Brompton M3L
Price £905
Weight 11.8kg
I count myself a functional cyclist: I don’t cycle for exercise, because I enjoy a sense of speed or to justify a wardrobe full of steampunk chic. I cycle because I am lazy and pedalling feels like less effort than walking. My journey into work only takes a quarter of an hour by bike, allowing me 15 minutes longer in bed. But when cycling seems like an effort, I simply won’t do it. Anything beyond a 25-minute radius of my house and I reach for the tube app.
I have also never been interested in the bikes themselves. My humble hybrid was a workhorse rather than a showpony. I could have ridden it till it rusted over. But then something happened. The number of Bromptons on my route trebled in a year. Bicycles that were once the province of a few suited commuters became so prolific that the company had to move to a new factory twice the size. Could a Brompton help me cycle more, and further?
In fact when I got my folding bike in January it initially offered an excuse not to cycle. I could ride into work when it was sunny, and hop on the bus if it was dark or cold. But within a few days I discovered that it was far more pleasant to sit on the saddle than carry the thing. In the shop it had seemed surprisingly light. But I hadn’t fully appreciated that ordering two gears and a dynamo would also make the bike absurdly heavy. By springtime, my old-lady-shuffle along the tube platform was a piteous sight and my right thigh had a permanent bruise where the pedal hit it.
As the months passed, however, I discovered the Brompton’s myriad uses. I could cycle to dinner or drinks, knowing that I wouldn’t have to wobble home. I could set out later. My journey numbers began to grow, and I started pushing beyond my self-created boundaries, knowing that an hour’s exploration along a towpath didn’t mean the same to get home.
Like many people with only a basic grasp of physics, I had looked at the bike’s tiny wheels and high handlebars and assumed riding it might be hard work, my feet spinning round on a flywheel. In fact it’s smooth and easy, with a nifty turning circle.
But what surprised me most of all was how delighted people seemed when I turned up somewhere with my Brompton in hand. The salespeople had issued dire warnings of how covetable (ie nickable) it was, and persuaded me that I should take it inside wherever I went. I suspected this would get me turned away at busy pubs and restaurants.
But I found everyone from cinema ushers to maître d’s acting as if I’d turned up with an adorable puppy. I once drew up to the Savoy on it to meet my mother, who fretted we’d be turned away; instead the doorman folded it with the same decorum with which he might have handed me out of a Bentley.
The Brompton is not perfect. I still greatly resent carrying its bulk, not least because it is impossible to stop it raking at your legs. Whatever money I save on bus tickets is spent on emergency tights purchases. But my objections are small. The truth is that on the Brompton issue, I have well and truly folded.
For more information, go to brompton.com
