Author Archives: David Henshaw

349mm Tyres

Forty years ago, Doctor Moulton demonstrated that 16-inch tyres offered lower rolling resistance than anyone thought. Controversially, he went on to prove that his own 17- inch tyre rolled as well (or even better) than its 27-inch equivalent. For many years, the ‘cooking’ Moultons were sold with smaller 16-inch tyres, or to be more precise, 16″ x 13/8″. Incidentally, there are three slightly different 16-inch formats, so its safer to use the international metric rim size: 349mm. Look on the tyre and you’ll usually see 37-349.The 37 refers to the width in millimetres (that’s the 13/8″ bit).

349mm tyres - power vs tyre pressure

While sales of the Moulton were strong, these tyres became widely available, but with the decline in Moulton sales at the end of the 1960s, tyre companies lost interest, and the 349mm format began to fade away.

Fortunately, as we’ve recounted numerous times, this ‘ideal’ folding bike tyre size was saved – initially by the Bickerton (fitted only at the rear, of course), then the Micro, and from the late 1980s, the Brompton and later the Airframe. It might have been an ideal size, but by this time there was only one half-decent tyre left in mass production – the Raleigh Record.

In 1996, with the arrival of the race-bred Primo Comet, 349mm tyres were back at the cutting edge.The better tyres helped to sell bikes, and more bikes brought better tyres…There are now four main choices, and a number of interesting developments on the horizon.

Most of these tyres are available with or without a tough kevlar under-layer to resist punctures. Kevlar increases rolling resistance, but we’re not convinced it reduced punctures.The results of our small reader’s survey (sent out with December 2003 renewals) seems to confirm this.

Raleigh Record (37-349mm)

Are we serious? Well, they’re cheap, but thereafter it’s all negatives: the Record is heavier than the new breed, it punctures more frequently, rolls less well and is more difficult to remove from the rim. For very mean people who don’t mind mending a few punctures, a pair of Records will last 3,000-4,000 miles. But life’s too short, surely?

Points to watch: Prone to punctures, particularly when badly worn, but may outlive you.
Weight: 338g
Puncture resistance: Mediocre
Rolling resistance: Poor
Price: £5
Outlets: Less glamourous cycle shops

Primo Comet (37-349mm)

primo-comet The story has it that American recumbent manufacturer Vision developed a small race- bred tyre, and licensed the technology to Cheng Shin in Taiwan, who succeeded in producing an everyday racing tyre for an everyday road price.The magic ingredients were a near-slick tread, and strong, but paper-thin reinforced sidewalls that rolled and flexed much better than the conventional kind, yet lasted almost as long.What also impressed about the Primo was its strikingly low weight of 201g a tyre – a saving of no less than 137g over a Raleigh Record. As if by magic, small wheeled bikes started to go much, much faster, and weigh less too. Strangely enough, considering the Primo’s light, supple construction, the tyres proved to be relatively puncture-proof, and (on tarmac, at least) the lack of tread has no negative effects. Needless to say, this is not a tyre for muddy or loose surfaces, and the sidewalls will be damaged if used with a dynamo, but the Primo remains a firm favourite with some.They’re surprisingly hard wearing too. With care (ie, no dynamo and no riding whilst flat), a Primo should last up to 3,000 miles and puncture around every 1,000. Eventually, the sidewalls become a bit frail, and cuts in the tread harbour glass and flint shards, causing more regular punctures.

Early Primo tyres had natural brown sidewalls that soon looked shabby, but later examples were all-black, and some have reflective sidewalls too.There’s a kevlar option, but we’ve seen no evidence that it’s worth paying extra for.

Points to watch: Rolling resistance is so low that you may not notice a puncture before the rim hits the ground. And avoid the ultra-light 19mm (19-349) Primo unless you’re building a one-race special. Although light and free-running, it is unsuitable for road use and can fail rapidly.
Weight: 201g
Puncture resistance: Good
Rolling resistance: Excellent
Price: £15
Outlets: Rarer now, but try Avon Valley Cyclery or St John Street Cycles (see ads in back pages).

Brompton (yellow flash) (37-349mm)

brompton-tyre By the late 1990s so many Brompton customers were fitting their own Primo tyres that Brompton decided to develop a road version for themselves. After a number of experiments, the now familiar ‘snakeskin’ tread pattern first appeared in early 2000 and was soon standard on all Brompton models, apart from the lowly C3.

