The Brompton Project
What is The Brompton Project?
A few days ago, I bought a fully-custom Brompton on eBay. Realistically, the bike is designed for use in New York next summer, but as I usually do with my projects, I thought I would turn it into something larger. I've always thought it was silly that we have commuter bikes with bad components, and then high-end road bikes with good components. If the benefit of a Brompton is that I can bring it inside, why not turn the bike into something greater? This post serves as a chronology for this project—my goal is to document the upgrades I intend to make, and the problems I run into when trying to make them.
My goals for the bike are as follows:
- Migrate the saddle / grips to Brooks leather versions.
- Find a suitable bag that fits the aesthetic
- Look into some pedal solution that either folds or has SPDs (ideally both)
- Track down lights and a bottle cage
- (possibly) install eTap?
I believe that investing in a bike is investing in a project, rather than a means of transportation. So, let's get this off the ground!
November 4th
Well, this project is off to a rough start. But nothing we can't fix. Out of the box, there seems to be four fundamental problems.
The first? The bike's shifting. The bike came with an 11s, 11-28 cassette, but missing the 11t cog. It took almost half an hour of tuning to truly dial in the bike to a point where I was satisfied with its performance. Luckily, this is a solvable problem on two fronts. I can either continue to dial it in, or just replace the cassette.
The second issue was a larger one. The Brompton folding mechanism is fundamentally dependent on a small hook affixed to the front wheel. That hook folds over the rim of the bike to secure the wheel when the bike is closed. If the hook breaks, then the bike doesn't stay folded, making it unwieldily on stairs and generally unusable for its intended purpose.
The solution here is a bit more convoluted. I've ordered a replacement part on Amazon, but even so, my concern is that this custom geometry will prevent the bike from staying folded. We may need to engineer something more advanced.
The third problem is fairly small: when folded in "shopping cart mode," the front tire prevents the bike from rolling in a predictable way. I'm sure this can be worked around.
Finally, as it exists right now, the seatpost is too low. Usually this isn't a problem on bikes, but with a Brompton, the max of the seatpost is, basically, the max on the bike. This will require a bit of thinking—one solution would just be replacing the seatpost, but the current version is pure titanium and that seems excessive. It's also possible I can raise it more, but just am not doing so correctly. Research will reveal a conclusive answer.
I think it's easy to forget how these sorts of troubles are what makes a project interesting and fun. I am absolutely guilty of becoming demotivated as soon as I hit a roadblock or something isn't behaving the way I want it to. This is only day one of a year-long (at least) project, and I'm excited to look back on today and see how far the bike has come.
November 5th
Progress is progress. The bike feels much better now, both in part due to some quick tuning and also Ace Hardware.
Thanks to a suggestion on Reddit, I was able to mess with the seat mount to get another inch out of the existing seatpost. I think the current solution is actually very comfortable, enough so where I don't feel like I need to upgrade it in the near future.
The other solution? Velcro! Thanks to a $6 roll from Ace Hardware, the rear wheel now stays attached to the bike when carrying it via the saddle or rolling it on the ground. I'm sure I can come up with a better solution at some point, but this way is surprisingly effective. Now onto the original upgrade path!
