I take my Brompton C-Line folding bike on a ride to Hel, Poland! Join me as I venture up the 22-mile Hel Peninsula to checkout the town at the edge of the Baltic Sea.
This is not a sponsored video. I purchased the Brompton C-Line Explore on a whim. Now it’s going to be a regular companion on my international travels.
#bromptonbicycle #bromptoncline #bromptonbike #poland #helpoland #foldingbike #foldingbicycle #tomsgadgetgarage #bikingpoland
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Tom’s Gadget Garage. Today I am cruising around on my Brmpton Sealine in Poland and we are actually on our way to hell. And I really do mean that. That is the name of the city that we’re going to. You’ll see it on the sign right up ahead. Miasto Hell. And that’s where we’re going out on a little bike ride today. So, I actually packed this Brmpton Sealine in my suitcase, flew it from Phoenix to Poland, and that’s what I love about this bike is that it is small, ultra compact, portable, not electric, right? So, this is all human power right now. Uh, but either way, it’s able to get me all across Poland so far over the last several weeks that I’ve been here. Now, I did make some posts last year when I visited Poland, but unfortunately, I didn’t bring any bikes or scooters or anything like that with me, which I will never make that mistake again because this place is an absolute paradise for people looking to bike, scoot, walk, basically get out and enjoy nature, enjoy the outdoors. And so the infrastructure out here is very geared towards pedestrians and bicyclists, which is very different than what we see in the US, at least in the southwestern US. You know, Arizona does have really nice canal paths and bike paths and things like that. But in the cities, you’re lucky to have a bike lane. And when you do have that bike lane, a lot of times it’s not worth the risk because all the roads have high speed limits and people are always in a hurry. And anyways, out here you don’t have to worry about any of that because you’ve got dedicated infrastructure to those use cases. But uh here we are in Poland. We’re on the Hell Peninsula, which is 22 mi long. It is on the northern side of Poland, right on the Baltic Sea, which we’ll see later on in this ride. And the weather’s been absolutely phenomenal temperature- wise. You know, 60° during the day, 60 65, which I’ll take because Arizona’s been I think we’ve already hit 117° Fahrenheit. So, uh, that’s absolutely crazy. Out here, it’s been 60s the whole time. Now, we have had a lot of wind and rain and things like that. But we’ve had several days of beautiful sunny days like this. And so I’m absolutely loving it. Uh you also get a nice taste of the sea. You know, you can smell the sea in the air, which is always a welcome change. You can sleep with the windows open at night. Uh here in the summer, whereas in uh in Arizona, I’m not going to be able to open my windows for another four months. Now, as we get closer to hell, I’ll I’ll go over the little bits of history that I know about the place. And uh yeah, we’ll go take advantage of some of the beautiful views of the Baltic. Uh we’ll go on the southern side of this peninsula, take a look at the city of D, see if we can see it. But uh yeah, this Brmpton is the perfect bike to come around and explore this place. I actually bought this last year. It was kind of a splurge by I had my eye on Brmpton for a very long time and I never really pulled the trigger because, you know, I thought to myself, you know, 1,800 bucks for this thing, it’s a lot. It’s not electric. It doesn’t have a motor. Uh, but what it does have is the fact that it’s very compact, ultra portable. I could throw it in the trunk of my car. I can throw it in my check bag. In fact, I think I could have taken it as carry-on, but I didn’t want to risk anything, you know, not being able to carry it on and have it in a soft container. So, I put it in a hard shell suitcase that I bought online that fits the Brmpton perfectly. And it came back in excellent shape. You know, it arrived in Warsaw, Poland in beautiful condition. Not a scratch or anything on it. I chopped up some pool noodles and strategically placed them around the bike just to make sure that, you know, it didn’t get banged around too much and that absolutely did the trick cuz there were no issues at all whatsoever. But later on on this ride, I will give you a closer look of this Brmpton. Uh it is truly a fascinating bike. It’s got six gears, which is all I need for this type of riding. You know, I’ve taken it up hills. I’ve taken it on flat ground and I’ve had no issues with either of those. So, really good gear range. They also