My long-term review of Brompton folding bike – pros and cons and what makes it so special

▶️ 10 Must have Brompton Upgrades and Accessories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KRT4NKiSSo&t=1s
▶️ 3 Best IKEA Accessories for Brompton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4b2HIlj5cs
▶️ 4 Must-Have Brompton Upgrades from Decathlon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzgpKY_UlH4&t=96s

Here is my long-term review of P-Line Brompton and Brompton bikes in general. I’ve been cycling on my Brompton for more than 1.5 years so far and wanted to share my thoughts on key Pros and Cons of this amazing bike. If you are thinking about buying your first Brompton – this video will give you arguments why you should or should not buy a Brompton bike. And if you are already a lucky Brompton owner – it would be interesting to compare ideas and reflections about our favourite bike. Please like, subscribe and stay tuned for more video on Brompton’s and cycling around the world!

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
0:34 Pro1: Compactness & Design
2:04 Pro2: Multimodal Commute
3:49 Pro3: Travel & Flexibility
7:27 Pro4: Durability & Value
9:50 Con1: Small Wheels
12:12 Con2: 3-Step Fold
15:56 Con3: Price & Weight
17:52 Con4: Other Considerations
19:37 Final Thoughts
20:50 Outro

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DISCLAIMER: I am not receiving any sponsorship, nor do I have any commercial affiliation with any of the products or brands I discuss in my videos. All the content of the videos is based purely on my own reflections and opinions as a fellow user, derived from my personal experience of using the items. Additionally, all the mentioned items have been purchased by me with my own money at public retail price and extensively used before filming. If in the future I partner with any commercial entity in relation to my content, I will mention it explicitly in the video.

🎵 Epidemic Sound – music used in this video:
Loving Caliber – Varg! (Instrumental Version)
Sum Wave – Just Waiting 4 You
Duke Herrington – Il viaggio
Gold Flow – Belong (Instrumental Version)
Candelion – Cotton and Strangers

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hello my friends this is stas and today I want to talk about main pros and cons of bromton bike I have been cycling my Pine for around 1 and a half years from now and recently got lots of friends asking is bromton really worth it I absolutely love my bike and it has truly changed my life but my honest answer to this question will be it depends so if you thinking about buying your first bromton this video will give you arguments why you should or should not buy a bron bike and if you’re already a lucky bronton owner it would be interesting to compare ideas and Reflections about our favorite Bikes let’s get going let’s start with spros and aspects where bromton truly shines as pretty much any folding bike brompton’s key selling point is that you can easily fold it when not in use so it takes very limited amount of space it is mainly helpful if you want to store your bike in house while not in use like in a flat or in the office however bromton takes his benefit to the extreme it has two main defining features one 16in wheels and second its ingenious three-step fold design bromton has the smallest Wheels compared to other folding bikes as most of them uh come in 18 or 20in wheel sizes as a result bromton will be lighter smaller and accelerate faster it also has this iconic design created by British engineer Andrew Richie where you collapse your bike two times rather than just doing it once which is most common for other folding bikes this way the collapse bromton will take surprisingly small amount amount of space while still being very comfortable and reasonable to write and the whole assembly and disassembly process literally takes no more than 10 seconds another benefit from this design bike’s drivetrain is pretty much tucked inside the parts of it frame while folded so you are much less likely to stain your closes with a chain oil compared to any other folding bike other than compactness storing bike inhouse is much safer as it’s much less likely to be stolen compared to locking your bike to the public bike parking area on the street and this way your bike won’t have to face the elements at all when not in [Music] use another aspect where bromton truly shines is commute and multimodal transport with its small size you can mix it with any other public transport hence the ter multimodal transport for example what I do every now and then when I’m Computing to work is to cycle to my nearest Tube Station then take underground to the closest station to my office and then cycling from the tube station to the office again this way I can save good 15 to 20 minutes single way so at least half an hour of time saved per day which is quite significant in logistics there is this concept of last mild delivery covering the last steps between the recipient and the last storage or distribution facility and this step is usually the most problematic one you can pretty much think of folding bike like a perfect transport for this last mile situation you can carry it around while in the train or Ferry or any other lwn hole transport and then covers a lot last few miles fast and comfortable bromton has another nice design idea to make this process even smoother you don’t actually need to carry the bike while it’s folded you can pretty much roll it on the smooth surface and there is another couple of small wheels available just for this kind of situation it works okay in the default configuration but if you install re r with additional pair of wheels on your bike it will be really nice and smooth experience in most of the cases interesting fact to this discussion tfl the company that operates London Underground only allows folding and not the regular bikes during the rush hours so if you want to mix your tube ride with the bike ride during the rush hour bromton is the way to go there is a similar