The New Brompton G Line Electric

[StuartsProjects]

However still not keen on the 8 speed Alfine hub, would have preferred a 3 speed with the 2 speed derailleur setup.

On my DIY converted eBrompton, I dumped the 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub gear and set up for 3 cogs on the rear derailleur shifter. This save a lot of weight.

These 3 gears are plenty and for Urban use, I almost never shift it out of top gear, the motor takes up the slack on most all hills.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

£3.5K is totally bonkers! It's only a steel framed hub motored folding bike with a torque sensing controller! No wonder Brompton and pals are doing their damndest at this very moment to make cheap but decent and user repairable alternatives like the Argos bargain folder illegal.

I wouldn't say the price is bonkers, for a European made product it feels reasonable and no worse in fact actually better value than some mainland Europe alternatives however probably like you I'm spoilt by the Chinese suppressed currency meaning exports are hugely under-priced. If I can buy a good quality Asian made alternative for a lot less then I'll do that sadly. However if I had the money would definitely support British manufacturing where possible.

That Argos £245 folding bike has its issues but surely as it comes its incredibly safe it has a very low current controller so the cells are getting discharged at a very low rate, this improves safety and lifespan. I mean 8A peak spread over perhaps 3 or 4 cells in parallel seems like an easy life to me for those cells. Many ebikes have early battery pack failure. I've read so many reports of Gtech ebike battery packs failing due to their very low capacity battery packs but fairly high discharge rate.

Bosch battery packs have quite a high failure rate, yes the BMS is great so disables the battery pack but Bosch based e-mountain bikes can discharge those packs at a very high rate plus of course if you only use your Bosch ebike infrequently and it hasn't been charged for a while the battery pack will permanently disable itself as the BMS registers this as being disconnected from the battery cells and at that point the battery pack is useless.

I'm personally not convinced more expensive European ebikes are safer because there is less exposure in the marketplace and many of them are obsessed with being lightweight so have the fewest cells possible but with still quite aggressive discharge rates. Yes maybe their BMS will disable the battery pack more quickly more generally but when you see some of the failed Bosch battery packs taken apart by engineers on youtube you can see the cells had started to fail and ignite but then the BMS had fused them I guess. It got pretty close, they had started to smoke internally. Also Specialized had to recall their e-mountain bikes in the past due to risk of fire. Typically many cheap hub motor ebikes discharge their cells far less aggressively. I'm not seeing Halford's Assist ebikes being a risk of fire and have never heard of one being the cause of a fire and that was their best selling ebike at one point which they have sold for as little as £299.

 

[Ghost1951]

@Bonzo Banana

Interested in your remarks here Bonzo.

I have both the Argos folder and a standard 3 speed Brompton that I have owned for about 12 years.

While I really like my little Argos bike and have ridden it now just over 230 miles grinning all the way - it is certainly no Brompton - no where near. 11.5Kg compared to 25.8kg for one thing. The battery and motor do not weigh 14kg for sure. The frame on the Argos has to be made from massively thick steel considering the stresses it is carrying. I have not tested but I expect the wheel rims are steel.

It is what it is and I am loving it for all its niggles (like the seat post slowly sinking over about 20 miles, no mater how tight I make the pinch bolt) but it is unashamedly a cheaply made product rather than one made with skill and care in London - largely by hand.

Now that I have found my Park Tool spoke key, when I get back to Northumberland tomorrow, I will be trying to true my back wheel on the Argos. I have never ever had to touch the spokes on the Brompton. I have a 3mm wiggle on the Argos back wheel now, which is annoying me. Should be easy enough to get rid of, now I have the key. A couple of weeks ago, while riding along a narrow lane with the sun directly in my eyes, and a van following me, I ran over a sleeping policeman with full weight on the saddle at about 13 miles an hour. Nearly threw me off the bike. Maybe that is how the wiggle got into the wheel, or maybe the workmanship at the factory was less than stellar... Who knows..... I will soon have it fixed.