With thin supple Primo-style sidewalls, and a tougher, but equally flexible (possibly more flexible) tread, the tyre was expected to have slightly inferior rolling performance to its racing forebear, but our tests found little difference, and engineers at Greenspeed (see graph) have actually recorded a modest improvement.This may be down to the rubber compound chosen – the Brompton tyre is quite hard, making it relatively puncture resistant and very long lasting. According to our reader’s survey, Brompton tyres have a life of 1,000 to 8,000 miles, with a mean figure of about 4,000 miles; something we’d agree with from experience. Puncture resistance seems to vary a great deal, but the mean figure is 1,060 miles – far in excess of any other tyre. Indeed, almost half our respondents had never experienced a puncture.The downside appears to be a lack of grip in the wet, particularly when running obliquely to white lines and low kerbs. The evidence for this is quite patchy, but sufficiently widespread to cause concern.

If the standard Brompton tyre is so good, surely the ‘green flash’ kevlar-lined version is even better? We don’t think it is. Our reader’s sample was small, but together with the evidence we’ve seen over the years, it suggests the kevlar tyre has a shorter life and is actually more vulnerable to punctures.

Points to watch: May lack grip in wet weather, particularly when new. Either ‘run in’ with care for a few weeks, or try buffing the tread with sandpaper before use!
Weight: 248g
Puncture resistance: Excellent
Rolling resistance: Excellent
Typical Price: £9.99 (kevlar ‘green flash’ tyre, about £16.25)
Stockists: All Brompton dealers

Schwalbe Marathon (37-349mm)

schwalbe-marathon The Marathon is a newish tyre, allegedly developed from the long-established Swallow, which sold here back in the days when the Brits were a bit suspicious of the Germans and preferred to buy products with British-sounding names. Still, we’re all friends now, eh?

This is the only modern 16-inch tyre relying on ‘old-fashioned’ tyre construction, but the Marathon incorporates plenty of clever technology, including rubber with a high silica content to improve grip and a kevlar belt for puncture resistance.

The general consensus is that the Schwalbe is relatively puncture-proof compared to the lighter tyres, but our reader’s experiences seem to tell a different story.Your figures suggest average tyre life in the region of 2,300 miles, and punctures every 860 miles.There are many reasons why our results might not be scientific – for example, a tougher looking tyre is more likely to be fitted to a hard-ridden machine – but the evidence appears to suggest that they have a shorter service life and more punctures than their lighter (and cheaper) cousins.They can also be a tight fit on the rim, making punctures even more annoying. And according to the Greenspeed data (see graph), rolling resistance is rather higher – the Schwalbe absorbing as much as ten watts more per tyre than the Brompton. At18mph (the speed at which the tyres were tested) that relates to around 16% extra effort.Whatever the truth (and Greenspeed believes its test methods may exaggerate the differential) the Marathon is a safe, grippy tyre that looks effective, and it has rightly settled down as a popular option. For tough conditions and off-road use, it is probably the best choice.

The seriously puncture-proof Marathon Plus should also be available in this size soon, but Bohle UK was unable to confirm a date.

Points to watch: Vice-free, but stodgy performer
Weight: 340g
Puncture resistance: Good
Rolling resistance: Fair
Typical Price: £15
Stockists: Most small-wheeled bike dealers (see advertisements)

Schwalbe Stelvio (28-349mm)

schwalbe-stelvio The Stelvio is considerably narrower than the 37mm tyres, but as it retains the same ‘aspect ratio’ (ie, ratio of width to height), it also has a smaller overall diameter.The tyre will stretch to fit the 20mm rims fitted to the Brompton and most other 16-inch bikes these days, but the reduced tyre diameter means you’ll have to recalibrate your speedometer, and accept slightly lower gearing.

The tyres feature just about every technology going – the sidewalls are paper thin, Primo- style, the centre of the tread is a slick, low-friction rubber, and the shoulders a grippy silica mix. Overall weight is marginally the lightest on the market at 196g.

Are they worth the money and the trouble? Being such a small tyre, the Stelvio is vulnerable to incorrect tyre pressures – Schwalbe recommends 85psi – 120psi, figures that most tyre pumps simply can’t reach. If run at too low a pressure, the tubes are liable to suffer from pinch punctures on bumps. Punctures do seem to be a problem generally, but there simply isn’t enough evidence to say for sure.

On a Brompton or Micro, the Stelvio serves only to give a spine-jarring ride and over-light steering for no detectable benefit, but this light, fast 120psi tyre might make sense on a fully-suspended bike such as the Moulton – preferably with the correct narrow rims. Provided you look after the tyres, and fit them to the right sort of machine, they may be the fastest 16-inch option.

