Accessorising a Brompton B75

Let's have a look at the Brompton B75 again. Brompton makes a range of compact folding bicycles; the B75 is their budget model, although it's still not cheap. As of early 2021 the price has risen to £795, but Brompton's website has been out of stock since June, so I have no idea if it actually remains on sale or not.

Brompton achieved the B75's low price by using older components and cutting out some of the standard accessories. There are no mudguards, for example, and the pedals are fixed instead of folding, but on the positive side the bike is £400 cheaper than the next-cheapest Brompton. £400 will buy a lot of accessories.

In September I took it to Lucca in Italy, with a combination of Easyjet and a pair of Ikea Dimpa bags. Plus a yoga mat and some padding. 2020 will not go down in history as a swell year, but at least I got to cycle around Lucca's battlements on a Brompton, so there is that.

On a personal level I don't have a problem with the lack of mudguards; I'm a fair weather cyclist, and I don't like the thought of subjecting my B75 to rain and mud. Brompton sells the mudguard and the mounting poles separately; a rear mudguard set totals around £40 or so.

Bromptons aren't widespread enough to have come to the attention of the Chinese clone market, but on the other hand if the market was flooded with Chinese clones there probably won't be a Brompton any more, so perhaps that's a good thing.

Folding pedals aren't essential. The right pedal is mostly enveloped by the frame when the bike is folded up. I find that the left pedal digs into my leg if I try to carry the bike in its folded state, but it's more an irritant than a deal-breaker. Brompton's official folding left pedal again totals around £40; I bought a second-hand set of MKS XP-EZY removable pedals instead, for around £25:

They're heavier than the standard plastic pedals and more awkward to carry around - the grease gets everywhere - and in fact they're more useful for transporting a Brompton by air, but for occasional use they're more compact than a folding pedal and less likely to snap off or rub against something. That's a running total of around £80 by the way.

Which reminds me of the Ikea Dimpa bag, which is exactly the right size for a folded Brompton, as if they were designed for that purpose:

It's an Ikea Dimpa with another Ikea Dimpa inside it.

The Dimpa costs £3 from Ikea. Inevitably people sell them on eBay for £12 + £1.50 p&p as BROMPTON BIKE BAG L&&K - MINTY! but they're £3. I bought a bunch of them. They double as floor mats if your bike has muddy tyres or indeed as long-term storage for the bike during the winter. They also carry a tonne of clothes as well. They're not airtight, so it's safe to transport people in them, but try to be inconspicuous because they're transparent.

Bromptons are held together with two clamps, which are screwed into place thus:

And before I go on there's another accessory I need to mention - grease. I use a greeny-yellow grease made by Shimano, which is apparently a licenced version of Motorex 2000, which gets good reviews on the internet:

Is it any good? I have no idea! I've probably used far too much. It smells manly and it has ruined one pair of trousers already, which is all I expect of grease. Top marks. It's around £10.

But back to the clamps. The clamps spin freely, so you have to hold onto them while screwing them into place, which is annoying if you're also trying to keep the bike upright. There are a wide range of solutions for this, ranging from replacement clamps to modified margarine tubs, but I bought a pair of EZ-Clamp springs. They're 3D printed bits of plastic that keep the clamps aligned with the hinge. A pair plus post and packaging came to £9.90 when I bought mine:

Is that a hair in the bottom-left? That's what happens if you use too much grease. Your hair falls out. NB the chipped paint is apparently normal.

Yes, that's too much grease. I'll wipe it down. It's a good job I took some close-up photographs of my Brompton in a well-lit studio. The hinge pins do eventually wear out and are not easily user-replaceable, but after riding several hundred miles by B75 is just as rigid was it was when new, so here's to another several hundred miles.

Lights. It's important to have lights, otherwise you'll be killed if you try to cycle at night. A Brompton is no use to you if you're dead, unless you're trying to dodge inheritance tax. Or perhaps you need a way to transport your soul through the underworld in relative comfort, but you only have limited room in your coffin. So, yes, there are a couple of niche cases in which a Brompton might be useful to you if you were dead start again

Lights. It's important to have lights. Luckily it's 2021 and tiny little sub-£20 USB-charged LED lights are widely available. I have two on my front handlebars, viz:

Why mount them at an odd angle? The B75 won't fold properly if both lights are attached to the middle of the handlebars. There's some debate on the internet as to whether dual lights is a good idea or not. The argument is that people might read the light signature as a distant car rather than a nearby bicycle. Luckily the majority of my commute is on a cycle path segregated from a main road, so that's not an issue; you might have better luck with just one light.

