things. Have considerd getting one as a pub bike, but it’s awful ride puts me off.

Of all the bikes we sold, the ones with the most problems were Bromptons. The ones that we had to order spares to replace broken bits were Bromptons. The ones that cost most to sort out were Bromptons. Over 80% of all those we sold would come back within a week or two with a problem or five.

As for value for money; most of the parts are cheap, plastic or cheap pressed steel crap. Used to see loads of snapped shifter levers and that rear tensioner thingy. The chainset is eqivalent to that on a £60 tesco bike; just pressed steel with non-interchangeable chainring. Once worn, replace whole unit (which is something mad like £60 when MTB equivalent ones are about £20-25, with 3 rings. Stupidly heavy scaffolding pole seatpost, with proper cheap seat clamp. Nasty cheap saddle. Cheap flexy useless brakes (granted small wheel is easier to stop). As already pointed out; the OEM tyres are horrific. Narrow rear hub spacing which severely restricts hub choice. Hubs and wheels are low-end kit. Frame made in UK maybe, rest of it in China/Taiwan.

From new, you’d need to factor in about another £60 or so at least on necessary upgrades like saddle, tyres, etc, and then there’s accessories that are silly money.

So now you’re talking getting on towards £800, for a bike with 3 gears. That gets you a decent folder by another manufacturer, with better spec components and more gears…

I could go on. Suffice to say, they are, in my onion, dreadful bicycles and terrible value for money. There’s loads better out there, if you can see past the ‘folds up really tiny’ USP. If you ride normal bikes, switching between those and a Brompton is awful, as it screws up your handling instincts. You get used to one, then have to immediately get used to another, vastly different machine. Personally I can’t stand that.

It’s clear there are many Brompton acolytes out there, and you won’t find many a bad word against them this is true. I think this is due to their relative high cost and reticence of owners to be honest about them. Difficult I imagine, if you’ve spent that much money on one. Bit like Apple product owners. 🙂

The OP asked for onions on Bromptons. I’m just being open and honest, is all. These are my onions, is all, others may feel very differently (I respect their right to be wrong, of course…. 😉 )

Seriously though I think they’re horrible. And that’s based on riding them, having to try to fix them/sort them out, and dealing with irate owners. I’d buy something else.

Elfin,

The chainsets are alloy and made by Stronglight, and a drive side replacement is about £30. The brakes are dual pivot and seem to work as well as the decent Shimano ones on my road bike.

80% come back with problems? I’d be amazed if that were truly the case, and it would go against the anecdotal evidence of myself, several other riders I know and a mate who works at a major chain.

I find the tyres fine. Maybe my handling skills are poo ( ok. They are) BUT I don’t find it a problem swiching between the Brompton, the road bike and the mtb’s. In fact if your whole handlings argument is broadly illogical, like saying riding rigid, or CX will ruin your handling skills.

I’m sure that there the other quality folders are good too, but if you commute on the ever more crowded trains of the SE then I think a brompton is a pretty good choice. Not seen anything else that folds and stores as well.

The chainsets are alloy and made by Stronglight, and a drive side replacement is about £30

It’s a cheap pressed steel thing with non-replaceable chainrings. It’s worth a tenner tops.

80% come back with problems? I’d be amazed if that were truly the case, and it would go against the anecdotal evidence of myself, several other riders I know and a mate who works at a major chain.

That was the observations of our mechanics. Most would come back with some problem or other. Proportionately far more than any other bike.

Wow Elfin is really passionate about bromptons.

My experience is almost exactly the opposite; except for the

I’ve sold more Bromptons than you’ve had clean pants on

bit. That I have done. Oh and they are a bit pricy now

An honest question for Elfin is; if you think they’re so bad why did you sell so many? I would openly deride bikes that I didn’t like in my shop and therefore my customers wouldn’t buy them.

My Brompton is about 4 years old now and is still (minus cables and brake pads) totally original. It has been ridden for commuting in three countries, flown with and ridden off road on more than a few occasions.

DSC01645.JPG by flamejob, on Flickr

Cant find any thing about Kansi bikes breaking on the net. got any links for it?

Wow Elfin is really passionate about bromptons.

My hatred is not without foundation… 🙂

if you think they’re so bad why did you sell so many?

Fantastic marketing, plus customers who really needed something that folded up for train journeys/storing in offices etc. Plus there weren’t that many other folding bikes on the market, certainly nothing anywhere near as small. The design is good, but they’re too much of a compromise for my liking.

I appreciate many people love them. I don’t. I think there’s a great deal of Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome attached to them.

My Brompton is about 4 years old now…

My rat bike is scabby and tatty, has parts on it that are 20 years old, yet rides well and works perfectly.

And it din’t cost nearly seven hundred quid….

Ah found the Kansi stuff ooops, not good they are in the same league as Pace and Cannondale now 😉

still stand by the fact that Bromptons are a horrible ride.

