More Stickers and paint

When I first posted about adding some stickers to protect my frame from rubbing a couple of people helpfully posted comments about clear stickers.

During the process of changing my handlebars the places where the cables rubbed on the frame changed so I took another look at the clear stickers and decided to give them a go as I thought they would look better than the checkerboard pattern on my previous stickers.

The clear stickers are a bit more expensive than the others but you do seem to get a lot of them, or rather you get some fairly large bits that can be cut up into a lot of smaller bits. I went for a set meant to cover large parts of a full size mountain bike and I hardly made a dent in it.

After a while most of the clear stickers are still in very good condition. Below you can see the front fork. The lighter patch is the repainted area underneath the sticker. Note that normally the sticker is much less visible than this, here it was photographed in strong side sunlight.

The area where the front fork hooks onto the rear triangle when folding the bike seems to be an area of particularly strong rubbing. When I checked there the double layer of clear sticker I had put there had been completely rubbed through not just the stickers but the paint too.

So here I've decided to keep using the checkerboard stickers as they are much thicker and also seem to be tougher; so far it's holding up well.

Whilst I was checking the frame over I noticed quite a few more chips in the paintwork, especially on the side and top of one of the rear triangle tubes which I'm quite surprised about as I have no idea how they would have got there:

I also found another area of cable wear:

I guess the moral of this is that I'm going to have to check the frame over every now and again for chips and cable wear and keep some stickers and paint on hand.

Ouch

Having cycled at least part of the way to work on and off for the last 10 years I've been lucky not to have had any trouble with cars aside from a couple of idiots that thought it was fun to shout as they went past. However, yesterday I was actually hit by a car for the first time. Fortunately both myself and my bike somehow came out of things unscathed. This is a somewhat self-indulgent post, but I feel like I need to write this down even though the only lasting effect was a bruised buttock :).

On my route home there is a 3 exit roundabout at the top of a hill. I was turning right when I noticed a blue BMW coming towards the roundabout in the lane to turn left - so he was going to follow me off my exit. There was a white car in the other lane that had stopped and was waiting for me to trundle past (I'm pretty tired by the time I get to the top of the hill). As the BMW approached my thought process was something like:

• "He's going a bit fast, typical aggressive BMW driver I guess, he'll brake hard at the roundabout"
• "Actually he's going to have trouble stopping at the line, I'll leave him a bit of extra space just in case"
• "He's is going to stop right?"
• "Oh dear (actually something a bit stronger than that), he's going to hit me"
• "I wonder how much this is going to hurt"

At this point I think I turned even further away from the car, but at the speed I was going I don't think it made much difference (the earlier turn to give him space definitely helped though). Fortunately it was a glancing blow as he was turning left and I think he hit the bike first, before my bum bounced off the right hand side of his bonnet/wing. I don't remember the time I was in the air, the next thing I remember is seeing my bike land further from the car than I did and standing in the road shouting at the driver of the car (I must have turned around in between but don't remember it).

The bike somehow went out cleanly from underneath me even with the PowerGrips on my pedals, I guess the low frame of a Brompton helped here, and I managed to stay on my feet after bouncing off the car, otherwise things would have been much more unpleasant.

To his credit the driver did stop, helped me check over my bike and put the chain back on (he'll need to clean his stearing wheel after driving home with bike chain grease on his hands!). Somehow the bike seems to have escaped totally unharmed save for the chain coming off, some bits of road on the ends of the rear axle and a small slight scuff to one side of my t-bag. Given that both ends of the rear axle look to have scraped up a bit of road the best I can come up with is that the bike initially went down on its left and skidded away briefly on its tyres and rear axle bolt before flipping over and landing on its right (which fits with my general impression of the bike bouncing as it went away from me).

The driver said that he simply hadn't seen me and, as he was heading directly into a setting sun (and very few people try to deliberately hit cyclists), I believe him. He was genuinely shocked at what he'd done and hopefully will be a bit more careful in the future - the white car stopping in the other lane ought to have been a big clue even if he hadn't seen me.

