{"id":451,"date":"2015-10-04T13:11:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T17:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/?p=451"},"modified":"2015-10-04T13:13:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T17:13:04","slug":"on-to-the-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/?p=451","title":{"rendered":"On to the bikes…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1-2015-10-04<\/a>Kathleen and I have a serious bike habit. \u00a0We currently drive a Mini, not because it is cute, but because it is small and leaves lots of room in the garage for bikes. \u00a0At one point we might have had 13 or 14 bikes in the house, garage or in the shed. \u00a0We had all sorts of bikes, a recumbent, racing bikes, touring bikes, commuting bikes,\u00a0shopping bikes but no folding bikes.<\/p>\n

Folding bikes are available at a wide range of prices and we have tested quite a few. \u00a0We own a number of Moultons<\/a>, small wheel bikes that don’t fold so we have a good reference point. \u00a0Most of the ones we tried were toy like and too flexible for comfort or riding a distance.<\/p>\n

A few years ago we came across The Path Less Pedaled<\/a>\u00a0 a cycling blog by Russ Roca and Laura Crawford. \u00a0At the time we were planning our 2013 trip to New Zealand and Russ and Laura had done some great videos of their trip a couple of years earlier, – the Kiwi Chronicles<\/a>. \u00a0Russ and Laura did a lot of unsupported touring riding Brompton<\/a> folding bikes and this surprised us.<\/p>\n

Bromptons <\/a>are perhaps best known as urban bikes, they fold small for easy storage and for mixed mode commuting. \u00a0They are popular in their home town of London and other large cities, seeing Russ and Laura travelling the back country of New Zealand fully loaded was quite eye opening. \u00a0Russ and Laura documented their bikes in a lot of detail in their ebook The Unauthorized Brompton Touring Guide<\/a>\u00a0and we were able to order our bikes to very similar specs.<\/p>\n

Our Bromptons have 6 speeds with a lower gear range to enable us to ride more hills. Six speeds does not sound like a lot coming from bikes with 18 to 27 ratios, however the ratios are well spaced and easy to use. \u00a0We have a rear rack and a large open shopping bag on the front of the bikes. \u00a0The bikes can be made into a sort of shopping cart which is really handy, no need to lock up your bike outside, just fold and go. Test runs to Whole Foods (where else?) have been successful, though you do get comments.<\/p>\n

Folded, the bikes fit easily in the forepeak, the floor of the aft cabin, the lazarette or tucked in the back of the aft cabin under the cockpit. \u00a0Lots of options and we will pick the best spot depending on how many people are on board and if we are voyaging or hanging out at an port or anchorage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"1-2015-10-04<\/a><\/p>\n

We plan to use the bikes as our land transport for shopping and general getting around. \u00a0We are also planning to take a simple camping set up with us so we can do some wider exploring away from the boat.<\/p>\n

The Brompton is a work of art, it folds and unfolds in seconds, it rides well, the luggage attaches to the front of the frame enabling large and quite heavy loads to be carried with little impact on handling.. \u00a0They are not quite as comfortable as our F-frame Moultons <\/a>we use in town, but the Brompton is lighter and faster. \u00a0The design Brompton owes a lot to the Moulton, though Alex Moulton’s focus was on building small wheels bikes, where as\u00a0Andrew Ritchie’s focus was always on folding bikes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathleen and I have a serious bike habit. \u00a0We currently drive a Mini, not because it is cute, but because it is small and leaves lots of room in the garage for bikes. \u00a0At one point we might have had 13 or 14 bikes in the house, garage or in the shed. \u00a0We had all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"amp_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eglin.net\/2bikes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}