Wheels extender

[CEBEP]

Any love for wheels extender for Brompton among members? It seems to improve stability greatly when front bag is loaded. There are many brands and I'm not sure which one would be the best one in terms of quality. I've seen several models from MiniMODs (V3?), Aceoffix, Litepro etc.

Anyone using them?

 

[rogerzilla]

Are these the ones for the rear rollers? A friend bought some but they didn't help. He wanted to be able to let the bars fall into their clip when folding, without the bike falling over, but it still can. I think he has too much weight on the bars.

 

[steveindenmark]

Yes they do help in keeping your bike upright and makes it easier to roll. I just picked a generic set off ebay and they work well.

 

[shingwell]

Generic ebay set here too, yes they do help (particularly now I have the extra weight of a motor in the front wheel), but I have to keep an eye on mine as occasionally the extended wheel starts to self-retract when wheeling, perhaps I am cornering too fast!

 

[CEBEP]

Are these the ones for the rear rollers?

Yep.

 

[mitchibob]

Yep.

View attachment 621694

I quite fancy those, but fear they might be additional rattle vector

 

[berlinonaut]

These thingies were invented by an Italian company named addingsolutions in about 2013 as their only product. There was a steel version and a titanium one. Relatively shortly after a Taiwan company named bikefun cloned the product and offered it for a cheaper price. Addingsolutions went out of business in about 2016. I bought the Taiwanese version from bikefun in 2016 after recognizing that the original was no longer available. At that time it costed around 100€ - same as the steel version of the original. It turned out to be not particularly useful - solved some problems but created new ones. Here is my writeup from back then: http://www.bromptonauten.de/phorum3/read.php?1,29861,29861#msg-29861

Today these extenders are available from countless sellers for cheap prices around the 20€ mark. These offerings do not exist for very long yet - maybe a year or so. For the cheaper price it may be worth a try as you don't loose much if it doesn't fit your needs, for the old price I would not recommend it. I finally did put mine on a Brompton equipped with one of these mini racks that were invented by H&H in about 2016 and are now sold by countless Chinese companies for cheap. The cloning industry is pretty active in China...
On this bike it works and helps, but would not be really necessary. I wouldn't have bought it for that bike but as I had the thingy lying around collecting dust for years already....

I would not recommend it for a Brompton w/o a rack and see no necessity on a Brompton with a rack. In the end it makes folding more complex, rises the weight, creates new problems and does not really solve an existing one in most cases.

No idea about the quality of the clones - I would suspect their quality is probably as dubious as their morale...

 

[u_i]

Well, a weakness of the Brompton's rear triangle are the ears onto which the roller wheels mount. When the folded bike is rolled frequently, these ears gradually shear off, see below. One can be proactive and strengthen the mount for the rollers by brazing. After overbuilding the area, one can afford putting longer bolts as axles for the roller wheels, expanding the stability of the folded bike and eliminating the need for the wheel extender.

 

[Schwinnsta]

Extending the wheel from the frame exacerbates the problem u_i shows by shifting more weight to the side that frame support. Since I load my folding basket in shopping cart mode, I have concerns for overloading these. My approach has been to extend the right easy wheel on the rack. Mine does not retract back, but it extends out shy of the non-folding pedal so not a problem for the fold.

 

[berlinonaut]

My approach has been to extend the right easy wheel on the rack.

I think this is the more clever approach. If you watch which direction is lacking support and thus makes the Brompton tip over it is exactly the area that you extended.
The problem with cloners is that they often clone w/o understanding - so they often cut corners and if then someone clones from a clone he cuts corners again and so on until there is no use left in the product at all in the worst case. The idea behind the original Eazy Going (as it was called) from adding solutions was to make the (unloaded) L-Brompton rollable more easily on cobbled pedestrian areas like you find them a lot in Italy. So a somewhat different value proposition than most people intend today when thinking about the product...

 

[berlinonaut]

Btw: Loro in Japan offered a rear carrier that had this in mind already years ago. Here a photo from their blog from 2015 or earlier, no longer there today, with a comparison of their carrier with the original and the one from Nitto that is an enhanced version of the original.

 

[u_i]

Below is my 'extension' take. I was considering the Loro rack myself, but the price was steep and their rack only went part of the way in the problems I wanted to solve. In any case their blog links are here and here.

 

[CEBEP]

Donno how useful it is as a rack, but this H&H design looks to have same idea with one wheel slightly extended.

 

[u_i]

Donno how useful it is as a rack, but this H&H design looks to have same idea with one wheel slightly extended.

Given the rack's shape it is going to wobble in transverse directions.

 

[CEBEP]

Below is my 'extension' take. I was considering the Loro rack myself, but the price was steep and their rack only went part of the way in the problems I wanted to solve. In any case their blog links are here and here.

They have pretty interesting blog actually.
Lot's of interesting stuff. Thanks.