As far as I'm concerned I've learnt four things:

• If a car looks like it hasn't seen you, even in broad daylight with an orange bike, then there is a good chance that it really hasn't.
• I should consider wearing my day-glo yellow cycling jacket even when it's not cold.
• Bromptons are tougher than they look.
• I should have got his name, address, and/or number plate (and ideally that of one of the witnesses). A camera phone would work well here. Even though I think my initial assessment of everything being fine was correct, I was slightly in shock and could easily have missed something. Without these details I'd have no way of trying to get any help paying for any damage I discovered later on.

More Handlebars

A while ago I changed my handlebars with some success, but I wanted to see if I could do better. The main issue with the new handlebars was that they were a bit too low which made the riding position less than ideal.

So I looked around until I found some mountain bike handlebars with 65mm of rise (compared to 30mm on the other set) that were still 25.4mm wide at the clamping point. A handy hint if you're looking for bars like this is that they are often called jump bars (I believe because they flex a bit on landing). Anyway the ones I went with are the "Full Bore" model made by a company called Funn and came from Chain Reaction Cycles.

Unlike the previous bars, the Funn ones widen out well before the clamping point, in fact they are virtually 25.4mm in diameter even at the curves. This makes them very difficult to get through the clamp. Even after spreading out the clamp a bit with a screwdriver wrapped in a cloth I still managed to scratch a fair bit of paint off the handlebars. Fortunately some Brompton black gloss paint tidied it up fairly well.

The Funn bars are also even wider than the XLC ones so I decided to cut them down a bit. I did it a little at a time an eventually took off about 5cm from each end. Note that this was the most I could take off and still fit my brake levers and grips on, and that my grips were already cut down a bit from when they were on the original Brompton bars. So if you have a larger hands you'll probably want to take a bit less off.

I also cut down my brake and hub gear cables by about 5cm to get them to sit a bit better in their new positions. In truth they could do with being cut down a little more, but they're OK as they are and I haven't had the time or motivation to tidy them up any further.

With these adjustments made the Funn bars are a bit more comfortable than the XLC bars, and I think comfortable enough to live with - I've been using them for about 6 months now. I haven't noticed my knees hitting my stomach since changing over either. The other improvement is in the clearance of the brake levers and cables over the front luggage which is now enough to not worry me.

The extra rise in the bars does make them a tiny bit more flexible, but not enough to be annoying (unlike the original un-braced Brompton bars)

Like the XLC bars I can have the bar ends set up in a comfortable position without interfering with the fold.

Overall I'm happy with this set up and will stick with it for the forseeable future, however I have to wonder if I'd have been better off just getting an S-type bike and the smaller luggage to begin with. The larger T-bag is nice to have and the extra capacity has been useful at times, but most of the time I'm sure I could have made do with the smaller S bag. Mind you, if I'd done that I wouldn't have had half as much to write about!

Tyre Update

I've been using Schwalbe Marathon Pluses for a few months now (switching from the original Kojaks), so I thought it was time for an update.

Since moving house there isn't anywhere near as much broken glass around on my commute, so it may not be a an entirely fair comparison, but nonetheless I've been puncture free since switching tyres.

The Marathon Pluses do seem to have very slightly more rolling resistance than the Kojaks. I'm not sure if that is due to the make-up of the tyre or just that they can't be inflated to as high a pressure as the Kojaks.

However, given that I cycle to get to work and back, and to get some exercise, the slight increase in pedalling effort is more than made up for by the extra reliability.

Broken Mudguard

I managed to break the rear mudguard on my Brompton recently. I don't think I put the bike down any harder than I normally do (it was parked), so my best guess is that the recent extra cold weather had made the plastic more brittle than usual (I keep the bike in an unheated garage). I managed to tape it up for a few days, but then the remaining bits of plastic snapped and I was left with what you can see below.

This rapidly got annoying, as whenever the bike was folded the little remaining bit of mudguard got pushed round onto the wheel so I had to move it back every time I unfolded the bike.