EDIT:

I think you are right about the gentle treatment the battery gets on the Argos. 8 amps on probably a 3p battery is never going to send the battery into melt down. I'm not sure that running that battery at 15 amps peak would be such a great idea. At 12 and a half stone, I really notice the motor running out of puff on a steep hill. I just drop the gears and spin my legs and we eventually get up. I don't mind that. If it doesn't kill me it will do me good, even if I am gasping for breath. When I say steep hills - I am talking about 18% and 20% - and quite long. Around here I often climb hundreds of vertical feet. If worst comes to worst, it has a 'walk mode' which works ok and I can walk.

 

[StuartsProjects]

However if I had the money would definitely support British manufacturing where possible.

Agreed.

And I doubt the British workers at Brompton would be prepared to take a massive pay cut to make the bikes cheaper.

 

[saneagle]

@Bonzo Banana

Interested in your remarks here Bonzo.

I have both the Argos folder and a standard 3 speed Brompton that I have owned for about 12 years.

While I really like my little Argos bike and have ridden it now just over 230 miles grinning all the way - it is certainly no Brompton - no where near. 11.5Kg compared to 25.8kg for one thing. The battery and motor do not weigh 14kg for sure. The frame on the Argos has to be made from massively thick steel considering the stresses it is carrying. I have not tested but I expect the wheel rims are steel.

It is what it is and I am loving it for all its niggles (like the seat post slowly sinking over about 20 miles, no mater how tight I make the pinch bolt) but it is unashamedly a cheaply made product rather than one made with skill and care in London - largely by hand.

Now that I have found my Park Tool spoke key, when I get back to Northumberland tomorrow, I will be trying to true my back wheel on the Argos. I have never ever had to touch the spokes on the Brompton. I have a 3mm wiggle on the Argos back wheel now, which is annoying me. Should be easy enough to get rid of, now I have the key. A couple of weeks ago, while riding along a narrow lane with the sun directly in my eyes, and a van following me, I ran over a sleeping policeman with full weight on the saddle at about 13 miles an hour. Nearly threw me off the bike. Maybe that is how the wiggle got into the wheel, or maybe the workmanship at the factory was less than stellar... Who knows..... I will soon have it fixed.

EDIT:

I think you are right about the gentle treatment the battery gets on the Argos. 8 amps on probably a 3p battery is never going to send the battery into melt down. I'm not sure that running that battery at 15 amps peak would be such a great idea. At 12 and a half stone, I really notice the motor running out of puff on a steep hill. I just drop the gears and spin my legs and we eventually get up. I don't mind that. If it doesn't kill me it will do me good, even if I am gasping for breath. When I say steep hills - I am talking about 18% and 20% - and quite long. Around here I often climb hundreds of vertical feet. If worst comes to worst, it has a 'walk mode' which works ok and I can walk.

The wheel rims are aluminium. The stem and bars are steel, and the rack is steel. Most of the weight is in the frame. You could probably save about 2kg by replacing the rack, bars and the bars folding mechanism with aluminium ones, and maybe another kg from the cranks and pedals, and a bit more from the forks, or you could go out for a ride without breakfast first, and wear lycia when you ride.

Incidentally, the battery switch has packed up on mine, in the on position, luckily.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

@Bonzo Banana

Interested in your remarks here Bonzo.

I have both the Argos folder and a standard 3 speed Brompton that I have owned for about 12 years.

While I really like my little Argos bike and have ridden it now just over 230 miles grinning all the way - it is certainly no Brompton - no where near. 11.5Kg compared to 25.8kg for one thing. The battery and motor do not weigh 14kg for sure. The frame on the Argos has to be made from massively thick steel considering the stresses it is carrying. I have not tested but I expect the wheel rims are steel.

It is what it is and I am loving it for all its niggles (like the seat post slowly sinking over about 20 miles, no mater how tight I make the pinch bolt) but it is unashamedly a cheaply made product rather than one made with skill and care in London - largely by hand.