make a twospeed and a 12speed for this uh Sea Line Explorer that I have right now. So, if you do live in a place with lots of hills, the 12speed could be the way to go. But, like I said, these things aren’t cheap, you know. But it made sense for me because I was ultimately looking for a bike that I can travel with. You know, I’ve got lots and lots of family out here in Poland. So, we’re out here, you know, at least 3 to 4 weeks every year. If you’ve watched a lot of my content on my channel, it’s basically 95% desert. You know, that’s where I live in Arizona. So, a lot of desert scenes. Every now and then I’ll travel up north to the Flag Staff area, go check out the forests and things like that. But here, I’m not used to seeing so much green everywhere. You know, nice fresh air. You can smell the trees, you can smell the ocean. It’s like the perfect combination, perfect getaway. If you haven’t visited Poland, I highly recommend it. In my personal opinion, it’s the best place to travel to in Europe for vacation. It’s beautiful. It’s safe. It’s relatively inexpensive. Lots of folks speak English. That way, I don’t have to pull out my elementary Polish and embarrass myself. So, anyways, always a fun time out here. And the food is absolutely delicious. All right, we got some hilly terrain here. Gear two. So, the gearing on this bike is interesting. So, on the left hand side, I’ve got a minus and a plus. And on the right hand side, I got 3 2 1. So, right now, I’m cruising around in gear two with minus on the left. And then once I get on flatter ground, I’ll go into plus. And that’s really gear two is, I think, the best all-around gear for me on this bike. It is a smaller bike, but the wheelbase is very similar to a regular size bike. Uh the wheels or tires on this thing, I think are 16 in. So quite small, quite a bit smaller than the 20-in fat tire ebikes that I cruise around on. They do make this Brmpton bike in an electric configuration. And they’ve also got their Gline, which is like a like a gravel bike version of the Brmpton. It’s got knobbybier tires, wider 20-in tires, I think. So, that’s going to be more appropriate for riding off the beaten path. But, as you can see, I’m cruising around on this sea line with 16-in wheels. No problem at all on this hard pack dirt. There’s no suspension up front, but it does have kind of a pseudo suspension in the rear. It’s got a rubber block that’s strategically placed that does help absorb a lot of the lumps and bumps in the road. And I will say that overall it’s a very comfortable bike to ride. Now, I did start the GPS tracking about a mile late. Got too excited with all these green trees here, but uh you know, I’m basically using GPS just to show you kind of the area that we’re cruising around in on the map. you know, give you an idea of what this peninsula looks like. Uh, last week I was in Warsaw, which I’ll be returning to here in a few days. That’s home base. And, uh, they got all kinds of like wild boars running around, you know, throughout the neighborhoods, digging stuff up in the ground. Uh, very interesting to see. In Arizona, we have havalas. Uh, and those are cool. Very similar to what we see here. But here you got full-on wild boars and hedgehogs, all kinds of wildlife out here. It’s uh really fun to see. As I was mentioning, a hell has got a very storied history and it’s uh a history over a thousand years in the making. you know, started off as like a, you know, a Polish settlement, you know, and eventually became a major trading area. And over the course of history, you know, it’s changed hands, you know, due to war, which is something that historically has been very common here in Europe, but especially especially in Poland, Germany, this part of the world here. Little downhill section here. Take advantage of gravity. GPS says we’re going about 13 miles an hour. Nice brisk pace, perfect for getting that nice cool breeze coming through this forest. You get this nice chilled air. It’s really quite pleasant. As you can see, this road kind of goes up and down. You know, it’s not flat. Lots of little hills make the ride even more interesting. You know, during the right season, you got a lot of folks, you know, gathering wild mushrooms, bringing them home, cooking them up. You definitely won’t see me doing any of that cuz knowing my luck, I’ll pick the wrong mushroom and either end up on some kind of trip or in a ditch, you know? So, I’m going to shy away from that, that’s for sure. No mushroom hunting for me. The three bigger cities on this peninsula are Yastia, Urata, and Hell. All three of them have lots of great restaurant and dining options and lots of things to