Fortunately a replacement mudguard doesn't break the bank at £11.50. I've also scraped the metal screws attaching the mudguard to the remaining wire a fair bit, so I ordered a replacement plate and screws for an extra £3.50 (both including free shipping from Simpson Cycles).

As you can see below, the mudguard comes with instructions for replacing it.

Actually replacing the mudguard is fairly simple if you've taken the wheel off before. First you need to remove the back wheel, which involves a few steps. Brompton have a handy video explaining it, although I prefer to deflate the tyre to get it past the brake blocks - they take me a while to get adjusted correctly again if I undo the cable as they suggest.

Then you just need to undo the allen bolts holding the mudguard to the wires and the nut holding the rear brake and mudguard onto the frame. The nut is a little tricky to get at so you need to be patient and undo it 1/6th of a turn at a time until you can turn it by hand. Once it's off you just need to remove the washers and rear light making careful note of the order, pull out the bolt, take off one last washer, and then finally the mudguard:

Fitting the new mudguard is simply a matter of reversing the process and re-fitting (and in my case re-inflating) the wheel.

Bye Bye Baldy

When I was originally ordering my Brompton and looking through the myriad options, the one I thought was simplest was the choice of tyres. The Schawalbe Kojaks were high pressure - so low rolling resistance, have a "Raceguard" strip, and are lighter than the alternatives. A no-brainer, or so I thought.

Now, nearly a year later, I'm not so sure. On my full size bike I have some Kevlar lined tires and they have lasted for years with only two punctures. I was hoping that the "Raceguard" part of the Kojaks would work similarly effectively. Unfortunately it simply doesn't - I've had around 7 punctures in under a year, cycling perhaps 3 miles per day (and I wasn't cycling for a couple of those months) which is too many for me. Below you can see some of the chunks gouged out of my rear tyre by bits of glass and sharp stones.

Having looked around a bit, it seemed that the Schwalbe Marathon Plus is the way to go for reliability, so I ordered a pair of those. I saw a number people online complaining that they were very difficult to fit. Fortunately during my research I also found a video that explained how to fit them fairly easily. The trick is to squeeze the sides of the tyre inwards so that you can push them into the well in the middle of the wheel, this then gives you enough slack to get the last bit of tyre over the rim without needing any tyre levers.

I'll update this blog in a few months with details of any punctures or any other issues with the new tyres.

Pedal Update

A few months ago I wrote about how my pedals had detached themselves a couple of times. I thought it was only fair to post an update to say that since then they have behaved perfectly. I also haven't removed them deliberately in that time which may or may not be related.

However, having now started my new commute, I've come to the conclusion that I would have been better off just getting some rather simpler and cheaper non-detachable pedals and using a pedal spanner if I ever had to remove them.

Handlebars

As I mentioned before, I now have some fairly comfortable bar ends on my Brompton, but they were unfortunately set at a less than ideal angle, to keep them (barely) clear of the ground when the bike was folded.

Looking at the variables open to me it seemed like the simplest and cheapest to try was a new set of handlebars. Whilst it seems that you can spend upwards of £100 on handlebars(!) for this experiment I went with a rather more modest set at a grand cost of £11.81 including shipping from Amazon.

The most important thing to look for when buying new handlebars for a Brompton is to ensure that they are 25.4mm (1 inch) in diameter at the clamping point. Some mountain bike handlebars are rather wider. The set that I got are shaped so that the grips are about 3cm above the clamp. I hoped that this would help to stop the riding position from being too severe and also provide some clearance for my luggage (a T bag).

Fitting the new bars was fairly straightforward it was just a case of:
- Removing everything from the old handlebars, noting the routing of the cables. (Also note that if you still have the original Brompton grips you almost certainly won't be able to get them off without ruining them so you'll need something to replace them with).
- in my case undoing the handle bar brace on one side.
- loosening the handlebar clamp.
- sliding out the old bars and sliding in the new ones.
- reversing the other steps above, remembering to route the cables correctly.