Points to watch: Some potential for faster machines
Weight: 196g (you can save a further 9g per tyre by fitting Schwalbe 32mm inner tubes)
Puncture resistance: Poor
Rolling resistance: Excellent
Price: £13.50 (including UK postage)
Stockist: Westcountry Recumbents [rob@wrhpv.com]

Conclusion

If weight really matters, the Primo still has much to offer, although you’d be well advised to stock up while they’re still widely available. For racing, it’s probably fair to say that the Schwalbe Stelvio is the best, although we’d hesitate to recommend it for road use.The overall winner, in terms of value for money, life, puncture resistance and rolling resistance, just has to be the standard Brompton tyre.The only question mark seems to be wet weather grip – in all other respects, this is a remarkable tyre.

Incidentally, the tyres tested above are rated at all sorts of pressures, but please ignore such phrases as ‘inflate to 100psi’ (Brompton, in this example).Whatever the graph might seem to indicate, these figures are maximum pressures, and will only give the results indicated on a perfectly smooth surface. For most riders, on typical road surfaces, a lower pressure will give both lower rolling resistance and greater comfort.

A good general guide is to sit on the bike and adjust the tyre pressures front and rear until the tyre just begins to bulge out above the road contact patch.That pressure (always higher for the rear tyre, of course) might be 100psi, 80, 60 or even less, but it will be close to ideal for you, your bicycle and your tyres. On the road, high frequency vibration means too much pressure, and a ‘wallowing’ ride, too little. If this all sounds like hard work, aim for about 65psi front and 75psi at the rear.

2004 Brompton

We’ve been known to refer to the Brompton as the best folding bike in the world – a rash statement that annoys some other manufacturers, but not all, because it’s broadly true…

2004-brompton-folding-bike Briefly, nothing folds smaller (without exception), no other 16-inch folder rides so well (without exception, unless the Russians have produced something we haven’t seen yet), and nothing folds so neatly and so fast.These are the killer attributes that have made the Brompton the commuter bike par excellence and kept the order books full for this small British company, now possibly the largest bicycle manufacturer (as opposed to assembler – ie, bolting on bits) in the UK. One could argue that Pashley still has the Post Office bike contract and the Taiwanese claim to be making things, rather than assembling them, in the Welsh valleys these days, but enough hair-splitting.

The Brompton started life in 1981, as a rather heavy, but essentially hand-fettled machine, known today as the Mark 1. After a long pause, the classic Brompton finally arrived in 1987, with the ‘production line-friendly’ Mark 2 – essentially much the same as the modern bike. Small refinements have been introduced over the years, culminating in a complete revamp in early 2000, when the machine was unofficially designated the Mark 3. Since then, a change to SRAM hubs has altered the gear options, and just about every component has been altered, upgraded or replaced yet again. In other words, a 2003 machine looks similar to a 1993 machine, but they differ in almost every respect.

Now, for the first time in 16 years, the bike looks different too. It came about almost by chance. A couple of years ago, the factory adopted an auto-brazing machine to fix the handlebar hinge into the stem (yes, everything else is brazed by hand).Without getting too involved with brazings, forgings and castings, it made sense to fit the frame hinge the same way, but this involved a substantial redesign, and one of the side-effects was a 30mm longer unfolded frame, but no change in the folded size. And in a world where success is measured in terms of the difference between folded and unfolded dimensions, those few measly millimetres are quite big news.

The 2004 Brompton

brompton-bike-frame-clamp We thought we’d need a micrometer to spot the change, but with the bike unfolded, it leaps out at you.Where the curved section of the frame tube used to reach almost to the handlebar stem, the straight bits either side of the hinge give the bike a noticeably different form.

Instead of being cheekily banana-shaped, it’s longer and more elegant, making the whole machine look bigger and a little more grown- up. For smaller folk, this will mean little, but for those who previously looked like spindly stick-insects on the Brompton, knee-room is noticeably increased.

Wheelbase has grown to about 105cm – just over 41 inches.Whether you can feel the difference on the road is debatable, but an increase in wheelbase is always welcome, and it seems reasonable to assume that a 3% increase is going to reduce the choppiness of the ride and the tendency to lift a front or rear wheel by at least the same sort of margin.

Despite the extra length and a smaller, neater frame hinge (that’s Computer Aided Design for you), the whole assembly is noticeably more rigid. Useful if you like to ride out of the saddle, and generally put a folding bike to work.Weight has gone up in some areas and down in others – our fully equipped T6 test bike came out at a shade under 12.6kg (28lb).That’s a little more than the official weight of the Mark 3, but our bike had heavy Schwalbe Marathon tyres, which would more or less account for the difference.

