I recently acquired this 5-speed Brompton from my father-in-law, barely ridden, bought some time in the early 2000s. I think, from searching on this sub, that it’s a Brompton T5 with rear rack and dynamo.
I’m pretty handy with repairing bikes etc., but I’ve only ever built and ridden road and mountain bikes, and the world of vintage-ish Brompton accessories is a bit mysterious.
The original plastic Sturmey Archer gear shift was terrible, so I replaced it with a metal one SA one, recalibrated the hub and it’s working great. You can see from the photos that I had to pad out the gap where the shifter bolts to the bars with a bit of tape as I need it to sit on the curve of the bars.
The grips are awful foamy ones, and the brake levers are pretty awful too. The bars are 22.2mm in diameter and there’s around 100-105mm of available space for grips.
I’m based in the UK and I’m looking to replace the grips and the brake levers but I’m having a hard time working out what would be best. I’m not against replacing the whole handle bars if they’re a weird diameter vs. what’s available now.
If anyone has any recommendations for grips and levers I’d love to hear them!
After that I’m going to replace the bottom bracket and cranks so I can upgrade to a 52t chainring – looking forward to that!
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I recently acquired this 5-speed Brompton from my father-in-law, barely ridden, bought some time in the early 2000s. I think, from searching on this sub, that it’s a Brompton T5 with rear rack and dynamo.
I’m pretty handy with repairing bikes etc., but I’ve only ever built and ridden road and mountain bikes, and the world of vintage-ish Brompton accessories is a bit mysterious.
The original plastic Sturmey Archer gear shift was terrible, so I replaced it with a metal one SA one, recalibrated the hub and it’s working great. You can see from the photos that I had to pad out the gap where the shifter bolts to the bars with a bit of tape as I need it to sit on the curve of the bars.
The grips are awful foamy ones, and the brake levers are pretty awful too. The bars are 22.2mm in diameter and there’s around 100-105mm of available space for grips.
I’m based in the UK and I’m looking to replace the grips and the brake levers but I’m having a hard time working out what would be best. I’m not against replacing the whole handle bars if they’re a weird diameter vs. what’s available now.
If anyone has any recommendations for grips and levers I’d love to hear them!
After that I’m going to replace the bottom bracket and cranks so I can upgrade to a 52t chainring – looking forward to that!