The new handlebars went in fairly easily as they only bulge out at the clamping point (the grip ends are at the normal 22.2mm diameter) which meant that the curves in the bar went through the clamp without much trouble.

With everything fitted I found that I could easily position the bar ends at the angle I wanted and keep them clear of the ground when the bike was folded.

However, there are a couple of other clearances you need to worry about when changing the handlebars:
- The clearance between the brake levers and any luggage you may have
- The clearance between the cables to the rear of the bike and the front cog

With these handlebars the brake levers are a little close to my T-bag for my liking, I wouldn't be able to pack it too full. The brake and gear cables, whilst closer to the front cog, seem to be OK.

In use the first thing I noticed was that the riding position felt very strange compared to before. My arms felt quite widely spread, the steering felt a bit less lively, and my knees were getting rather close to my stomach when peddling.

The first two of these changes are down to the fact that the new handlebars are rather wider than the standard m-type handlebars and I got used them fairly quickly. The third change was down to the new handlebars obviously being much lower. I've never owned a proper racing bike but looking at picture it seems that they often have their handlebars down below the height of the saddle so it may just be my overly large stomach getting in the way! (Or it may be that having a longer distance between the saddle and handlebars on a full size bike counteracts this issue somewhat).

After a couple of rides I also noticed that the saddle feels rather less comfortable than before, I'm not sure whether this is down to the change in riding position or just the fact that I haven't ridden a bike for a few months. I may try tipping the saddle forwards a little to see if that's any more comfortable.

Overall I'd say that these handlebars are a qualified success. They allow me a good bar end position but are a bit uncomfortable at the moment - I'd not go on a long ride without a few trial runs first to see if I could get comfortable in the new position.

Given my findings I think I'll try to find another set of handlebars with a bit more rise in them to see whether I can get a better compromise between bar ends and overall comfort.

Brompton Ergon GR2 grips and bar ends

Sometime ago I mentioned that I was going to try some longer bar-ends on my Brompton. The main reason for the change was that I'd cut my first set of Ergon grips to match the original brake levers and then promptly changed the brake levers for different ones.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to try some slightly longer bar-ends as the first ones I tried were a little short. This time around I went for the latest Ergon GR2 grips (the older 2010 version are a little shorter and seem to be made of metal). I thought that if the new ones were too long to fold I'd still be able to use the new grips with the old bar-ends. That turned out to be wrong as the two grips use completely different systems for attaching the bar-ends to the grips as you can see below (note that the GR2 grip on the right is upside down in this picture).

 
Fortunately, the new bar-ends turned out to fold just fine.

The other change I made was to go for the smaller size grips. I found some information on the internet, supposedly from Ergon, that said that the only difference between the grip sizes was the circumference of the grip. Comparing the two grips above you can see that actually the pad area is also a little bit smaller on the smaller grips (although I guess the difference could be down to the different models, but that seems unlikely).

As before I went for the normal length grips knowing that I'd have to cut them down a little. As you can see below, with the new brake levers the grips are only slightly too long.

Unfortunately, due to the length of the bar-ends they need to be pretty much horizontal when unfolded so that they stay off the ground when the bike is folded, and even then one still gets a little scratched. I would prefer to be able to angle them slightly upwards for riding.

I do prefer these longer GR2 bar-ends to the shorter GC2 ones; the extra length makes a difference and helps you to get a decent grip. The rubbery patches on the bar-ends also make them feel a bit more comfortable and less slippy. Whilst overall they are not quite as good to use as the normal bar-ends on my full size bike, they are still pretty good. For anyone looking to get some bar-ends I'd definitely recommend these over the shorter GC2s.

Not so superior after all?

I've now had my detachable pedals detach themselves twice. The first time was immediately after I'd been demonstrating how the pedals worked to some friends so I put it down to user error re-attaching them. However, the second time occurred after a few weeks of riding without detaching the pedals.

Both times the pedal came off as I stopped once whilst I was still moving and once just after I'd got off the bike. As I said before I never had trouble with the pedals on my Dahon, and coupled with when they came off I think it may be the twisting to get out of my Power Grips that does it.

