The answer really depends upon how you set the bike up and how you ride it. The best part of Bickertons is their adaptability, and it is strange that so many people set them up as a sort of chopper-style monster, which will always be a practical headache and wobble all over the place. You can, however, set them up exactly as a racing or touring bike ought to be, respecting the optimum positions of Handlebars, cranks and saddle.
You have to be aware of how close pedals are to the ground when cornering, and you have to accept that you must never get out of the saddle – but with decent gearing you should never have to anyway.
I have ridden my own somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand miles over much of the world, in all weathers, and on all sorts of roads and dirt tracks, carrying everything I needed for self-sufficiency. For long-distance travelling when you want to use other forms of transport from time to to time [buses, trains, planes, cars, boats etc] there is nothing to equal them, even though some pretenders are more rigid and a more efficient ride.
For short every day commutes though, a stronger case could probably be made for the Brompton as a more easily folded item, and sacrificing light weight for more robustness in urban conditions.