Folded size depends on saddle height, handlebar position and whether the saddle stem clamp is placed forward or back. Brompton (naturally enough) quotes the smallest possible size of 77 litres, or 2.7 cubic feet. More realistically, the bike occupies about 90 litres or 3.2 cubic feet, and with the saddle at maximum height on the standard seat pillar and positioned right back, our test bike measured 101 litres, or 3.6 cubic feet.We were hoping that the longer frame would make it possible to ride with the saddle forward, and although that might be the case for smaller people, it was not for us.

Front carrier frame

brompton-folding-bike-front-carrier We mentioned this back in October, and although it may not sound the most exciting advance, CAD techniques have enabled the Brompton boffins to reduce the weight of the front pannier bag frame from 690g to 400g.This substantial cut has been achieved through a mixture of light alloy tubes and nylon castings. It’s all very high-tech and Bromptonesque, and makes a noticeable difference to the weight of the pannier bag.With the panniers down in price to £40 – £70 (according to spec, and including the new frame) there’s never been a better time to upgrade that front luggage. If you have a serviceable bag already, the new frame costs about £25.50 on its own.

Lights

axa-hr-traction-dynamo The dynamo lights on the Brompton have changed out of all recognition in the last few years. Early dynamos whined and seized, while dim bulbs fought to provide illumination.The arrival of a Basta LED rear light and halogen front lamp brought a dramatic improvement a few years ago, and there’s now an Axa HR dynamo too. It’s hard to say how useful this is, but it’s quiet, it rolls easily, and light output, even at low speed, is excellent.

You still have to own a ‘T’ type with a rear rack to fit this excellent dynamo set (£18.64, plus £10 for the halogen lamp as an upgrade).We’d prefer to see a front dynamo feeding a larger three watt headlight and completely separate battery LED at the rear.This would eliminate the wiring loom and provide a rear standlight.The dynamo could then be optional on both the ‘T’ or lighter ‘L’ models.

Brake cable gaiters

brompton-folding-bike-brake-cable-cover Another small, but worthwhile development. A tiny plastic rod is fixed into the brake calliper and the previously exposed inner cable is protected from the elements by a flexible rubber gaiter. Brompton brake cables are prone to water ingress because the cables point upwards, so this tiny change should help improve cable life and braking performance on all-weather bikes. Unfortunately, older bikes can only be upgraded by drilling the calliper, but the gaiters cost only £1.50 each.

Handlebar catch

brompton-folding-bike-handlebar-clip A long long overdue change – the handlebar locking catch has been replaced with a new design that should help to keep the folded handlebars under control, and prevent them flying open at inconvenient moments. A great safety upgrade for older bikes at £3.71, and highly recommended.

Another change that arrived without fanfare a few months ago is a proper catch for locking the wheels together when the bike is folded.

Previously, the front mudguard stay doubled as a hook, but often got bent on older bikes, allowing the front wheel to unfold involuntarily.The new stay can be fitted to older bikes and costs £3, or £10 if a new mudguard stay is needed.

Colours

Once upon a time you could have a Brompton in any colour you liked as long as it was black for the expensive jobs or red for the cheapo models, but the range has blossomed in the last few years. Current thinking is to continue with the well-established basic colours, but provide a list of special optional finishes for an extra £35, the selection being changed every year.The 2004 list includes Baby Pink, Cobalt Blue, Aquamarine Blue and Apple Green.We were longing to see the pink bike, but had to settle for Aquamarine Blue with Ivory extremities. In our opinion this is a rather unhappy combination – the sort of thing that appeared briefly with fins on US cars in the 1950s.The other colours have been delayed, so we can’t venture an opinion, but the principle is great. Brompton dealers will be supplied with a computerised illustrated brochure, updated with accurate renditions of the new colours.

Carry bag

After numerous false starts from both Brompton and others, it looks as though a good air or coach carry bag solution is on the way. Brompton has designed a soft, but thickly padded bag that should protect against most handling disasters, yet fold small enough to carry with you at journey’s end (a hard case gives full protection, but how do you carry it?).The prototype we saw was bristling with extras, such as wheels and a neat shoulder-strap, and is expected to sell for £85 or thereabouts. A great advance, but not likely to be in the shops for a few weeks yet.

Brompton tel 0208 232 8484 web www.bromptonbicycle.co.uk

DIY Lafree Trailer

Large capacity cycle goods trailers are generally rather ugly contraptions, particularly if home-constructed, so I thought you might like to see the matching trailer I made for my Giant Lafree.The basis is a 13kg French Vantly cargo trailer bought from discounter Cycle King of Croydon for just £79! The original steel surround was removed, and this much larger aluminium frame attached with four coachbolts.The materials used were two Beldray 7-tread step ladders on offer at Do-it-All for £15 each, plus an old 2-step ladder.