Of course that shouldn't be enough as you have to twist the collar as well as push it in, but close inspection reveals that the twisting spring only pushes the collar a few millimetres away from the crucial point, you can twist it a full 90 degrees away manually though. Any rubbing between the shoe and the collar during forward pedalling should actually help to secure the pedals, so I guess that I must have back-pedalled and then twisted my foot out to cause the pedal to detach.

At the very least I'm to have to be a bit more careful from now on. I am even considering sending the pedals back and getting some non "superior" ones that will be a bit more of a hassle to take off, but won't come off by accident (due to the plastic locking ring). I'll wait and see what my new commute is like and how often I'll need to take the pedal off.

Brompton Stickers and Paint

As I mentioned in my rather long and rambling initial thoughts, the orange paint on my Brompton doesn't seem to be very hard wearing. Looking over the bike recently I noticed that the front brake cable had already managed to rub through the paint on the fork and was getting close to doing the same on the main frame tube.

Coupled with the paint chips I reported on initially I decided it was time to get some touch up paint and see what it could do. So I bought some matt Brompton paint from SJS cycles. As the cable rubbing was only going to get worse with time I also bought some protective stickers at the same time (I found it surprisingly hard to find bicycle stickers that weren't either branded or reflective).

Before painting I cleaned the chipped and worn areas with a little white spirits. Applying the paint was fairly easy, there is a small brush in the lid (like a nail varnish brush). The only thing to be careful is to wipe the excess paint off the brush before starting.

The paint dries fairly quickly, and, once dried, is a fairly good colour match (at least on my frame) but not identical. You can see the colour difference here, along with the fact that it's doing a better (but not perfect) job of standing up to the pressure on the inside of the joint.

Once the paint was dry I applied protective stickers wherever there were signs of rubbing. As some areas only had light marks so I didn't re-paint them but still stickered them. The main areas were where the cables touch the frame and forks and where the front wheel hooks over the rear triangle when folding.

With my new brake levers there were also signs of wear where the cables rub on the other side of the front fork when the handlebars are folded. Finally I stuck one sticker under the chain to protect the frame from all the grease that comes off there.

I'm fairly pleased with the results. The stickers are fairly thick and so should provide good protection - as long as they stay put. So far one has slipped out of position but I do at least have plenty of spares in the original pack.

Brompton Power Grips

In my previous post on pedals I mentioned that I also bought some Power Grips to go with them. I use
SPD shoes and pedals on my full size bike and I really like the way they secure my feet on the pedals. So I wanted something similar for my Brompton but without the need to wear special shoes. Before moving on to SPDs I had used toe clips which worked reasonably well so I started searching for toe clips suitable use on a Brompton. Whilst searching I ran across a few people that were recommending Power Grips as a superior alternative so I decided to give them a go.



The first thing you notice about Power Grips is the price, they're not exactly cheap for what they are at around £22, plus another £8 for reflectors if you want to be legal in the UK after dark. However, as far as I'm aware they're a fairly new idea and it seems reasonable to reward innovation.

Fitting them to my pedals was pretty straightforward just requiring a 3mm allan key and an 8mm spanner (you'll need a philips head screw driver too if you're not fitting reflectors). If you are fitting reflectors read both sets of instructions before starting as the reflectors replace a good proportion of the original fixings. You'll just have to undo your handiwork if you fit the grips first and then look at the reflectors.

The standard fittings look solid and are entirely metal, however when fitting the reflectors it looks like metal bolts are held in place by the plastic of the reflector. So far I've not had any trouble, but this system at least looks a bit less strong than the normal fittings so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

The main downside with Power Grips is that take a bit of setting up to match your shoes, and you then can't use them properly with any other shoes (unless they happen to have the same external circumference) without readjusting them. You can of course still ride in other shoes, they just won't be gripped as well. This isn't a  problem for me as I almost always wear the same shoes but could be an issue for some.