do and see if you’re a fan of kite surfing. Yarnia’s got a whole kite surfing area. And I probably saw at least 100 kite surfers yesterday. You know, it’s been super windy and those are the kind of conditions with lots of waves that those kite surfers are after. So, that definitely looks like fun. All right, gear one. Let’s see how this feels. Oh, yeah. No problem at all. So, if you need it, like I said, this bike has got six gears to choose from. All right, there’s a picture of hell right up and to the right. Beautiful little pick drop, but we’re going to take a pass on that and head straight to the water. All right, folks. So, it looks like we are officially in hell. Like I said, I’m not 100% sure where I’m going right now, but looks like this is the outskirts of town to the town center somewhere here. Maybe this is a town center. I don’t know. But we’ll ride along this path and uh if it doesn’t take us where we want to go, we’ll turn right around and get lost somewhere else. But as I was mentioning, you know, hell’s got over a thousand years of history. Was a fishing port, trading port, military base, kind of defensive structure. I’m going to go ahead and get us turned around. Straight up ahead. you can see the Baltic, but uh there’s much better view. So, we’re going to head in the other direction. You know, I was reading online that, you know, when uh World War II broke out, uh hell was one of the last strongholds to fall. And uh you know it’s got a pretty deep and storied military history. So I am not surprised. We’ll cross over the train tracks again. H you know what? I saw that guy go that way. Let’s see. Plaza. That’s the beach port. Okay. We’re going to go this way. Although [Music] it’s a one-way street, I think. Lots of folks out and about. Got a bar here with lots of lovely Polish beer. We’ve got the Baltic Sea here. Lots of people out at the beach. Now, I don’t know how well you’re going to see it on camera, but uh just on the other side of the bay here on the Baltic is mainland Poland. And straight ahead, you’ve got Gdines, which is a another city with lots of history to it. Anyways, beautiful beach, beautiful water. Actually spent some time with my wife and daughter uh on the other side of the peninsula uh a couple days ago, last couple days actually. Water is actually very cold. Uh, you know, it’s only 60° out lately, so we do have more sunny days ahead. All right, so we’re going to hop back on the bike and continue our adventure through hell. As you can see on the left, we’ve got lots of bars and restaurants, lots of good food, lots of good drinks to have. All right, we’re going to continue on through this little walk here. Here we’ve got the bulvar nadorski, which is basically translates into seaside boulevard. Here on the left, you got some churros and coffee. So, right up ahead, we should get some good views of the rest of the bay in the Baltic. Uh, the bay itself is actually shared by two countries. Uh, most of it is Poland, but there’s a slice of it on the eastern part of the bay that is Kenenrad, which is uh a small little slice of Russia. So, let’s see if we get some better views up here. All right, I’m going to go ahead and park the bike right here. And I don’t think we’re going to have a very good view because we’ve got this this giant wall here. Let’s see how good my fitness is. There we go. Okay, much improved video. A much improved view. As you can see, we’ve got the bay here. We just came from way out there in that forested area. We’ve got Gdines straight ahead. But, uh, anyways, beautiful place. There’s your port. You got some boats out there going on sightseeing tours. There’s a lighthouse somewhere out here. Maybe we’ll find our way to it. Pretty hidden for being a lighthouse, so I’m not exactly sure where that is, but yeah. Beautiful weather. Nice. Slightly overcast, not too sunny. I like it. All right, so we’re going to go ahead and continue on our journey here. Uh I thought that the end of this pier thing would give us more views, but it ended up being that kind of walled in area. So that explains why there’s fewer and fewer people out this way. But anyways, still a great view nonetheless. A heck of a lot more water than we got in Arizona. I’ll say that. Nice little view of this port city here. A lot of historical buildings. Lots of excited dogs. Go ahead and see what’s out over this way. As you can see, there’s lots going on here. I know in the US we always complain about regulations with scooter and bike speeds and stuff like that, but out here, especially in Poland, you’ve got a lot of places like this which are very pedestrian friendly. And I can see where, you know, 25 km an