Rear lighting is more awkward. The EZ-wheel rods are too low for comfort, and the lights are fouled by the rear reflector:

Furthermore every time I fold the bike I bang the lights against the ground. In the end I bought a second brand of light for around £14 that had a long enough strap to go around the seatpost, which is 31.8mm in diameter:

The B75 comes as standard with an extended seatpost, which I find essential as I'm almost six feet tall. As such I can leave the light in place when I retract the seatpost, because there's enough length for it to remain outside the frame. The one downside of a seatpost-mounted light is that it gets in the way of Brompton's seat-mounted rear pouch.

None of these lights are bright enough to cycle across country at night in the Outer Hebrides, but they do at least warn pedestrians that I am moving among them at relativistic speeds.

How much is that? £120 or so? Less if you already have lights and don't need a folding pedal.

The B75's other big omission is the front luggage block, this thing here:

Bromptons have a luggage system that's somewhat akin to a proper hiking backpack. The luggage slides onto a metal frame, which slides onto the luggage block. The rack doesn't turn left and right as you steer the bike, which is initially disconcerting but helps keep the luggage from sliding off sideways.

Alternatively you can tie an ordinary bag onto the frame with string. I really need to work on this.

Why not just wear a small backpack? Bromptons are rear-heavy. The sit-up-and-beg riding position forces all of your bodyweight onto the back of the bike. Front-mounted luggage improves the weight balance. The arrangement above, with the floppy bag, is crude, but when loaded down with lunch and a can of fizzy pop the B75's handling is noticeably better. It feels more planted somehow. In theory a front-mounted bag creates more air resistance, but the B75 is not a speed demon.

I mention the luggage system last because it's the most expensive standard upgrade. The official Brompton luggage block is around £20; eBay clones are around £17 or so; the frame comes in a variety of sizes at around £35. Official Brompton bags are anything from £75 up but you might be able to improvise your own solution. Probably better than mine.

EDIT: Another simple upgrade is a titanium seatpost. In the following image it's in the middle, sitting on top of a titanium laptop, flanked by standard-length and extended-length steel seatposts:

It's the same length as the extended seatpost plus the stopper. On a personal level I prefer the extended post. I can't stretch my legs with a standard seatpost. The extended version also has a bit of space for a light:

The titanium seatpost with a light. Why did I even grease that nut? What for?

I'm old enough to remember when titanium was well rad. You could buy cameras, watches, bicycles etc made from titanium, although as far as I know only Apple went so far as to make a laptop out of it.

The problem is that laptops continually shrunk in size throughout the 2000s, so it was pointless shaving a few grams from the weight of a laptop by making it out of an exotic metal. In watches and cameras the weight savings were equally pointless, and furthermore titanium looks dull in comparison to stainless steel. And it's very expensive. It was overshadowed in the 2000s by carbon fibre, but there are still titanium bicycle frames on the market if you have coin.

Titanium is roughly the same strength as steel but half as dense, so for the same strength it weighs less. It's also more bouncy, so apparently it rides better. On a subjective level I haven't noticed a difference but of course it's just the seatpost; the rest of the bike is still steel.

I bought my seatpost from eBay for around £60. It's noticeably lighter than the extended steel model, to the tune of around half a can of Coke. When installed in the bike I can't tell the difference, but I suppose it compensates for the slightly heavier weight of my removeable pedals, plus the lights and luggage block etc, so it's not entirely pointless. If nothing else it's a conversation-starter.

Brompton B75

I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or Superman, and today we're going to have a look at the Brompton B75, a relatively cheap folding bicycle from Brompton, of Greenford, way out there in Zone Four on the Central Line.

I say relatively cheap. It's £745, which isn't pocket change. The price has been steady since the B75 was launched in June 2019, and on a pragmatic level Bromptons depreciate gracefully, so as long as mine isn't stolen or crushed I imagine I'll be able to sell it on for a modest financial hit. It has to be said that £745 is quite low for a posh folding bicycle.

As I write these words the B75 has sold out, but I imagine the elves that work in Brompton's factory are being whipped to within an inch of their lives by their supervisors, so by the time you read this review I'm sure you'll be able to buy one. B75s are apparently assembled from a stockpile of older spare parts, so presumably it will have a limited life, but perhaps Brompton will replace it with a modified B75 that has modern parts. Who knows.

