Once upon a time my wife brightly suggested to me that it would be a good idea for me to take my son to school once a fortnight for some dad son communication. This involved some sacrifice of commuting miles,as it involved a train journey, so cycling was out for the one day in the fortnight. My perceptive readers no doubt appreciate that this was the thin end of the wedge. It was eventually announced that I should be taking darling son to school three days a week as "he needs his dad, he looks up to him so much" and also aided the beauty sleep of certain family members, all worthwhile aims no doubt, but this presented an unprecedented crisis in terms of commuter miles. Something Should Be Done.
if Dad was to take son to school, he would do so with a folding bike. Because lugging a bike on hands and trains for several years is Not Good, said folding bike should fold up small and be light, preferably titanium and in its folded state be dense, with little void but as full of metal as possible. And it should be yellow.
And so, the Brompton.
Andrew Richie should have been feted in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics as one of the wonders that Great Britain has produced. I would even go so far as to say that the Brompton should be an Exhibit For The Defense during the trial in Encounter at Farpoint (big hello to fellow Trekkies).
The little bicycle that can is beautiful. It is a poem when it folds and unfolds. The highest form of origami and as sharp and precise as a sewing machine, or even a mechanical clock of high quality, or infinitely more irritatingly, an automatic rifle (couldn't these great designers make something more useful, like a bridge? Or something that is not devoted to killing more efficiently?).
And when it rides, it is responsive and nippy and perfect for London traffic.
And another paean should be devoted to its luggage mounting and to the ever wonderful Ortlieb bags - big and small, my only gripe is that they do not come in yellow. But the bicycle; the bicycle comes in colours to please many retinas and tastes including some eye-searing results. De gustibus et de coloribus and so on, as my grandmother often said (though she said it in Greek or more accurately Hellenistic koine - and no, she was not that ancient). I myself am partial to yellow as you cannot have failed to notice, but one cannot deny the simple deliciousness of lacquer show casing the brazing.
So this post is a love letter. Like one finds an intelligent woman fascinating and appealing ( I know this as I am blessed with one such for a wife) the Brompton has the inescapable appeal of Intelligent Design ( please note that I am an easy going Epicurean, but if you say that evolution is "just a theory" I am afraid we cannot be friends). In fact, the Brompton has had a good deal of evolution and is still evolving - visit a Brompton Junction shop to confirm this.
But no one is perfect. In every relationship there is a little cloud. For me the biggest one is that the Brompton beguiled me to become a fair weather cyclist. Because when it is chucking down, and it is oh so easy to fold and take it with me on a train, tube or bus, I sometimes give in.
But on the whole, thank you Mr Ritchie, and the people at Brompton, even though you made me wait four months for my titanium build.
And you wonderful Brompton people, you made handle grips in yellow, and a yellow saddle. The grips are on the bike, and if I can negotiate with my wife, the saddle will end up mounted in a frame on a wall like the piece of art that it is, but it is not as comfortable as The Brooks Saddle, customised to my posterior. But this is another relationship, and the subject for another post.
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