Now that I have found my Park Tool spoke key, when I get back to Northumberland tomorrow, I will be trying to true my back wheel on the Argos. I have never ever had to touch the spokes on the Brompton. I have a 3mm wiggle on the Argos back wheel now, which is annoying me. Should be easy enough to get rid of, now I have the key. A couple of weeks ago, while riding along a narrow lane with the sun directly in my eyes, and a van following me, I ran over a sleeping policeman with full weight on the saddle at about 13 miles an hour. Nearly threw me off the bike. Maybe that is how the wiggle got into the wheel, or maybe the workmanship at the factory was less than stellar... Who knows..... I will soon have it fixed.

EDIT:

I think you are right about the gentle treatment the battery gets on the Argos. 8 amps on probably a 3p battery is never going to send the battery into melt down. I'm not sure that running that battery at 15 amps peak would be such a great idea. At 12 and a half stone, I really notice the motor running out of puff on a steep hill. I just drop the gears and spin my legs and we eventually get up. I don't mind that. If it doesn't kill me it will do me good, even if I am gasping for breath. When I say steep hills - I am talking about 18% and 20% - and quite long. Around here I often climb hundreds of vertical feet. If worst comes to worst, it has a 'walk mode' which works ok and I can walk.

The Brompton frame is very clever, I seem to remember it is a blend of different steels both chromoly and high tensile steel parts to provide exactly the ride characteristics they want and is only possible through brazing rather than welding as brazing allows different metals to be combined. However I have to say I am a big fan of basic high tensile steel folding bike frames you get from China. I bought a folding bike from Tesco Direct years ago. It was only something like £60 but there was a clubcard boost on and I think I only used something like £20 of clubcard points with the boost to get the bike and it was relatively easy to get £20 of clubcard points back then when Tesco were far more generous with their points. It is a lovely folding bike with a nice strong hinge mechanism. It feels solid and safe and maybe its half a kilo heavier than an aluminium frame but its worth it I feel. I'm personally not obsessed with bikes being low weight, I'm happy to compensate for weight with slightly lower gearing. I rode a high tensile steel mountain bike for my commute for many years and it did many 1000s of miles. I loved it.

Fuji-ta manufacture many of their high tensile steel frames using robots so its very advanced manufacturing and this means the factory door price is very low. A few years ago something like 2018 their factory door price for robot made high tensile steel frames was about five dollars, it was 10-20 for aluminium frames and started from 80 dollars for carbon fibre frames. The most important statistic was failure percentages which were non-existent for steel frames pretty much, there were no issues at all, something ridiculously low l ike 0.02 percent where as aluminium was maybe 0.4 percent and carbon fibre was 3 or 4 percent. These are internal failures at the factory, inspection, batch tests etc. I just like the fact the manufacturing process for steel is so advanced with such incredibly low failure rates and a fully recyclable material. Aluminium and carbon fibre were both involving manual labour much more. In fact the information I got at the time was aluminium welders started on children's frames as they used more basic aluminium and weight demands were less so after basic training they would spend some time on aluminium frames for children's bikes before progressing to Adult aluminium frames.

Admittedly I've never seen any image of a jig used for robot welding that looked like a folding bike frame though but I still suspect they are robot welded. I'm told you can identify robot welding by looking at the weld but not sure how to identify it myself. I guess some sort of very uniform bead pattern.

Manufacturing of steel is so advanced nowadays, this means a low price for consumers and less environmental impact. It just feels right to me.

This is the ifold terrain folding bike from Tesco. My memory is gradually coming back and I seem to remember it was £75 but I had a £15 off voucher before then using the clubcard boost. Annoyingly the image is on the other side but the hinge locking mechanism looks identical to the Argos ebike. This isn't my ifold bike just an image of the internet. I used a loose seat tube clamp with quick release on the saddle post to both prevent the saddle post dropping.