EDIT: A month later the B75 remains out of stock, and people have started flipping theirs on eBay for £900 because the Great British public is wary of public transport. Will Brompton ever make the B75 again, or will they come up with a completely new budget model? I learn from the internet that Brompton made a similar budget bicycle back in 2003, the C3, which also came without mudguards. Back then it sold for £380, but then again the average house price was only £120k and Freddos were 10p (they are now 25p), so that's in line with inflation. The government likes to say that inflation is under control because laptop computers and drones have crashed in price since 2003, but you can't base economic theories on relatively new and emergent technologies.

These two clamps hold it together.

This paragraph originally had a short dissertation on Queen's "Bicycle Race". Some bands responded to the punk revolution by stripping down their sound and singing about unemployment and urban decay, but Queen were above all that. Instead they released a compact mini-symphony about riding a bicycle, with a video that had dozens of naked women doing circuits around a racetrack. It was recorded at great cost in Nice and Montreux because that year they were tax exiles.

In his review of the song's parent album Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone famously described Queen as "the first truly fascist rock band". He was of the opinion that Queen were contemptuous of their audience, which may or may have been true, but in my opinion it doesn't matter. As long as the music is good who cares if a band likes you?

The B75 is available in a bluey-green colour that looks blue in the shade and green in the sunshine.

I think the problem is that Dave Marsh is American. He comes from a society where public figures are expected to pretend to be your great pal, even though they live in gated mansions with private security guards. Because America doesn't have a class system and everybody is equal.

At the National Technical Museum, Prague. This lady looks like she knows precisely what she has and could overtake you no problem.

That isn't the case in the UK. British artists are expected to hide away in an ivory tower. When they try to talk to the public it feels grating and insincere because they have nothing in common with us.

Hahaha, "nipple".

British actors look down their noses at the hoi polloi, and artists and writers only mingle with the working classes when they want to buy drugs or have rough sex. Even I am not immune to this. When I am not filling my uncircumcised foreskin with cocaine, or hanging out with Deliveroo drivers on Hampstead Heath I like to fantasise about being mean to you, dear reader. But my heart isn't in it. I just can't bring myself to dislike you, because you're rare and precious and you have exceptional taste.

I really do want to see you succeed, because there is room at the top and the view is fantastic. I realised at an early age that unless I elevated the mass of humanity to my level I would be eternally lonely, but I'm digressing here. Let's get back on topic. Enough of Queen. Enough of being sexually aroused by the smell of pee. Enough of that.

The B75 is a folding bicycle made by Brompton of London, England. The company only sells one pattern of bicycle, so the B75 is more or less the same as any other Brompton, but the specification is fixed. It has a three-speed hub gearbox, a single-post saddle, an older model of brake lever, no basket, no mudguards, no titanium, blue/green only. To paraphrase Syd Barrett it doesn't have a basket, although there is an optional luggage block, but it does have a bell that rings, and it looks good.

When they are spooked Bromptons fold down into a compact shape in the hope that predators won't see them.

Why did I buy a folding bicycle? So that I can carry it about the house, and also on the train, in the office etc. Why a Brompton? The factory is in London, so it's easy to visit; "buy once, cry once"; the bikes have a good reputation; parts are widely available; they hold their resale value.

Why a B75? Three reasons. The price was nice. The delivery quote was seven to ten working days, versus almost two months for a custom Brompton, and for the record it was delivered on the tenth working day. There is incidentally free delivery in the UK.

The deciding factor was that apart from the handlebars the B75 has the specification I wanted from a Brompton anyway, e.g. a three-speed gearbox and nothing else. I wanted the simplest, lightest Brompton that didn't use custom parts, so that if I decide to take it somewhere exotic there is at least a chance that parts might be available locally.

Bromptons are available with a bunch of different components. Ignoring smaller things such as the luggage blocks and mudguards (and expensive options such as titanium forks) the most substantial options are the gearbox and the handlebars. I wanted S-type sporty handlebars, which are low and straight; the B75 has M-type bars, which rise up in a U-shape, but I've got used to them. There are also H-type bars, which rise higher still, and P-type handlebars which look like a flattened O and can be ridden high or low. I can get used to the B75's handlebars.

