Cycle touring with a Brompton : Yes you can!
Back in January I invested in a second hand Brompton to fill in the gaps between public transport now that I no longer own a money slurping car. Within hours of riding it I found myself wondering if I can go cycle touring on a folding bike.
It made perfect sense to me, cycle around the nice spots, national parks or do city trips on the bike then just jump on a bus or train when the route gets boring or to escape the industrial belts of the bigger cities.
Easter weekend was already planned as a small wheel weekend with friends, I decided to extent the weekend and see how far I’d get within a couple of days.
Phase 1: Escaping Amsterdam with the train to Arhem
In the Netherlands you pay €6 for a day pass for bikes on trains. Folding bikes are free!
Phase 2: Meeting Stijn, Friedel, Andrew, Luke, Mareike and Anthony
A weekend of cold Easter cycling with friends. The first night camping the second in a hut. Farm stalls, ferry’s and fattening apple tart. 3 Bromptons, 1 Dahon and 2 big wheel bikes (that looked very out of place).
Stijn and I had a different approach to carrying our luggage, each with their own merits and drawbacks. For a week or two I think I prefer my system for a longer trip I’d probably go with a trailer. For more info about carrying baggage on a Brompton Click HERE.
Here’s a video of the weekend made by Friedel
Phase 3 : Onwards alone to Germany
I went into the weekend open minded about where I would be a week later, planning to just wing it. Talking to Mareike and Anthony during the weekend gave me the idea to cycle part of the Rhine in Germany. Rather than waste time cycling from the Netherlands through the smelly industrial part of Rhine around Duisberg and Dusseldorf I took a couple of trains to Cologne, with a brief stop in Monchengladbach.
Phase 4 : A couple of days cycling up the Rhine
Castles, cathedrals and sleepy picturesque German villages
The looks of local tourists were amusing when they saw I was brewing up real coffee. Because life is too short to drink instant coffee, even when Brompton touring 🙂
The Brompton also proved ideal for getting up stairs in the couple of hotels I took (I wimped out a couple of times because my summer sleeping bag proved too cold during the -5 nights, even with my down jacket on).
Phase 5 : The journey home
The morning of the forth day in Germany I’d had enough of cycling in the cold against a biting wind and decided to head home from Mainz. Usually the ICE international train can be a pain to book a bike on. Cue Brompton folding magic, 6 hours, 2 trains, 30 minutes playing tourist in Cologne and a tram later I was home.
Conclusion
I’d call the Brompton experiment a success, I can fit enough gear on the Brompton for a week long trip (3 season) where I don’t need to carry much food and water so therefore can travel indefinitely assuming I can get food most days and can wash and dry my spare underwear most days.
The Brompton is slighly slower than a normal tourer but is comfortable enough to still do 60-80km of fairly flat terrain (I have the 3 gear version which I lowered to 44×13 and I’m fairly fit).
A folding bike is a great way to cover a large distance in a short time and still cycle the interesting/ beautiful parts. I find it a great combination with the train. Ideal for Europe or maybe National park hopping in America or similar.
The biggest problem was resisting the urge to do wheelies, or jump off curbs. The Brompton often feels like riding a BMX.
Packing list :
Click on this image to see the tags of all the gear I took on this trip.
Stats:
1100km (Travelled), 6 days, 5 trains, 4 apple tarts, 3 nights indoors, 2 countries, 1 tram, 0 punctures.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Bromptons really worked for us on our tour in Australia. Love the blog.
We had lots of people giving us sideways glances.
“so you are going cycle camping on THOSE little bikes”
Our story is at cycletouring2.blogspot.co.uk
We travelled from Cairo to Cape Town with 2 Dahon folding bikes, camping most of the way and it was the best trip ever!
If you would like to read more my book ‘A Hitch-biker’s Guide Through Africa’ is availalbe as an eBook via Amazon, iBooks, etc or you can contact me for the paperback version. For more info check out ‘A Hitch-biker’s Guide Through Africa’ on Facebook.
Wassup with them horny little bastard garden gnomes?* Graeme Murray has a Moulton (looks like a dinky little Bailey bridge…in Landrover Livery too) and it rides like a dream. Just not in sand. No, not in sand. Not unless you like taste of sand. Certainly makes huge sense for travelling where roads are better and “hybrid” travelling is an option.
Our Thorn tandem ain’t gonna fold like a Dahon, even with the help of S&S couplers ;(
*was Snow White hiding in one of your panniers?
Always interesting to read about cycling in Europe… Particularly on a Brommie and in Germany 🙂
I use my Brompton for touring. Due to the height between the top of the seat tube and the luggage rack, I can fit a rucksack of at least 35L, if not larger. This is after covering the rucksack with a plastic cover (to tuck away loose straps and strings) and using the elastic straps over the ‘shoulders’ of the pack (the sidepockets) to secure it. A strap through the eyes of the seat will hold the corresponding strap on the top front of the rucksack in and secure.
The only thing is that over a long distance, the basic seat becomes uncomfortable but it is great for touring using coach services as well as trains and possibly planes. One warning: Make sure you get all your bits back when the Brompton is folded, by keeping it in a plastic folder. I lost the use of it for a few days by losing one of the fixing clamps on a coach! Also luggage carriers don’t like messy bikes.
Interesting,thanks.Off to Thailand in about six weeks and have thought of investing in a Brompton.The only worry I have is getting it on the plane.Saw a Japanese tourist riding a Dahon at Aldgate yesterday and that’s what gave me the idea.
Hi Bob,
I think a Brompton for travelling around Thailand would be great (though the Schwalbe tires would be a smart move I think). It will give you the flexibility to grab a bus or night train from time to time. Cycling around Sukothai on a broomy would be pretty cool 🙂
I did the very same last year and flew with my brompton from the UK to SE Asia for 5 weeks around Thailand, Malaysia, and Burma…took around 8 flights with the bike as well as trains and buses and a t bag plus packaging….it works and is great fun…with no damage if done correctly.
Recommendations.
– Use ergon grips
– Use Schwalbe marathon tires (if possible marathon plus)
– Bring a spare folding tire…brompton kojak
– bring spare inner tube and tools.
– several methods of packing the bike have been put forward, but if you’re like me…you want full flexibility…ie cycle straight from the airport onwards…I use an outeredge soft bag (£30) with 2 camping roll mats to wrap around the bike, but the hinges must be taken off first and stored. Others use a brompton box, and some use hard cases…but this defeats the objective in my eyes.
– Ensure your package doesn’t look like a bike….airline dependant but you could get charged $$$$ if not careful.
Trust me…in the best part of the world for me, their is nothing like cycling on a brompton…especially Burma where everyone just loved the bike…
My husband and I are traveling Thailand right now with Bromptons (and loved reading this blog). We carried the bikes on the plane and put them in the overhead compartment (Eva Air and Thai Airways), no trouble at all.
My partner and myself toured part of the NSR on bromptons reason being time of the Olympics, so no full sized bikes in or out of London on the rail network as usual complete farce full sized bikes every where. Well every cloud it turn out to be a great trip bike performed admirably. Apart from on cobbles but does any bike, I have since then changed 2 things .
1st a sprung Brooke’s saddle as the bromptons saddle was purgatory.
2 good old schalbes as the bromptons tyres arnt up to the job of touring
2 Very sensible upgrades 🙂