 

[Ghost1951]

The Brompton frame is very clever, I seem to remember it is a blend of different steels both chromoly and high tensile steel parts to provide exactly the ride characteristics they want and is only possible through brazing rather than welding as brazing allows different metals to be combined. However I have to say I am a big fan of basic high tensile steel folding bike frames you get from China. I bought a folding bike from Tesco Direct years ago. It was only something like £60 but there was a clubcard boost on and I think I only used something like £20 of clubcard points with the boost to get the bike and it was relatively easy to get £20 of clubcard points back then when Tesco were far more generous with their points. It is a lovely folding bike with a nice strong hinge mechanism. It feels solid and safe and maybe its half a kilo heavier than an aluminium frame but its worth it I feel. I'm personally not obsessed with bikes being low weight, I'm happy to compensate for weight with slightly lower gearing. I rode a high tensile steel mountain bike for my commute for many years and it did many 1000s of miles. I loved it.

Fuji-ta manufacture many of their high tensile steel frames using robots so its very advanced manufacturing and this means the factory door price is very low. A few years ago something like 2018 their factory door price for robot made high tensile steel frames was about five dollars, it was 10-20 for aluminium frames and started from 80 dollars for carbon fibre frames. The most important statistic was failure percentages which were non-existent for steel frames pretty much, there were no issues at all, something ridiculously low l ike 0.02 percent where as aluminium was maybe 0.4 percent and carbon fibre was 3 or 4 percent. These are internal failures at the factory, inspection, batch tests etc. I just like the fact the manufacturing process for steel is so advanced with such incredibly low failure rates and a fully recyclable material. Aluminium and carbon fibre were both involving manual labour much more. In fact the information I got at the time was aluminium welders started on children's frames as they used more basic aluminium and weight demands were less so after basic training they would spend some time on aluminium frames for children's bikes before progressing to Adult aluminium frames.

Admittedly I've never seen any image of a jig used for robot welding that looked like a folding bike frame though but I still suspect they are robot welded. I'm told you can identify robot welding by looking at the weld but not sure how to identify it myself. I guess some sort of very uniform bead pattern.

Manufacturing of steel is so advanced nowadays, this means a low price for consumers and less environmental impact. It just feels right to me.

You are a mine of information Bonzo. Love the detail of your posts. Your uploaded image does not open for me, by the way.

I remember buying a second hand chromoly steel bike from a shop, probably forty years ago with the Tsunoda label. I think I paid £40 for it . It was a really nice bike by my non expert standard and I rode it thousands of miles. Loved it. Later, I spent a lot more money on a Dawes Galaxy tourer which handled differently, and was lighter with Reynolds Tubing, but I don't think it was really a better bike. My dad bought the Tsunoda from me and it got left outside and eventually ended up in a skip. Such a pity. If he had kept it better, it would still be on the road.

It looked like this one: https://steel-vintage.com/fr/products/tsunoda-i-c-classic-road-bicycle-1980s-detail

 

[guerney]

On my DIY converted eBrompton, I dumped the 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub gear and set up for 3 cogs on the rear derailleur shifter. This save a lot of weight.

These 3 gears are plenty and for Urban use, I almost never shift it out of top gear, the motor takes up the slack on most all hills.

Seeing the new G-line eBrompton, are you tempted to go 20" wheeled with yours? I imagine potholes would be less problematic. Mind you, things are dicey sometimes with 20" and 1.75" wide tyres - spotted this, looked about 5 inches deep, which my front wheel could have ended up in... illuminated by bright lights and dodged while slightly sideways turning right at the lights.

 

[StuartsProjects]

Seeing the new G-line eBrompton, are you tempted to go 20" wheeled with yours? I imagine potholes would be less problematic.

10, maybe even 5 years ago I was happy enough using my Brompton, originally bought for commuting, for environmentally friendly local trips. The significant advantage of the Brompton is that you don't have to leave it outside shops\doctor etc to be nicked, it folds real small and rolls around so well, it so easy to take it with you.

The roads round here are now is a very poor condition and the potholes are a serious danger, several local roads should really have no cycling signs put up. It seems that in our modern advanced society our roads are never going to improve. Its close to the point where the 16" wheel Brompton is no longer safe on the moonscape roads.

