Strapless Toeclips on a Brompton

It needs a little bodging but it works well

I like to have toeclips to give me a bit more control and especially to allow me to reposition the cranks when stopped at a junction.

Brompton in Seoul – First Impressions

A grid of 6-lane boulevards, a reputation for undisciplined driving, day long traffic jams, a newly rich country with a thriving car industry, very few people using bicycles for everyday transport…not promising?

So don’t read the guidebooks, ignore the gloomy reports, instead look at what’s actually happening on the streets.

Anarcho-Communalism in Hangzhou

Originally posted to the Bromptontalk Forum on 2 November 2008, this follows on from my recent post Brompton in Beijing and is a more reflective account of some of the things I observed there.

Here’s the second instalment of my travels in China. It’s a phenomenological account (which implies that you may have a different experience or theory but this description is valid for me. I didn’t take the Brompton to Hangzhou as it was a quick one night trip with hand luggage.

Picture this.

Two 6-lane highways cross, forming a huge square, A bewildering array of traffic lights control the prodigious flow of trucks, buses and cars, The air is warm and humid with a damp mist limiting visibility to around 100metres. There is a light but persistent rain, the road is slick.

Brompton in Beijing

This was originally posted to the Bromptontalk forum on 30 October 2008.  I have given a more reflective account of the experience of urban cycling in two Chinese cities in a second post called “Anarcho-Communalism in Hangzhou“.

A very satisfying Brompton experience in Beijing.

I had to make a visit some distance from the city centre and my Chinese colleagues were insistent that it’s not feasible by bike, last night coming a similar distance by taxi one of them pointed out how big and intimidating some of the main road junctions were, she rides a bike short distances in the suburbs.

Brompton by Air update

Originally posted on 14 October but updated with photos on 27 October after my trip to Seoul.

Phil Moore from Canada recently asked me about taking his Brompton on planes so I thought I’d do an update on the information in my earlier post from 2003.

Fresh off a 14 hour trip with two transfers this lot looked in better shape than I felt

Brompton C-Bag update

I’ve now had a C-bag for a month so here’s an update to my review of the C-Bag vs the S-Bag for anybody thinking of buying one.

I’m very pleased with it, it’s substantially bigger than the S-Bag because it has an open “throat” so you can overfill it quite easily. It’s become my everyday bag for several reasons:

Sheffield – clueless about cycling?

Is there anywhere in Britain that manages to make a bigger mess of its cycling policy?

I like living in Sheffield. It’s very friendly, an attractive place close to great countryside and the right size for a city. But sometimes I feel that it has the most inept approach to cycling policy of any town or city I know in Britain.

Our New Pino

Between Penzance and Marazion, don’t we look pleased with ourselves!

After a seven week wait it arrived two days before we set out for our annual holiday in Cornwall. We had just enough time to set the bike up and have one quick ride into Sheffield centre (to pick up some inner tubes and other bits from Decathlon) and then we had to pack the bike into our trusty camper van for the long drive down to the West Country.

Brompton Tour of UK Bromptons

Originally posted to the Bromptontalk forum on 22 Dec 2008

A 7oo mile tour of all those places called Brompton

Simon Koorn has tracked down most places in the UK with Brompton in the name and that’s the basis of the names used for the different models of Brompton sold in the Benelux Countries where he is the importer. A while ago he suggested a tour of Bromptons so I had a look at how that might work out.

Something New From Sainsbury’s?

Like being crushed to death by one of our lorries

Yesterday I was cycling home from Sainsbury’s with my Brompton bag full of groceries. It was on Abbeydale Road in Sheffield at around 5pm, Saturday 6 June 2009.