They are a perfect pub bike
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... providing you can be reasonably sure you're not going to stack it on the way home - one too many and it could get regrettable and expensive very quickly!
I forgot to mention in my above post that I expected to get hard cold Paddington stares and objections when I took to the bike in the hospital, but no one said anything. I took it right into the ward, and in to my aunts room and plonked it at the end of the bed!
They're certainly a funny one - while the general public seems to hate bikes and cyclists by default, Bromptons seem to avoid most of this bile
Non Brompton owners are fascinated by them.
Indeed - I had a good chat with the security guard at Uniqlo in town a while ago after I'd hauled mine in and out of the shop; while a few days ago I had a really nice interaction with an old woman in the village who instigated conversation after I stopped near her. Turned out she had an electric folder of some sort and it was great to have a meaningful, positive conversation with someone I could respect in this Daily Mail-sponsored hellhole..
So, more things today. Before the holiday I finally pulled my finger out and bought some frame protection tape. I've been meaning to fit some over the holiday but the weather and my apathy have made that difficult.
Today the weather seemed reasonable so I dragged everything outside, chucked the bike on the stand, pulled the wheels off and set about cleaning it. This proved to be the usual thankless, depressing task as it took ages, I couldn't get its intricate little crevaces as clean as I'd have liked and of course the process inevitably revealed hitherto unknown damage in various places.
Bike cleaned as best as possible I removed the few tatty bits of strategically-placed gaffer tape on the rear section of the frame, degreased the appropriate areas and cut out some of the new
ebay-sourced transparent protection tape.
I'd toyed with the idea of chucking £20 at a corner radius cutter to get some nice rads on the piece of tape I'd cut, but baulked at the cost and elected to do it with scissors instead. This was predicatably no fun; especially as a left-hander with wrong-handed scissors; so I couldn't really see what I was doing.
I got some tape fitted in the appropriate places; not 100% happy of course but it's not an easy job and I guess we'll just have to see how it goes...
Probably the least-worst bit at the cable rub spot on the drive-side. When the bike folds the cables move beyond the lower limit of the tube so there's the potential for repeated use to peel the tape off; however it's too thick to conform to the radiussed end of the tube. It also struggled to stick to the 13mm diameter tube at its ends so might not pan out to be viable long-term..
Cable rub spot beneath the rear caliper; as tension is applied to the cable the outer migrates up the frame along the length of the protection tape. The imperfections around the edges are evidently the result of the stress of being cut by scissors, while that near the middle is where the tip of the knife was that was used to apply it..
Finally a bit at the chainstay bridge to prevent abrasion of the paint by the end of the mudguard. Why Brompton could just have extended the guard and fixed it to the bridge is anyone's guess..
I'm not sure what to make of this tape yet. It's thick and probably offers good protection, while the adhesive seems pretty tenacious. That said it's a bit tricky to apply and probably not great for smaller areas with tight rads such as this application; so I wonder if I'd be better off sticking to the electrical tape I've applied as a stop-gap in other areas.
Hopefully the transparent tape will come into its own on the main frame where opaque / coloured tapes blend in less well. For now I've stopped at just the rear triangle as all the other areas should remain fairly clean / are easy enough to spot-clean so can be done as and when.. once I've summoned some more enthusiasm and maybe given a bit more thought to the best way to apply it.
While at the back I also touched up a few areas of damage on the rear triangle; including that resulting from the pump's successful suicide bid and a few other random little dings. I also found that bizarrely the chain has abraded the leading / upper edge of the dropout (now touched up) - not sure how this has happened; perhaps an adjustment issue...?
While the tensioner assy was off I cleaned the tensioning wheel; which seems to get particularly grotty and rough. It's clean and smooth now but showing signs of wear around the OD of its inner boss - I suspect if given enough abuse it'll eventually wear through and fail. I also noticed some rust on the hexagonal steel retainers for the jockey and tensioner wheels - hardly surprising given their close proximity to the ground and apparent hot-oil-blued finish; which looks nice but is hardly corrosion resistant..
Depressingly I also found some damage on the main frame itself - on top of the brace that runs between the BB and main tube which seems like a very odd place to get damaged.. thankfully I don't think it's through to the metal but is still irritating; especially since I don't know how it happened / how similar could be prevented.
I must admit I like the fact that many of the parts on this black edition bike are black rather than the same colour as the frame, as it makes damage in these areas somehow less gaulling and a lot easier to touch up acceptably.
After all that the clean bits of the bike got a token application of wax to try and make future cleaning easier, before the bike went back together.
I think that's all for now. Today has not been as productive or rewarding as hoped, but I guess it's progress..