So yes a 20" Brompton with fat tyres that folds small and rolls easily like a shopping trolley is definitely of interest.

 

[saneagle]

10, maybe even 5 years ago I was happy enough using my Brompton, originally bought for commuting, for environmentally friendly local trips. The significant advantage of the Brompton is that you don't have to leave it outside shops\doctor etc to be nicked, it folds real small and rolls around so well, it so easy to take it with you.

The roads round here are now is a very poor condition and the potholes are a serious danger, several local roads should really have no cycling signs put up. It seems that in our modern advanced society our roads are never going to improve. Its close to the point where the 16" wheel Brompton is no longer safe on the moonscape roads.

So yes a 20" Brompton with fat tyres that folds small and rolls easily like a shopping trolley is definitely of interest.

All over the country councils are no longer maintaining the roads. It can't be a money problem because my council doesn’t suffer from that constraint. It must be something from C40 Cities or something like that. We can counter by using fatbikes, which will start to become a necessity in a few years time. I think I might build one soon so that I'm ready for it.

In case you're wondering, these are the councils that signed up to C40 Cities in 2020. There must be more now:

• Bath and North East Somerset Council, United Kingdom
• Birmingham City Council, United Kingdom
• Bury Metropolitan Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Cambridgeshire County Council, United Kingdom
• Cornwall Council, United Kingdom
• Cotswold District Council, United Kingdom
• Gloucestershire County Council, United Kingdom
• Leeds City Council, United Kingdom
• Leicester City Council, United Kingdom
• Leicestershire County Council, United Kingdom
• Liverpool City Council, United Kingdom
• London Borough of Camden, United Kingdom
• London Borough of Enfield, United Kingdom
• Milton Keynes Council, United Kingdom
• Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Council, United Kingdom
• Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Oxford City Council, United Kingdom
• Royal Borough of Greenwich, United Kingdom
• Reading Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Solihull Council, United Kingdom
• South Gloucestershire Council, United Kingdom
• West of England Combined Authority, United Kingdom
• Wiltshire Council, United Kingdom
• Edinburgh, United Kingdom

 

[Ghost1951]

All over the country councils are no longer maintaining the roads. It can't be a money problem because my council doesn’t suffer from that constraint. It must be something from C40 Cities or something like that. We can counter by using fatbikes, which will start to become a necessity in a few years time. I think I might build one soon so that I'm ready for it.

In case you're wondering, these are the councils that signed up to C40 Cities in 2020. There must be more now:

• Bath and North East Somerset Council, United Kingdom
• Birmingham City Council, United Kingdom
• Bury Metropolitan Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Cambridgeshire County Council, United Kingdom
• Cornwall Council, United Kingdom
• Cotswold District Council, United Kingdom
• Gloucestershire County Council, United Kingdom
• Leeds City Council, United Kingdom
• Leicester City Council, United Kingdom
• Leicestershire County Council, United Kingdom
• Liverpool City Council, United Kingdom
• London Borough of Camden, United Kingdom
• London Borough of Enfield, United Kingdom
• Milton Keynes Council, United Kingdom
• Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Council, United Kingdom
• Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Oxford City Council, United Kingdom
• Royal Borough of Greenwich, United Kingdom
• Reading Borough Council, United Kingdom
• Solihull Council, United Kingdom
• South Gloucestershire Council, United Kingdom
• West of England Combined Authority, United Kingdom
• Wiltshire Council, United Kingdom
• Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Newcastle started blocking roads in a part of the city called Jesmond and they created absolute chaos diverting traffic onto a couple of arterial roads which obviously enough got much more congested.

They also blocked some narrow bridges over a couple of streams. These bridges had been used as rat runs through rather pleasant residential areas and had got quite busy and even a bit dangerous for cyclists and people on foot. I am ambivalent about the latter move, because it has opened up really nice traffic free cycling and walking routes for moving through the city.


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