hour might be more than sufficient. They don’t have as many wide open roads as we do state side, but this is the perfect place to get around on a bike, I’ll say that. And I’m doing it with this Brmpton. You know, I don’t need electric power for this. Cruising along at about 15 16 miles an hour little downhill section. Looks like there’s uh more exciting stuff happening out here in this forested area. All right. Looks like we’re about to ride into the forest. Lots of golf carts. What do we have out here? Little bit of a bumpy road. Definitely feel that rear rubber dampening helping out a bit. If you like smoked sausage, I mean, this is like the sausage capital of the world, Poland. Sausage and vodka and beer. You got it all. This is definitely a bumpy road. You know, this looks like it’s been here forever. It’s like cobblestone. Definitely putting these tires to the test, that’s for sure. These Brmptons do have these high pressure tires. I think the recommended pressure is like 110 PSI or so, but you can air them down a little bit lower. I’ve got them to about 80 85 right now. This dirt is a lot smoother. See what we got out here. It looks like another view of the bay. I think this is what I was looking for. Okay, I think I wanted to be on that side, but that’s okay. We’ll come out here. I think this boardwalk will end in a beach. All right, looks like we got a Kiran scooter here. and I’ll pick up the Bronson because it’s only like a 23 or 26 lb bike. Give you a quick view of the Baltic here. Lots of people out and about enjoying the beach. Looks like a great time. I’ll be out here with my wife and daughter tomorrow now that we’ve got some sun out here finally. A lot of people out here having fun. [Laughter] little coastal area. All right, looks like we made it through the crowds. Not sure where this path goes, but we’re about to find out. Ah, okay. More crowds. Beautiful. This is like the perfect place to go walking or riding a bike. I mean, this weather is absolutely perfect. I feel like a fool wearing this sweater. It was actually really chilly this morning in the 50s, but it’s uh definitely heated up quite a bit. One of the nice things about the small size of these Brmpton bikes is that it’s very easy to blend in with pedestrians. You know, you can ride this thing through crowds of people with no issues at all. Kind of just blend in. Let’s see how this thing is like riding through sand. Yeah, not going to happen. Not going to happen. Not with these skinny tires. But anyways, there’s a quick view of this Brmpton. Really nice bike. One of the really cool features that I like is the fact that it’s got an integrated pump here. So, this is actually a tire pump that’s built into the bike. And if I were to fold this bike up right now, I actually have a tool kit that’s built into the frame. So, if I ever need to make any adjustments on the bike, change a tire, whatever, I’ve got all the tools necessary in the frame of the bike. And you might see this thing doesn’t have a kickstand. uh the actual rear wheel completely folds in like so. And instead of a kickstand, it kind of hangs out like this. So, it makes it really, really convenient. Uh you don’t have to lean your bike up anywhere. And you’re never really going to have to worry about locking your bike up because this thing folds down into a very compact form factor. So, you don’t have to worry about, you know, locking your bike up somewhere. You can just take it with you. you know, and I’ll show you how that folding mechanism actually works. So, here you’ve got these little twist brackets. You get that undone and uh you can actually fold the bike over like so. And there it is in its folded position. And then you can just bring this seat post down like so. And then if you want to fold down the handlebars, you just undo this bracket here. And watch this. Boom. Now your bike is in a folded state. It’s very lightweight and you can carry this basically everywhere. I was able to put this on an airplane. And if I wanted to, I could have taken it as carry-on. Maybe next time. But anyways, to unfold it. It’s basically the reverse. It’s also got a folding pedal on the side as well to make it more compact. But I went ahead and did that. I’m going to go ahead and lift the seat. And then I will lift this out of the way here. And we’ll just tighten down this bracket. And then we’ll push out that rear tire. Bada boom, bada bang. There you go. Everything in one place. And as I was mentioning, I should have showed this to you a moment ago, but didn’t think that far ahead. Uh when you do fold this over, you’ll see that I’ve got a tool kit here. And in this tool kit, I basically have