story with tfl operated buses hopping on the bus with a folded bromton is perfectly fine but you won’t be able to do it with the regular bik to push this point on multimodal transport to the next level bromton is one of few bikes you can actually fly abroad with transporting the regular size bike over the plane is extremely cumbersome and expensive Affair however your bromton bike you can pretty much Peck in a suitcase and simply carry as a piece of checken luggage this is a perfect solution if you want to travel to new places and explore them by bike and based on my personal experience it’s the best way to really get a look and feel over the city miles better than driving or walking around public bike sharing or bike hire is an alternative option here but usually it is less convenient and might not be available plus bike sharing bikes can be too heavy clunky damaged wet after the rain and so on so far I have traveled to seven different countries with my bromton and cycling in those places added so much to my travel experience I have videos from most of those trips on my channel so if you’re curious about cycling all around London Philadelphia Portugal Barcelona and other interesting places feel free to explore my channel more another big unlock you can get with bromton is all sorts of cycling events and and long distance rides the bike is surprisingly comfortable with a bit of prep you can cover 20 to 30 Mi without too much problem at all and if you are really dedicated doing nors of 50 or 60 miles in one sitting is also entirely possible so with this kind of mileage you can join all sorts of cycling sportives and do bike touring or sighting which is also a great fun cycling is a great activity for your Fitness weight management endurance and health of your joints so if your regularized sport bike is not an option for whatever reason bromton can perfectly fit the role of your training and sports companion sharing my own personal experience I did a bunch of sport tees last year like ride London 60 mies Palace to Palace London to Brighton and now I’m trained for my first century during ride London 100m event later this year for me sportifs are a great motivating factor helping me stick to my training plan and commit to cycle enough to hopefully endure throughout entire distance of the event plus they usually give a real nice sense of cycling community they cover beautiful roots and overall are great fun if you’re curious about specific sportifs I mentioned again I got videos from them on my channel so feel free to check them out plus I plan to do detailed video report from right London 100 miles event so wish me luck stay tuned And subscribe if you are interested and to add to the point of creative usage of bromton bike there are lots of Handy accessories available for it some of them are designed by bromton company itself and many others by all sorts of big and small cycling Brands so with few upgrades and tweaks you can convert your bromton into a shopping vehicle and easily carry enough weekly supplies for a person or two in one trip bromton got this back attachment block on the front stem where you can easily and securely attach a rather spacious back to carry some stuff for you and when you fold your bike you can more or less use it as a trolley around the store with such front mounted back still attached and accessible for the bike rear rack can also be equipped with bunge cords for some light but bulky items a pro tip default bromton bungees have rather limited range and can snap if you pull them too much so what you can do is to use a standalone set of bungees wrap them around the frame of your bike and connect them with your default bunes this way you have decent tension to hold stuff together and much bigger volume of stuff you can carry with your rear rack I even managed to carry as many of six pizzas on top of my bromton so sky is the limit here well actually it is the height of your seat post but you’ll let it slide [Music] last batch of Pros are related to value and durability of the bike yes it is quite expensive but it’s very well made and designed hands can last for ages bromton have quite an extensive guarante plus if they were treated well you can easily find bromton in decent condition that are 10 to 20 years old bromton are made of high quality steel or even has some titanium in newer models which also adds to their durability also bromton are still manufactured and tested in the UK and Company apparently spends quite some time and effort on quality assurance to minimize the chances of your bike falling apart or breaking down unexpectedly you will of course need to replace the chain of the bike and some moving Parts every now and then but this is also true for any other bike out there and overall durability and reliability wise bromton is a very solid option on the point of spare parts bromton is famous for keeping a stock of spare parts for their bikes for many years after its manufacturing so replacing some worn out components and parts should not be a problem even in the number of years after buying the bike there has been lots of Innovations and upgrades for it like p and t lines and dozen of other smaller things but the core design of bromton didn’t change all that much over the years after all coming from this durability point is the fact that bromton has a reasonable reselling value so you lose much less money after doing your first ride and overtime compared to average folding or even regular bike the reselling market for bromton is quite an active one so buying a pre- LOF bike or selling your bike is usually not a problem at all bromton even directly selling some of their pre- LOF bikes that has been refurbished for a discount of 20 to 25% these are probably the key defining features and benefits that make bromton such a great and popular folding bike as well as an iconic piece of British engineering I personally absolutely love my bike it has definitely changed my life for the better and was totally worth the money so I’m a big fan however