Viva Brighton Issue #38 April 2016

cycling
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The Brompton diaries
An unfolding story
“Bloody Brompton!” I’ve spent the day with the
folding bike I’m trying out, and I’m just about
sick of it. It folds neatly into a portable if-fairlyheavy
unit, but I’ve had one of those days flitting
between Kemptown and London Road and Hove
and Lewes, and it’s nearly midnight, and I’m tired,
and I’m on the train back to Brighton and I can’t
remember the order in which it unfolds, and lots
of people are looking at me.
I’ve got the bike for a week though – courtesy of
Freedom Bikes – and something happens on day
two which makes me feel warmer towards the
machine. I meet a friend for a drink in the William
IV pub, and the drink turns into two, and then
three, and then four, and by the end I realise that I
really don’t want to cycle home, and then it comes
to me that – hey! – I can just put the bike in a taxi
and get taken home, so that’s what I do.
Over the week, I get to realise that riding a
Brompton around town is quite fun. It’s a zippy
little thing, and you can turn sharply and weave
in and out of traffic and slip between cars and the
kerb easily, and it’s got six-speed gears which –
while they’re a bit clunky – do work, enabling you
to go up hills with no trouble and get a bit of heft
behind you if you’re going down them. It’s funny
being so close to the ground, but you get used
to it. And it’s damn easy to jump on and off. And
people look at you, because let’s face it, you really
do notice a Brompton.
It’s clear to me from the start that this is a fling
rather than a marriage, because my day is too
bitty to do all that folding and unfolding – you’re
meant to be able to do it in nine seconds but it
tends to take me at least 30 – but I can see why
the Brompton would be Mr Right for people
with a slightly different lifestyle. Commuters, for
example, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to take a
bike on the peak-hour train (Southern are sticklers
on this even on non-busy lines). People who live in
extremely small flats, or have boats in the Marina,
or caravaners who want to take a bike on holiday.
If I could afford it, in fact, I’d buy a Brompton just
for the occasions that it would come in useful.
On my last Brompton day I cycle from Brighton
into Lewes. There’s a headwind, and I manage to
get into the slipstream of this guy on a racer in
tights and clip-on shoes, and I can tell he’s aware
of me, and he can’t shake me though he tries a few
times, and after the Coldean junction traffic lights
I realise I’ve got the legs on him and I overtake
him on the hill, and lose him and I can hear him
think… “Bloody Brompton.”
Alex Leith
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