Some people have also not liked the fact that you have apply a twisting force to tighten the grips as it has hurt their knees. So far this hasn't been a problem for me - perhaps because I have quite grippy soles on my shoes. This means that once I've twisted them in they tend to stay put on their own.

I've been using the Power Grips for a few weeks now and I am happy with them. They hold my feet better than toe clips without straps, and don't require the constant faffing of toe clips with straps. They are also a bit easier to get your foot out of in an emergency. I had an episode early on when I was still getting used to having my feet strapped in to my Brompton. I did the usual thing of stopping before remembering to get my foot out of the strap but still managed to get my foot out in time to catch myself. I'm fairly sure that with proper toe clips I wouldn't have been quick enough.

Given the choice I still prefer my SPD shoes though, so if I ever went on a really long ride I'd look into getting some removable SPD pedals and just replace my current pedals for that trip.

Brompton Pedals

The Brompton folding pedal is very cleverly designed but the plastic section in the middle doesn't seem to be strong enough to cope with hard pedaling and creaks a bit when put under stress. Usually flipping the pedal the other way up works (probably because it transfers the stresses to the metal sections of the pedal) but not always for some reason.

So, I decided I wanted something a bit sturdier and something that would also allow me to attach toe clips later on. Whilst you can find people online that have attached toeclips and similar things to their Brompton pedals they all seem to involve drilling extra holes, and I'd still have the pedal creaking to contend with.

My Dahon had removable MKS pedals, and as it turns out MKS seem to be the main player when it comes to detachable pedals. Some googling later I was suitably inspired by this post describing not just a nice set of MKS pedals but also how to fit Power Grips to those pedals (my Power Grips will have to wait for a separate post).

One thing I wasn't keen on with the Dahon's pedals was the little plastic clips that you were supposed to use to lock the pedals in place. They were fiddly to remove and I managed to lose one of them. Personally I never had a problem cycling without the locking ring, but it still niggled (you can find stories of people accidentally detaching their pedals whilst cycling). So I was particularly happy with the added bonus of the MKS Esprit EZY Superior pedals. Namely the "superior" attachment system that does away with the plastic locking ring in favour of requiring the locking collar to be rotated as well as pushed.

Removing the existing pedals isn't exactly straightforward. The righthand one can be removed easily enough with a normal 15mm pedal spanner. However the folding pedal needs a 24mm box spanner to get it off.

Once removed the Brompton cranks show an interesting asymmetry. The righthand crank has the usual indentation for a pedal washer (not fitted with the Brompton pedal, but shown below with both MKS washers fitted).

However the lefthand crank is completely smooth.

The folding pedal instead has a very large washer.

It seems that the indentation in the righthand crank is little narrow for the MKS pedal so the pedal started to bite into the crank before the washer took the load. So, I ended up using both MKS supplied washers on the righthand pedal. On the lefthand pedal I used a single pedal washer I ordered from eBay.

The new pedals are much sturdier, although a bit less convenient to fold. Personally it's a trade-off I'm more than happy with.

Brompton brake levers

As I mentioned in my initial thoughts the biggest disappointment with my Brompton is the performance of the brakes. The cable oilers I fitted helped to some degree but I decided to try some different brake levers too.

I bought a pair of Shimano R550 levers in black. At £15 for a pair they are only about £5 more expensive than a replacement pair of Brompton levers but they are much more solidly made (and no doubt a bit heavier for it too). There are other levers around, but the important thing to check is that they are suitable for calliper brakes rather than V brakes.

These levers are much narrower where they attach to the handlebar than the Brompton levers. This means that if you use Ergon grips they need to be cut much less than with the standard lever (although they do need to be cut all the way around).

At first I found the levers a bit hard to use, but I realised that this was because I'd positioned them similarly to the old levers and they were facing almost straight down making them hard to reach. I adjusted the handlebars back to about vertical (when unfolded) which allowed me to position the levers at close to 45 degrees and still fold the bike. In this position they are much more usable and importantly feel much more positive than the original levers.