For the past week I’ve been riding the Brompton recumbent around town and a couple of shortish (10-15 miles) rides out into the country.
Whooeee! It all seems to work.
Having overhauled my old red 2003 Brompton and re-installed the Juliane Neuss recumbent kit, with a single chain drive to replace the old belt and chain setup, I’ve ridden it round the block and it all seems to work. (more…)
A year ago I posted some thoughts on how I might get my Juliane Neuss Brompton Recumbent into a good state for regular use, and perhaps make a few improvements to the kit that Juliane produced more than a decade ago. This has become pressing as I’ve signed up to join an international recumbent racing team (Juliane’s Feet Up Gang) for the 2014 Brompton World Championships. This will be the fastest recumbent Brompton Racing team in the world, and the slowest.
So I’ve started work, (more…)
I’ve adapted a Brompton front bag frame to carry my Lukas Brunner Travel Guitar in its neat hard case. The approach I’ve taken would allow a wide variety of other things to be carried on the frame with an adjustable, semi-permanent fastening system.
Just had a phone call from Brilliant Bikes, who supplied my stylish Brompton Toolkit last year. I wrote earlier about my dissatisfaction with the kit, especially the fragile tyre levers which snapped first time out.
Brompton have now produced redesigned levers and are sending free upgrades to all toolkit owners so I’m looking forward to seeing them. Previously Brompton supplied me with replacement levers for the broken one including advice on how to avoid breakage, so it’s clear that they are taking this seriously.
Ands as Bromptonistas often remark, Brilliant Bikes are brilliant.
Whoops another unfinished draft, this time from way back in 2009! NB Multimap is now Microsoft’s Bing Mapping, but it still has that excellent birdseye view last time I looked.
I had to spend a few days in Evanston, visiting Northwestern University just north of Chicago on the lake shore. Cycling from O’Hare Airport was very easy and seemed to be as quick (under 90mins) as taking the metro.
Whoops, I wrote this last summer and was waiting for some photos so it fell down a crack in the computer. It’s now rather out of date but I’ll follow it up shortly with an explanation of what I’m doing next with the Neuss-B. Basically I’ve decided on a complete rework of transmission and some other things to overcome the problems identified here. I decided that the present arrangement is too complicated and heavy but developments in recumbent bike technology make it worth considering a major upgrade.
So I’ve had my new toy for two months, spent a few days fiddling with the setup and ridden it around town a few times. Today I took a slightly longer ride involving some hills. (more…)
Last year I was very pleased to be given one of the new Brompton toolkits as a birthday present. It is a beautiful thing, cleverly designed to fit together into a neat package that slots into the open end of the bike’s frame tube when unfolded. I wanted one as soon as they were announced, not because I needed it but because it seemed to be an elegant way of removing clutter (bag of tools under the saddle) from an elegant bike.
Having given my latest packing method a thorough road testing on a one week multimode trip to Sweden and Italy I think I understand the B-bag and its limitations for multimode travel pretty well. It does some things very well but overall I’m very disappointed and I would not spend £135 on another.
B-Bag on the rear with my clothes and stuff, C-bag on the front with my cabin luggage
New Airline Baggage Rules mean a new strategy for flying with my Brompton
In recent years most European airlines have changed their rules to emphasise the number of bags rather than weight. (more…)
Seven League Boots 