Can a folding bike climb?

[rogerzilla]

50mph? Me too! Coombe Hill near High Wycombe.

 

[u_i]

We've just bought a factory that's 50km from Monti Zoncolan, i'll need to be there every few months or so... my Brompton often travels with me in the back of the car, guess what's on my 2022 challenge list my legs and back are already complaining

Can't see me making it up but i'll give it my best shot the descent should be fun on 16" Kojaks

At my 1 month/year work location, I start at 1.37m of gear development to exit to the street on my Brompton and then halfway I need to switch to 1.17m. To be honest, on side streets there (continental rift) such gear requirements are relatively common. Obviously, I needed to change the gearing, compared to stock, to cope with the conditions.

 

[TheDoctor]

I'm not posting the photo of my Brommie up Mont Ventoux again

 

[tds101]

I'll wager that if that was a 6 speed Brommie the outcome would have been a bit better.

 

[Jon George]

I know that Suffolk is generally considered flat, but shortly after getting my T 2-speed, I had a go at the two steepest roads I know nearby (Devonshire Road in Ipswich - handrails for pedestrians - and Bent Hill in Felixstowe - steps for pedestrians) as an experiment and managed both at, what I thought, was quite a good speed.
On the flat, I have also overtaken other riders on their road bikes. Which has surprised them.
And, as I have recently mentioned elsewhere on this forum recently, I am 63.
It's a fun bike to ride!

 

[steveindenmark]

Yes my Brompton can climb. But not in the same class as any of my other bikes. But that is possibly because my mindset is different when I get on the Brompton. I always ride it at a leisurely pace because it is my leisure bike. I think I will take it to a couple of hills and give it a thrash.

 

[Kell]

My Brompton can climb.

I, on the other hand can not.

Of course it wasn’t a fair comparison to stick him on a (what I thought was a one speed) bike with far fewer gears.

We all have a cadence that’s comfortable, and even on a six speed where the difference between gears is something like 15-18rpm, it’s always going to be hard.

Plus, without any form of higher gear then he was clearly going to struggle when it got flatter.

I don’t think it’s true to say it’s pointless. They did, after all, point out that he was significantly quicker on the Brompton than on a very cheap road bike.

But it certainly wasn’t a fair test.

Unfortunately, I tend to agree that a few years ago GCN was a great channel, since it’s moved to a PPV channel any ‘free’ content is nowhere near as good as it was. And I’m not THAT much into them that I’d pay to watch them so can’t compare what it’s like.

 

[Pale Rider]

My Brompton can climb.

I, on the other hand can not.

Of course it wasn’t a fair comparison to stick him on a (what I thought was a one speed) bike with far fewer gears.

We all have a cadence that’s comfortable, and even on a six speed where the difference between gears is something like 15-18rpm, it’s always going to be hard.

Plus, without any form of higher gear then he was clearly going to struggle when it got flatter.

I don’t think it’s true to say it’s pointless. They did, after all, point out that he was significantly quicker on the Brompton than on a very cheap road bike.

But it certainly wasn’t a fair test.

Unfortunately, I tend to agree that a few years ago GCN was a great channel, since it’s moved to a PPV channel any ‘free’ content is nowhere near as good as it was. And I’m not THAT much into them that I’d pay to watch them so can’t compare what it’s like.

There's a new hour long vid on Brompton on GCN+.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Unfortunately, I tend to agree that a few years ago GCN was a great channel, since it’s moved to a PPV channel any ‘free’ content is nowhere near as good as it was. And I’m not THAT much into them that I’d pay to watch them so can’t compare what it’s like.

There's a new hour long vid on Brompton on GCN+.

I pay for GCN+ for the racing coverage. The magazine type films (like the Brompton documentary) are generally OK, mildly diverting, but not in themselves worth paying for.

I do think the quality of the free GCN stuff on youtube (racing news apart) is rather patchy. Scripted jokes, a clunky formula, struggling to come up with new ideas for "something vs something else". There is the occasional genuinely interesting or funny one. I'm tempted to say it was better a few years ago but if I went back and watched some old ones I'd probably find it wasn't.

The hour long Brompton documentary was interesting, but if you asked me for an interesting fact that I learned from it (I watched it a couple of weeks ago) I'd be hard pressed to answer. The "can a Brompton climb" one was kind of typical. They used a 2 speed because that's what they had to hand, which is fair enough. But they could at least have talked a bit about the fact that other gearing options exist, especially as the gearing was the critical factor (not bike weight or geometry or wheel size or anything like that). Instead they concentrated on the "ha ha Ollie got dropped" aspect, which is wearing a bit thin.

 

[Kell]

I pay for GCN+ for the racing coverage. The magazine type films (like the Brompton documentary) are generally OK, mildly diverting, but not in themselves worth paying for.

I do think the quality of the free GCN stuff on youtube (racing news apart) is rather patchy. Scripted jokes, a clunky formula, struggling to come up with new ideas for "something vs something else". There is the occasional genuinely interesting or funny one. I'm tempted to say it was better a few years ago but if I went back and watched some old ones I'd probably find it wasn't.

The hour long Brompton documentary was interesting, but if you asked me for an interesting fact that I learned from it (I watched it a couple of weeks ago) I'd be hard pressed to answer. The "can a Brompton climb" one was kind of typical. They used a 2 speed because that's what they had to hand, which is fair enough. But they could at least have talked a bit about the fact that other gearing options exist, especially as the gearing was the critical factor (not bike weight or geometry or wheel size or anything like that). Instead they concentrated on the "ha ha Ollie got dropped" aspect, which is wearing a bit thin.

It would be interesting to see why they felt like the very cheap road bike was slower than the 2-speed Brompton though. Presumably that had a better spread of gears, so then things like weight and rider position must have come into it then...

 

[Dogtrousers]

It would be interesting to see why they felt like the very cheap road bike was slower than the 2-speed Brompton though. Presumably that had a better spread of gears, so then things like weight and rider position must have come into it then...

I think they had a top of the range road bike up against the Brompton didn't they?

Just that they had a Andrew Feather powering the B and Oliver Wossname powering the fancy road bike.

 

[Kell]

I think they had a top of the range road bike up against the Brompton didn't they?

Just that they had a Andrew Feather powering the B and Oliver Wossname powering the fancy road bike.

Sorry - crossed wires.

In the Brompton test, they mentioned that last time they put Andrew Feather on something to go up Cheddar Gorge, it was the cheapest road bike they could find on Amazon. In the summation of the Brompton one, they say he (Andrew) was slower on the cheapo road bike than on the two-speed Brompton.

ETA: Ollie mentions it here (it should start playing at the right timecode, but if not it's about 6:00 minutes):

View: https://youtu.be/CCAwg9OMa84?t=358

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The hour long Brompton documentary is of me riding on up Cheddar Gorge with no cuts in footage.

 

[Kell]

And this was him on the Eurobike:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoFWEvvi9VM

 

[DRM]

It would be interesting to see why they felt like the very cheap road bike was slower than the 2-speed Brompton though. Presumably that had a better spread of gears, so then things like weight and rider position must have come into it then...

Because it was a hideous BSO from Amazon, that was far, far worse than a Halfords Apollo