Exciting Things

Exciting Thing No.1
The new Ragley Rodwell frame - I'm not sure why I'm excited about this, as the chances of my building one up are next to zero. I love the idea behind the frame though, and the attention to detail on it (see the designer's flickr stream for more, here).

The roller above the chainstay bridge allows a bottom pull mech (i.e. a road mech) to be used with the bike's top tube cable routing. The headset mounted cable hanger is also a thing of great beauty, although my personal feeling is that fork crown mounted hangers work better unless you have your bars set up pretty high.

These frames look like they'll build into really nice fat tyred road bikes - ideal for someone wanting to go in that direction but not take the Tourer route that I took with my Surly LHT.

Exciting Thing #2
Regular readers (ha!) may remember my dithering over a folding bike earlier in the year. I finally got a chance to test ride a Brompton last week (an S6L, in case you're wondering) and was impressed by it. Far less twitchy than I'd expected, and a lot of fun to throw around the car park near the bike shop where the test ride took place.

I've decided on an S3L (I do live in Cheshire, after all, so six gears seems like overkill) with a "C" bag as luggage. The bike is being purchased via cyclescheme, and I found out recently that my voucher application has been approved. I have that new bike feeling all over again...

In Which Buying Another Bicycle is More Difficult than Expected

I've been taking the train all the way to work a lot more than I do normally, and this results in a walk of around 3 miles each way, in total. (Two miles to the station, a mile from the station at the other end to work, and the same journey in reverse in the evening).

As any fule kno, 3 miles is a distance that any bicycle laughs at, so I've been seriously considering a folding bike for those days when 28 miles a day of riding seems a bit much.

Why a folding bike? In their wisdom, Britain's railway companies offer little in the way of carriage for full sized bicycles, and will occasionally make you reserve in advance, pay a supplemental charge, &c &c. (A to B magazine provide an excellent summary of train operators' cycle policies here). The rail part of my usual commute is handled by the excellent and pragmatic Northern Rail, who will carry bicycles on a first come, first served basis, so long as they do not block exits &c.

However, because my "long train" commute is at a later time, I can end up travelling with different train operators, and at busier times, so my chance of being "bumped" from the service increases. Here's where the folding bike comes in - almost all operators will carry folding bikes without restriction. Plus, of course, on my later commute, I can unfold the bike at the other end, and cycle to work, an advantage over using a full size bike to get to the start of my train journey only.

Having read around a little, I'd pretty much decided upon the British designed "Mezzo D9" which looks to be a nice bike with compact fold and what's claimed to be "a big bike ride". (I think this is at least partly to do with it having a steering offset (it has a conventional stem on the fork, as opposed to a steering column directly above the forks).


(Mezzo bike Video)

Of course, no plan survives contact with a bike shop, so I've now convinced myself that the battle to be my folding bike has been joined, between the Mezzo, and the Brompton. Your take on either bike would be welcomed, but I suspect the final decision will hinge (no pun intended) upon a test ride, to be undertaken some time in the next couple of weeks.


(Brompton Folding Demonstration)

Useful Links;
The Folding Society
A to B Magazine
Mezzo Bikes
Brompton