The other major variation is the gearbox. Single-speed with a freewheel, two-speed, three-speed, or six-speed. My commute involves a bit of city driving, followed by a hill, followed by a straight, so I felt that a single-speed wouldn't be much fun. The two-speed also struck me as too limiting. Three speeds seems ideal.

The six-speed is apparently a combination of the two-speed gear unit with a three-speed hub, giving two sets of three gears, but I'm worried it would be just one more thing that might break. The B75 has a standard-ratio three-speed hub, but the pedal chainring has 44 teeth instead of 50, so it's slightly better at hill climbing. The B75 also has an extended 580mm seatpost as standard. I'm just under six feet tall and at maximum height the extended post suits me fine. I've since tried out a standard seatpost, which is 520mm, but it was torture; I couldn't stretch out my legs. If you're taller than six feet Brompton also sells a telescopic model that adds an extra 17.5cm. The B75 also comes with a mount for a pump, but no pump.

What's it like to ride? I have to admit that I've never ridden a Brompton before, or anything with a hub gearbox. The gearbox pleasantly surprised me. Unlike a Derailleur unit the B75's Sturmey-Archer hub doesn't have things hanging off it, and it doesn't make a loud clack when the gear changes. It's a lot easier to keep clean. It does however make a fairly loud tick-tick-tick in cruising gear, but that's apparently normal for hub gearboxes.

Can the B75 pick up women? It has a total carry weight of 110kg, so they would have to be very small.

The gear ratios have a limited top speed but I found that on the lower end even fairly steep inclines were do-able, with a bit of puffing. I would not have expected a bike with such tiny wheels to be any good on hills. According to my Garmin eTrex I cruise at 13.8mph on the flat, 18.8mph downhill. The low top speed isn't a problem given that the B75's suspension is fairly stiff, which means that unless the road is glassy-smooth riding at high speed isn't much fun. I found myself cycling around potholes and drain covers rather than cycling over them. I would not want to mount the kerb with a Brompton. The steering is frisky. Acceleration is excellent.

The folding mechanism is simple, once you learn the drill. You lock the saddle up, tilt the front wheel slightly to the left, turn the pedals so that the right pedal is to the rear, then lift it up. The back wheel tucks under the frame and it all fits together. It has a little pair of wheels on the suspension block for transport. One of Brompton's most popular options is a folding left pedal, and after carrying the folded bike I can see why; you have a choice between holding the bike close to you but having the left pedal dig into your body, or holding it away from you and spraining your arm.

Security? I'm sceptical that any kind of security will work, so I haven't bothered; the B75 never leaves my sight. It's too easy to carry off.

Any problems? At first it felt as if the seatpost was sinking into the frame, but after a week of commuting the sensation stopped, so it may well have been a delusion brought on by alcohol. The suspension is a rubbery white block that fits between the frame and the rear wheel, which means that when going over bumps it feels as if the bike is bending front-to-back instead of bouncing up-and-down, but again I got used to this.

At around 11kg it's too heavy to carry long distances, but of course you can just unfold it and wheel it around. I have only had mine for a month, so if it falls to bits in the near future I will update this article. EDIT: A month later it has not fallen to bits, although I did have to adjust the gear selection cable slightly because it had come loose. I couldn't select first gear.

Of note the bike comes packed in a big cardbox box and requires a little bit of assembly, essentially screwing in the left pedal and fitting the seat and bell. It comes with a spanner. The joints were pre-greased, and after setting up the bike it appeared to be in good shape so I took it for a ride; it didn't require any more tweaking. Brompton offers an initial three-month / 100 mile service, which is nice of them, so at some point I'll have to pop along to their store and have it looked at.

EDIT: The service went without a hitch, although the store was still under coronavirus lockdown so I had to book way in advance. The bike pictured above was on display in the engineering room, downstairs. It's number 18, part of the first batch of 400, handmade in presumably 1981.

It's interesting to compare it with modern Bromptons. The early clamps make sense from an engineering point of view - I imagine that keeping the frame together was one of the most significant worries early in the design - but they're very bulky. It appears that the rear luggage rack is integral. In common with all pre-2004 Bromptons it has a shorter wheelbase, so the bend in the frame is more pronounced. Beyond that the basic idea is much the same because the human body hasn't changed much since 1981. Albeit that people are larger now. But Bromptons can take a load of up to 110kg, so I have a wiggle factor.