as with any as a versatile item out there bromton has its own disadvantages as well after all if it would be perfect in every way all the cyclists around the world would be cycling on bromton which is not the case right brompton’s unique and versatile design is the main source of some of its core disadvantages so let’s talk about the reasons why you might not want to buy a brunon bike let’s start with the wheel diameter smaller Wheels provide much less balance to the bike so while it’s more symol it’s well less stable compared to the bike with the bigger wheels for example from my own experience it’s way more tricky to cycle with only one hand on the handlebars of the bromton and doing it without hands at all is a sure way to get into a traffic accident all because of less balance coming from smaller Wheels another consequence here smaller Wheels mean less distance between your feet and the ground so you are much more likely to scratch the floor with your pedals while cycling over a particular High bump or turning and tilting really sharply and less stability from smaller Wheels means that you cannot tilt your bike as much while turning before actually losing balance compared to a regularized bike smaller Wheels also means that to cover the same distance you need to do more Revolutions of the wheels which is more low to your joints and on the rubber of the wheel itself bromton tires will receive much more beating per inch of surface for the same distance so consequently you will have to replace your tires more often on bromton compared to any other bike with larger Wheels your speed is also a limiting factor on bromton smaller Wheels means that anything above 30 mph is a big stretch in bromton so if you really want to feel the smell of burning tires due to how fast you ride on your bike bromton is probably not the best seed of choice smaller diameter of Wheels also means that you have to be way more careful with the potholes and Road imperfections as bromton will be much less forgiven towards those and in general bromton Shines on tarmac and fair quality road going over any kind of gravel grass SE or Stony Road on your bromton is usually not the best idea and of course heels will be your main Nemesis especially if you’re chuny cyclist like me but even if you are nice handsome and thin still conquering heels on bromton is quite a challenge given it smaller wheel size with 16 in being a wheel size pretty much exclusive for bromton your choice of tires is pretty much limited as well there are literally only one or two tire manufacturers out there like schal or Continental that are actually selling tires for bromton so not too much of a choice and lastly on small wheels smaller wheel diameter means brakes are less effective and overheat faster so you should be much more mindful careful and smooth with your brakes while on bromton [Music] now let’s wrap some salt into the second defining feature of bronton it’s threeway folding design first of all while this design is undoubtably great it’s rather complex compared to the regular two-step process of most other folding bikes and has more moving parts and components hence you have more components that can potentially fail even though the build quality of the bike is quite solid just by the nature of statistics and natural mechanical wear and tier you’ll have more components to replace here and there this is heavily influenced by the conditions you are riding your bike in and by the amount of care and maintenance you giving to your bike but the point still holds nonetheless for example I’ve been riding through entire British winter this year having been regularly exposed to the rain and mud and other elements out there and got some smaller nuts and bolts catching surface rust removing the rust was not such a big deal but it made me really worried about the health of my bike the next Point given the uniqueness of the design lots of parts and components are pretty much proprietary or don’t have too many Alternatives and lack of competition and variety pretty much bumps up the price some of the original bromton components are ridiculously expensive what they are like £ 25 for just the bunge quartz was the rear wck it’s still still give me shivers when I think about it these days you can of course buy unlicensed parts from here and there for much lower price but then there is a question of durability and quality for such parts and in some cases installing absolutely trivial things like a bottle cage to your bike is not that trival after all given that you need to take into account the folding mechanism further limiting your options another purely mechanical thing is frame flexing the frame of the bike is not a one piece thing as on the regular bike but actually consists of several major parts these are attached together with hinges spindles and clamps giving you ability to actually fold the bike and every time you apply pressure on the bike or hit yet another bump on the road the frame and its components flex and wobble a little bit which results in the loss of power you can of course address this issue to some extent by replacing the suspension block or having section of the frame made of titanium resent steel to make overall construction a bit stiffer but again the issue is still there and it’s more or less inevitable given the design of the bike some people also mentioned that doing some mechanical repairs like changing a tire or in a tube on bromton is less trivial compared to the regular bike mainly due to facing more tension in the tires especially if you are dealing with stiffer tires like SCH Marathon or Marathon plus I don’t necessarily Echo this point to be honest I’m a proud owner of marathon Plus Tires and even managed to install them myself which was a bit of a pickle but still nothing and impossible having good tile levers ideally made from metal rather than plastic definitely helps a lot of people online said they managed to snap a pair or two of Tire levers while doing Tire Works which can be very heartbreaking