rogerzilla
Legendary Member
I removed the clip on mine! Slows down folding. No Bromptons had them until the late noughties.
Brompton ml3 2000 model
- Thread starter Skyway
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berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
Sorry, no pic on the computer where I currently am. The "eye" goes at middle of the bolt of the seatpost-clamp (analogue to where the Brompton thingy sits). The other end clamps to the rear-frame between the ears that hold the roller wheels from above. To loosen the clamp you have to either push the bike into the damping or to unclamp it against the tension of the springloaded thingy directly or a combination of both.
no need to remove the clip, just turn the rubber block slightly and that allows it to be permanently unlocked
rogerzilla
Legendary Member
But the weight!
roley poley
Veteran
- Location
- leeds
Frame nos, 1104 to1674 . Build date Jan 89 toAug89 .... referenced from David Henshaw "Brompton bicycle" book
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12boy
Guru
- Location
- Casper WY USA
Berlinaut, thanks for your reply. The non eye end just clips over the frame, then. Seems like an ingenious idea to me.
Gunk, I did see the clamping parts but since your reply followed my pic request I misunderstood.
Gunk, I did see the clamping parts but since your reply followed my pic request I misunderstood.
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
The bike is a T3 MK3 as far as can be told from the pics and year 2000 may fit well. Just that you may have misread the serial or frame number
Serial numbers only are on Bromptons since late 2001/early 2002 via a sticker on the seat post tube and they do have way more digits, so this cannot be a serial. It could be a frame number (sitting on the top of the rear folding hinge, sometimes hard to read on a bike of that age) and for this bike it does not fit as
and in this case the bike would look very different from how it does. It could be 162xxx - this would fit the year 2000 as well as the looks of the bike.
If it’s a T3 @berlinonaut why is there a second gear shifter on the bars?
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
It isn't.
It looks like a comic version of Brompton's two-speed shifter, but the form is different as is the clamping. More importantly there is no cable leaving the "shifter" 
so it cannot shift. Plus a year 2000 Brompton is lacking the little nut on the rear frame that is needed for the derailleur - it was only invented in 2002. The 3-speed hub should also still be the Sturmey 3AW which is unable to take two sprockets (at least from factory). I guess the thing on the bars may just be a bell.berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
Same same but different, as people say in Thailand.
To the innocent eye Bromptons look pretty identical since the invention of the Mk2 in 1987, but there has been a coninuous stream of small incremental changes each year (and sometimes more often) that sum up over time. And obviously some bikes have been modified and retrofitted. Regarding your bike: It has 2018 model brakes and a stem from a MK2 before 2000 and a right hand pedal and saddle with pentaclip after 2008, 3rd party brake levers and shifters from a model after 2005 and possibly a later, mate M bar as well as a relative new mudflap on the front-wheel and probably newer blades as well, also the seat post clamp got exchanged for the newer version from mid 2007 on - though the main frame may be a 2001 - so it is a little bastardized. 
"started life off" is obviously true. Can't tell from the pics if the main frame really is a 2001, you would have to refer to the frame number to be safe. What I can safely say is that the main frame dates from before 2004. The Mk2 stem makes me a little suspicious that it may be a Mk2 by birth (Mk3 got invented in 2000 and the OPs bike clearly is a Mk3, completely original apart from the saddle and the thingy on the bars. The shifter looks a little bit like Sram, but this would not fit 2000 and is impossible to tell from the pic).Regarding the shifting there was a break point between 2000 and 2002: In summer 2000 S/A went bankrupt, leaving Brompton with limited stock of hubs and no supplier. Stocks lasted until spring 2001 and just in time before running out of hubs Brompton managed to squeeze in the SRAM 3-speed hub into the rear frame replacing the S/A 3AW that was no longer available. Too bad that the Sachs/Sram 5-speed hub did not fit, so there was no replacement for the top notch model T5 that was using the S/A sprinter. That led to the development of the half-step 6-speed on the basis of the SRAM hub which was then invented in spring 2002 as L and T6. A tad earlier Brompton fitted the rear frames out with the nut that is necessary for the shifting mechanism - I guess towards the end of 2001. Your bike, being a (possibly late) 2001 possibly has it (or the rear frame got replaced at some point in time) or not whereas a 2000 model doesn't have it. Your's also may possibly have an S/A hub with an aluminium hubshell instead of the S/A 3AW with the steel hub shell or the Sachs hub (hard to safely detect from the pics, I may be wrong here) that replaced the 3-speed Sachs in 2005, so maybe a little bit more of bastardization. The 6-speed used the Sachs until early 2009 when it got replaced by the BWR.
As you can see: Changes over changes and tiny things like the nut sometimes make huge differences.
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