Title: Brompton Bicycle
Author: David Henshaw
Publisher: Excellent Books
Ask a question to a bicycle shop ‘what is the best folding bicycle they could recommend?’ you will get a few different answers most probably depending on what brand they carry. Ask a question ‘what is the most compact and convenient folding bicycle to carry?’ you should get ‘Brompton bicycle’ as the answer - with final package measures some 60 x 59.5 x 28cm (100 liters or 3.6 cubic feet).
Brompton Bicycle by David Henshaw is a long anticipated biography of Britain’s newest icon which now has been exported to different parts of the world. Intuitive design, solid built, fine finishing touch and generous add on parts (the Brompton consists of of around 1,200parts, ¾ of which appear on no other bicycle) are some of the key reasons why this bicycles are so much appreciated by many folding bicycles enthusiasts.
The 150pages book with colorful photos provide an amazing insight into this more than 30 years old affairs covering relevant topics such as the history of folding bicycle (at one point were used as an aide during the world war) and the earlier designs such as Alex Moulton and Bickerton who provide the fundamental concept of small wheel bikes which helped fostering the birth of Brompton bicycle.
The man behind Brompton Bike
The uniqueness of Brompton bike is identical to its creator, Andrew Ritchie a gentleman with a complex background as described by Henshaw in his book(“With characteristic precision, and indeed modesty, Andrew Ritchie simply describes himself as 3/8th German, half English, 1/8th Australian, quite a mixture. Whether the Scottish political nous, German aristocratic blood, and artistic flair of these forebears have had any influence on the engineering of the world’s finest folding bicycle is a mater of conjecture!”).
Other great folding bicycle fathers has had glamorous backgrounds before deciding to design a folding bicycle such as Dr. Alex Moulton (Alex Moulton Bicycle) who was an Automotive suspension engineer, Harry Bickerton (Bickerton Bicycle) was an aeronautical engineer and Dr. David Hon (Dahon Bicycle) was a physicist at Hughes Aircraft corporation specialized in laser technology. Andrew Ritchie himself was a Mechanical Sicences graduate from Cambridge University who have tried to pursue a career as a computer software engineer and selling pot plants for 4 years before decided to blacksmith Brompton bicycle at the age of 28.
The Genius of Brompton Fold
Starting with an idea “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you had a bike which went with you wherever you go?” the Brompton slowly but steady is taking shape from Andrew’s drawing table in 1973.
He decided to put emphasize on the unprecedented 4 points to stick out in designing his folding bicycle concept:
- The front wheel
- Back wheel
- Handle bars
- Saddle
Which turns out to be a revolutionary concept in creating the fold which is neat and compact .
The book vividly captures the most important events throughout the history of Brompton Bicycle from a conceptual idea, finding the right partners, achieving a sustainable production, increasing market share to weathering a tight competition in a folding bicycle industries, making it entertaining as well as fulfilling from business point of view.
The two most memorable incidents in Brompton history was when Andrew Ritchie gave a try to embark into partnership agreement with Taiwanese Eurotai (under a set up company namely Neobike) in early 90s, to build the bikes under license destined for the Far East particularly the large Japanes market and as a mean to provide a secondary source of components due to the overflowing order book. This turned out to be disasterous partnership agreement where Andrew recalled "The whole thing was a bloody waste of time, just a mess. I could have closed the agreement earlier than I did, because they were not honoring it, but was it worth litigating? We let it run for the ten years of the first stage until they had to renew, which they forgot to do anyway. But if they hadn't, I would have said 'sorry mate, this is the end of it'."
Another incident was when Sturmey Archer - Brompton long time supplier of the most integral component: 'a geared hub' went bankrupt in 2000 which almost stopped production of Brompton altogether. Andrew Ritchie and his team later on developed a much improved gear hub called BWR (Brompton Wide Ratio) hub which basically a 7 speed gear range in a 3 speed package. In the book Henshaw wrote: "The new hub was the final piece in the jigsaw. A bicycle like the Brompton will always be developing, but the BWR hub answered the last of the long standing criticism that had held it back".
The book also contains a couple of useful graphs in showing Brompton's year on year financial performance which I find very useful in appreciating commercial aspects behind this piece of art.
The creativity process doesn't just end there, the book also featured some great Brompton bicycle modifiers such as Steve Parry who is famous with his folding tandem, Julianne NeuB with her Brecki recumbent and Len Rubin with his 27speed UFB (Ultimate Folding Bike) at 7.3kg for the price of US$10,000.
David Henshaw wrote the book with his descriptive style and excellent insight into this amazing world of folding bicycle where his passion and experience as the editor and publisher of A to B magazine (http://www.atob.org.uk/) from The Folding Society (http://www.foldsoc.co.uk/) helped tremendously in making this book very comprehensive yet entertaining.
This book was one of an original and insightful concepts which I have not found for a long time. I would recommend anybody who owns Brompton to have a copy (it also has a section on how to maintain the parts, etc.).
I have owned my Black M6R since 2008 and have been trying to relate to it at any oppportunity. I try to commute to work on it, brought it on a holiday trips, participated in several cycling events, using it as a stand for some of my photography equipments in some photo assignments, etc.