especially while on the Move however the good thing about bromton on this point is that if you have a mechanical issue with your bike that you can’t repair on the go to continue cycling you can fold your bike get a cap and toss it into the trunk of the car and call it day another anecdotal story from my experience when I was doing my London to Bright and right I was a 108 kilos of weight B I was stupid enough to pump my tires to 110 PSI maximum allowed pressure and surprise surprise I destroyed rear tire and two inner tubes on the right but after a moment of complete despair on the side of the curb I ordered a cap folded the bike and toss it into the trunk of the car then I got into nearest bromton bike shop replaced everything there and got back on track good luck doing something like this with a regular sized bike and regular sized car [Music] and lastly few other General downsides not necessarily related to wheels or folding design worth keeping in mind probably the most commonly mentioned downside of bromton is its price it’s a fairly expensive bike after all I would say that there are reasons for this price but whether this reasons are appealing enough to you that of course depends as I mentioned earlier in this video bromton also have three core lines of models Seine Pine and tline Cline is a classic Timeless All Steel design Pine introduces t tanium to some of the frame Parts mainly to reduce weight and dissipate vibration plus they baked in many smaller improvements and Innovations all around the bike nline is the latest old titanium option featuring the latest and greatest sing and design choices that bromton team has come up with there’s of course quite some variation in price because of different configurations and so on but bpark as of March 2024 C line usually cost somewhere around 1 and 12,000 Pine around 22,000 and T line are whooping 45,000 for this amount of money you can pretty much buy a car hand the whole conversation about price being on the higher end of the spectrum second most quoted thing is weight bromton is on the heavier side of the spectrum especially considering its price there’s again A variation but bpark cine weighs somewhere around 11 and 1 12 kilos Pine slightly less than 10 kilos and T line can go as low as 7 and 1/2 kilos reasonable road bike probably will be somewhere in the range of 8 to 9 kilos so lighter than Pine most likely cheaper than Pine and way cheaper than tline and this is without all the bells and whistles like rear frame heavy duty tires and so on again I would argue that 10 kilos of weight is not that big of a deal for all the utility that you’re getting from the bike but it is true that for similar amount of money you can get significantly lighter bike there are also some utility related compromises as well bromton is a very comfortable bike especially given all the compactness and foldability of the bike however there is an argument that the regular single piece bike will be more comfortable especially for longdistance rides again I don’t necessarily subscribe to this point of view but I see where it is coming from for example you can’t really install drop bars on Brompton and aerodynamically Brompton is probably not the best option out there also using bromton to transport kits is much less stvil versus the regular bike which is probably my main grievance with the bike so far usually the solution will be to mount a bicycle specific child seat to the rear frame of the bike which is not an option for bromton for many reasons two Alternatives is to have a seat mounted on the main frame and have a kid sitting pretty much in front of you or have a child trailer attached to the rear axle of the rear wheel bromton officially doesn’t recommend either of those but I’ve seen people using both options rather successful however I would still argue that using bromton to bring your kid to school school or Nursery would be rather problematic unless they are old and confident enough to ride together with you the last Point yes bromton has a surprising carrying power and can do groceries shopping and other utilitarian trips just fine but you have to keep in mind that still there is less space to attach BS to plus paneers bags don’t work really well with folding the bike and placing it on the rear rack and cherry on a cake doing something really adventurous like bike packing and camping with bromton will be tricky still possible though and I think I might be crazy enough to try to do it one day as I absolutely love both camping and cycling on my bromton but it will be tricky [Music] nonetheless there are lots of things to process and think about in this video but I would probably summarize it in the following way Brompton is an amazing bike and definitely a solid option if a you have a limited space to store your bike or you live in a flat and don’t have a garden or reliable parking solution for your bike B you want to use your bik bike as a compute vehicle benefiting from multimodal Transportation option like hopping into a tube train Ferry or other vehicle together with your bike see you want to travel and fly with your bike using it to explore places outside of your home City while not being a fan of bike sharing schemes or any other local bike hiring solution for whatever reason D you very much want to avoid the situation of your bike being stolen or would rather avoid leaving your bike outside lock to some public bike parking space or any other similar fixing and lastly you’re looking for a portable solution and frankly a motivating factor to spend more time outside exercise more and improve your health and Longevity by being more active funny enough in my specific situation every single one of those scenarios apply to me so I absolutely love my bromton and would definitely recommend it to any other person with similar kind of disposition and that’s pretty much it for today I hope this video was helpful please like And subscribe if you enjoy it I wish you all the best with your bromton side adventures and see you next time [Music]