Folders! Foldable bicycles; love or hate? do you own/use one? Minivelos and demontables added

Guinessisgoodforyou said:
They do fold small, proprietary not great quality parts. Short sighted narrow rear end. I think you can't buy just rims now, Brompton will only supply a complete wheel. My mate has two and he told me this, I haven't checked.
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You definitely can buy rims, maybe not Brompton branded ones but Sun cr18 are available and are better made and look nicer than Brompton ones. There are tubeless and carbon options too.

The rear spacing is fine until you want to add disc brakes or hubs with more than 3 speeds inside and at that point you're off at quite a tangent to what Brompton designed the bike to do and (in my opinion) what it does best.

I had a 20" disc compatible fork and rear triangle for one of mine but decided against using it as it would have increased the folded size quite a bit.

It's once you start modding bits of them that you realise how much design work has gone into making them fold up so small. Small changes to one part virtually always have a knock on effect when you go to fold it up and that part is trying to nestle amongst 5 others.

The cost of them is a bit mental. New and used. I got very lucky with my first one and got it for a decent price, probably because its a fairly old model. My other one came to me completely stripped apart and with parts like the seatclamp and brake bridge having been debrazed. The main investment in that one was my own time (until I had to send it away to get all the pivots put back together).
 
klunkrider said:
You definitely can buy rims, maybe not Brompton branded ones but Sun cr18 are available and are better made and look nicer than Brompton ones. There are tubeless and carbon options too.

The rear spacing is fine until you want to add disc brakes or hubs with more than 3 speeds inside and at that point you're off at quite a tangent to what Brompton designed the bike to do and (in my opinion) what it does best.

I had a 20" disc compatible fork and rear triangle for one of mine but decided against using it as it would have increased the folded size quite a bit.

It's once you start modding bits of them that you realise how much design work has gone into making them fold up so small. Small changes to one part virtually always have a knock on effect when you go to fold it up and that part is trying to nestle amongst 5 others.

The cost of them is a bit mental. New and used. I got very lucky with my first one and got it for a decent price, probably because its a fairly old model. My other one came to me completely stripped apart and with parts like the seatclamp and brake bridge having been debrazed. The main investment in that one was my own time (until I had to send it away to get all the pivots put back together).
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Good to know about the rims, I did say I hadn't checked.
I stand by what I said re-overpriced, poor quality propitiatory parts and a narrow rear end, discs don't interest me. 130mm is standard and an Alfine 8 or 11 is better than the s**t they sell. It is only my opinion though. They fold small.
 
Guinessisgoodforyou said:
Good to know about the rims, I did say I hadn't checked.
I stand by what I said re-overpriced, poor quality propitiatory parts and a narrow rear end, discs don't interest me. 130mm is standard and an Alfine 8 or 11 is better than the s**t they sell. It is only my opinion though. They fold small.
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Alfine 11 can get in the sea and my experience of a recent 8 speed hubs was poor too. I’ve had Alfine and Nexus eights in the past and they’ve been really amazing, picked up second hand on eBay, given little to no maintenance and lasted years but last year I bought a brand new Cube with a Nexus 8 and within 6 months it had started skipping to the point of being unusable.

The Brompton geared hubs are Sturmeys and while Sturmey’s rep may be suffering due to the abysmal 5 speed, their 3 speed hubs are (imo) unrivalled.
 
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