Foldie that's nice to ride

secretsam

ugo.santalucia wrote:

SecretSam wrote:

Took a look at the Bromptons in Evans London Bridge yesterday

Have to admit I was shocked when I noticed that the forks, instead of having a 'drop out' which is forged, they are simply pinched together tube ends. You expect that on a £75 BSO from Tesco, but not from something costing £900+. I appreciate the need to make economies, small scale, etc but that's not impressive.

Is there any reported problem on Brompton's dropouts? If not, who cares how they make them, as long as they work... Bromptons are made to work and work for years, not to be fancy and have flawless tube joints...
You can phone Tom Donhou or Chas Roberts and see what you get for 800 quid worth of "made in London"

Ugo: calm down. I wasn't saying it didn't work. I appreciate that the cost of labour in the UK is higher than for say Taiwan, I was just shocked that they used what I would consider to be a fairly downmarket technique when so much thought and effort has gone into the engineering and refinement of the other bits. The old phrase about the "ha'penny worth of tar" springs to mind.

Oh - and the Chas Roberts comparison is a little facile, if you don't mind me saying. Bromptons may be made to order but they are not bespoke. And I'm not sure that they use Columbus or Reynolds tubing, either

rolf_f

SecretSam wrote:

Ugo: calm down. I wasn't saying it didn't work. I appreciate that the cost of labour in the UK is higher than for say Taiwan, I was just shocked that they used what I would consider to be a fairly downmarket technique when so much thought and effort has gone into the engineering and refinement of the other bits. The old phrase about the "ha'penny worth of tar" springs to mind.

Or it might just be that they are appropriately engineered. Good engineering isn't about the aesthetics (or at least it shouldn't be). If your object doesn't need a ha'porth of tar then don't give it one!

t4tomo

^^+1 - itsn't it because its made from Steel (or titatanium for people who bought the flash version like me ) you dont need any fancy forging techniques you might need to use on Aluminium forks?

ugo.santalucia

SecretSam wrote:

Ugo: calm down. I wasn't saying it didn't work. I appreciate that the cost of labour in the UK is higher than for say Taiwan, I was just shocked that they used what I would consider to be a fairly downmarket technique when so much thought and effort has gone into the engineering and refinement of the other bits. The old phrase about the "ha'penny worth of tar" springs to mind.

Oh - and the Chas Roberts comparison is a little facile, if you don't mind me saying. Bromptons may be made to order but they are not bespoke. And I'm not sure that they use Columbus or Reynolds tubing, either

Last year I had a chat over lunch with Will Butler, the managing director of Brompton... they are a pretty straightforward, no BS company... everything they do has a purpose and their machine is as lean and efficient as it can possibly be at that price point. They would love to make it lighter, as people need to carry it and if it was 7 Kg instead of 9, that would open new markets. Adding a forged dropout would probably only add weight. generally speaking, their average customer looks at practicality and colour, rather than whetehr the dropouts are stamped or forged. So they have a bike which is practical and comes in all colour combinations.

Will told me if they made a 5 K full carbon-titanium Brompton, that would still have a market, but the company wants to sell numbers rather than boutique products

rjsterry

Keyser__Soze wrote:

Has anyone tried both a Dahon (looking at the Mu SL) and a Brompton? May be looking for a folder for stashing in the office cupboard after a 10 mile ride plus the odd occasional London-based train journey (which discounts a larger folder like an Airnimal) rather than lots of folding/unfolding so road feel is more important.

I've ridden both: the main difference is the larger wheel size and proper derailleur gears, which mean that the Dahon feels much more like riding a normal bike, but the trade off is extra weight (only really noticeable when carrying it) and it doesn't fold down quite as small.