Had mine a few months now and have commuted via train 3-4 times a week with it, circa 12 miles a day. It’s handling is ‘quirky’ but it makes me smile when I ride it. Compared to squeezing myself onto a tube at rush hour it is streets ahead. I almost felt guilty riding thru Hyde park between meetings the other day, but not for long.

Nothing has broken yet
Some of the bits are cheap
2 gears and a flat bar works
It’s flexy as chuff when you give it the berries to make sure you catch a train
My cotic rides better, my road bike is faster but neither of them fold up which is why I bought it

Also if you are not in London other brompton riders will generally talk to you

Bottom line, they work and are fun

This year I’ve ridden nearly 2000 miles on my brompton. Apart from changing the brake pads I’ve not had to do anything to it. It means I can get a train to Waterloo then ride to Canary Wharf and then 18 miles home. After tomorrow I’ll be doing the same to North Greenwich and back. As far as I can tell there’s nothing else on sale at the moment that’ll allow me to do that – and it’s handy too going to visit some of my clients because a surprising number of their senior management ride bromptons and their security people are used to bromptons and open the security gates for me with a grin.
In terms of quality it seems pretty much how it should be and spares are available for everything. I certainly wouldn’t ride my colleagues Dahon – that seems very dubious compared to the brompton.

An ingenious piece of engineering that some cyclists entirely miss the point of. Mine is eight years old and has done thousands of miles, kept me sane when I had an excessively long commute and continues to prove itself useful and fun! If you can’t handle a Brompton on-road I’d hate to think how you’d cope with the challenges of MTBing…

This year I’ve ridden nearly 2000 miles on my brompton.

I still occasionally get propperly blind drunk, even though past experience has told me this is a stupid thing to do.

Some things, we never learn… 😉

If you can’t handle a Brompton on-road I’d hate to think how you’d cope with the challenges of MTBing…

If I tried to ride a Brompton the way I ride an mtb, I’d probbly kill myself and the bike.

Many people like them. Fair enough.

Many people like custard, fair enough.

Many people vote Tory, fair enough.

Many people watch X-Factor, fair enough.

I don’t.

Birdy? Great until you want to get them fixed, tried getting hold of any replacement rims lately? took 6 weeks last time we had to do it.

It took me 9 weeks to get some new bearings – the answer is to order parts from the States as the UK agent is poor.

Black Dog cycles was great until they got out of the market 🙁 bearings from them took 2 weeks.

but it’s awful ride puts me off

As I said it’s not like you can ride anything anyway…

Over 80% of all those we sold would come back within a week or two with a problem or five.

Funny as the only bike that don’t come back to my LBS with a problem are brompton.

So now you’re talking getting on towards £800, for a bike with 3 gears. That gets you a decent folder by another manufacturer, with better spec components and more gears…

Nope I don’t think so. You do remember WCA got one and as far as I can remember the bike survived. And WCA can ride bikes.

Suffice to say, they are, in my onion, dreadful bicycles and terrible value for money.

Well that says it all, your opinion mean naff all to me when it comes to bikes, you can’t ride for tofu ;). Art, architecture and beers yes maybe but bike come seriously ;).

When it came to look at a foldie I decided to have no pre conceived ideas about make/model to buy, so I rode each one and made my choice up from there.

First came the Brompton, this was recommended to me by one of my roadie mates and he commutes here and there and by train.. I organised a local ride on one them, hated it. Flexie and cheap, neat fold, horrid handling.. no VFM even if you take the “name” into consideration..

Then I tried all sorts, Birdy/Kansai/Giant/Ridgeback. Of all these the Giant was the most well spec’d but was too flexie. THe Ridgeback was a copy of a Dahon without the “name” and was the same price so I chose a Dahon (below)

Since owning it and using it to commute to train and back it’s been a pleasure to ride. I’ve yet to get it serviced by the shop (no real need as it’s as new) Best part about it is that fact that it still feels like a proper bike, safe and sturdy, no flex, has a solid build quality about it and folds real neat.. Now we know it doesn’t fold as tight as a Brompton, but what it does do is fold neat and tidy and still fit between train seats. I’ve the inHub gears for ease of use and if there was one thing I’d change is the ratio’s, I top out in 7th most of the time see, so that’ll be the only thing I’ll change.

your opinion mean naff all to me

I love it when non natives use english expressions.

I nearly spat my tea out when Mrs Flamejob came home and said “Shut up you numpty”

Anyway – I think we all agree to disagree

There is a reason why Brompton have been going so long though 😉

if you want a folder.the brompton’s the best.not the cheapest.
had dahons,bought a 3rd for a gf.see loads of decathlon/supermarket folders.
have a brompton now.yes,overpriced,yes you have to change some stuff.
yes you shouldn’t have to but hey.some handlebars and pedals are pretty cheap.
elfin.the spec changed.that’s (also) why they’re more expensive.
the basic spec is no longer available.so they haven’t become that much dearer.the better spec is better.still not good enough-but hey.