everything I need to service this bike. So, that is an awesome feature. It doesn’t come standard with the bike. It actually is pretty pricey upgrade. I think it’s like a hundred bucks. So, is it worth it? I don’t know. It’s worth it to me, though. Uh, I’ve used it to adjust the seat and other things on this bike since I’ve been here, and it beats having to carry around an actual, you know, separate tool kit. But anyways, that’s the uh Brmpton in a nutshell. Here’s our gears. We got the two gears on the left, three gears on the right. We’ve got our brakes here. These are like the standard rim brakes. No disc brakes on this bike. We’ve got our bell. Very nice. I’ve got a light up front. It’s these little Brmpton lights. They got different patterns and stuff you can do with them. There’s a little luggage rack here. As you can see, this little mounting bracket. I got a carry-on bag. Basically, I can attach to this. If I go shopping or whatever, I could use that. And then, of course, I’ve got a tail light back here. Nice and bright. It’s got flashing pattern, all that fun stuff. So, anyways, everything you would need in a small city commuter bike, but anyways, you can see it’s got these tiny 16-in tires, which are very narrow. Definitely not great for riding around in this sandy stuff here, that’s for sure. Great for digging trenches, though. All right, looks like we got a nice flat area here. Finally get some gear three action in here. Gear three. We’re cruising around at about 13 14 miles an hour right now. All powered by lots and lots of pure ois and some Polish beer. Interesting thing about restaurants out here in Poland is that water is not free. So, you don’t get like free water at your table. You know, you have to pay for water. There’s no free refills on drinks even at your McDonald’s and Burger Kings and all those places out here. You got to pay for all those refills. And so things are a little bit different, but the food is amazing. The McDonald’s is better than any McDonald’s you’ll find in the US. Their menu is absolutely crazy with what you can get on there. My ultimate favorite is the Maestro Burger, which is uh absolutely delicious. All right. So, that was our little adventure through hell. Let’s see if I can find our way back to the path that we took to get out here. Nice little stop sign for us here. All right, let’s go ahead and take a look at the go to hell sign here. I think it says go hell, but would have been cooler if they said go to hell. And there is the go hell sign. Lots of people getting their photo ops in. Someone on a scooter. Oh, that’s the Kieran scooter from earlier. Got some ebikes up ahead. Some Enu. It’s very popular bike brand in Europe. I featured a couple of those bikes on the channel. the L20 2.0, which is a steal of a deal for what they sell it at, as well as the Engine Pro 2.0, and I will probably be featuring more of their bikes in the very near future. So, stay tuned. We’ve officially left hell. We are now entering the town of Urata. This is home base, folks. We’ve got Yastia 4 miles. Puts 33 I should say kilometers. And the nice thing is this bike path goes for the full 22 mi of this peninsula, you know. So that’s really quite nice. So all right. So right now we’re in Urata. Take you on a little unplanned mini adventure out here onto the pier. Lots of restaurants and hotels, bars, shops. the whole nine yards. And this is the pier. You got some folks out there kite surfing. Last couple days are perfect for that. You probably can’t see with this wide angle lens, but way out there in Yarnia, you’ve got tons of people kite surfing. There’s There’s got to be at least a hundred out there right now. Like that’s an insane number of kite surfers. I’d be worried about getting blown away. Especially the last couple days, it’s been incredibly windy. Here we are at the end of the pier. There’s our kite surfer. More folks out on their bikes. And then way out there in the distance, maybe I’ll take a picture with my phone and show you. But yeah, I don’t know how well you’re going to see it in that picture. I had to zoom in. But uh yeah, people out there kite surfing. All right, folks. So, there you have it. That was our ride to Hell, Poland on the Brmpton Sealine. And on today’s ride, we went about 16.5 miles over the course of about 2 and 1/2 hours, about 361 ft in elevation gain. And as you can see, there’s lots to see here in Poland. Anyways, let me know if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, concerns. Happy to address those in the comments section below. And as always, thank you so much for tuning in to Tom’s Gadget Garage. We’ll see you next time.
1 Comment
Cool tour. Thanks!