Step ladders sound an unlikely raw material for trailer construction, but if you think about it, they're cheap, well-finished and light. Tony has since produced a longer body using the same construction. Several suitable cheap trailer chassis have come onto the market recently

The ladder’s rubber feet were attached at the rear, so the trailer stands on it’s tail whether loaded or not.The construction is pop-rivetted and amazingly strong.

The weight with the hitch is 14kg – only 1kg more than the original trailer, despite the huge increase in capacity.The hitch is designed to put the trailer directly behind the bike to help negotiate the many combined pedestrian/cycle paths in my heavily-trafficked home town of Croydon.The low pulling point and accurate tracking make the trailer a pleasure to use. On the bike, the load is spread between several points on the rack – I expected to add a frame brace, but in two months, carrying loads of up to 70kg in this hilly area, it hasn’t proved necessary.

Incidentally, I fitted the non-standard crossbar (a length of chromed-steel tubing) on the Lafree because dealers only had stocks of the step-thru ‘ladies’ bike when I bought it. One operational point – the Lafree’s rear ‘horseshoe’ lock makes an excellent handbrake when parking the outfit on hills.

Total cost of the trailer was £120 – completely out of proportion to the interest attracted by its co-ordinated appearance. I’ve ruled out a matching silver lurex leotard though! (Shame. Eds)

Bliss

This review was published in February 2004. The Bliss has long since disappeared, and electric bikes have changed a great deal. Interesting historical item though!
Sooner or later, someone will produce a practical folding electric bike. Unfortunately, the Bliss isn’t it, but intriguingly, we think this dog’s-breakfast of a machine points the way to the future.

The Bliss

The Bliss is a dumpy little aluminium 305mm (16″) wheeled folding bike with a central frame hinge, and fold- down bars, producing a relatively compact folded package.Whatever its dynamic qualities, (or lack thereof), it’s a cute-looking little machine, sold – rather absurdly – in City,Touring and Extreme (ie, off-road) versions. Unusually, it features full suspension and a relatively state-of-the-art electric drive system. At 22.9kg (50lb) it’s extremely heavy by folding bike standards, but a clear leader amongst folding electric bikes, which just goes to show how impractical these machines still are.

With a height range of 64cm – 98cm, the standard saddle stem (there are alternatives, apparently) provides a reasonable adjustment range, and thanks to a rigid alloy frame, the front end of the bike is quite solid. Unfortunately, the handlebar stem is tall and flexible, an effect made worse on our sample by a poorly-machined and wobbly hinge.

The protruding suspension arms can be a nuisance

For these reasons, you wouldn’t want to pull on the bars, so gears are important.The Bliss has gears, but the 6-speed Shimano SIS derailleur is the sort of dodgy equipment fitted to cheapo children’s bikes, so most eight-year-olds would sneer at the 29″-58″ ratios.That’s neither low enough nor high enough to make any sort of sensible progress. Fortunately, power-assistance lends a hand up hill, but the motor is geared to give a top whack of only 11mph, and with a 58″ top gear, human power tops out soon after.Yes, 14mph is attainable, but 12mph is more realistic. Incidentally, one Bliss owner has fitted a slightly more realistic Sachs 13-21 tooth gear set (with some machining), giving a 62″ top gear – a small increase, but a transformation in terms of practicality.

Rolling resistance is so poor that higher gearing doesn’t give the benefit one would expect. A combination of wide, squidgy 16”x1.95” low-pressure tyres, tight bearings, wonky rims (causing binding brakes), and a strange friction-box movement sensor on the crank, combined to give a non-result on our test hill. In other words, it failed to complete the descent, the first bicycle ever to fail.

Looking rather desperately for the positive, the rack looks quite solid, and the dinky front suspension forks work rather well, although without damping, so watch out for motion- sickness. On the other hand, the rear suspension is virtually immovable, and the width of the brutish rear frame forces you to ride with a bow-legged gate. Suspension is largely unnecessary anyway, because the squidgy tyres wallow cheerfully through most road shocks.They’re rated at 35psi, but 36- spoke, deep section rims mean it’s a bit of a wrestling match getting air into them.

Folding

We won’t dwell overlong on folding, because it’s a dismal affair.With the saddle stem removed and plonked in the middle, the Bliss makes a package of around 52cm wide, 57cm tall, and 75cm long. Much of the width is caused by the handlebars and suspension forks failing to come together.

Given the short wheelbase (yes, it’s prone to wheelies in the lower gears), it hardly seems worth folding the Bliss at all. Any other grumbles? Well, the VP112 folding pedals are years out of date and positively dangerous, and there’s no securing strap, so this ungainly 22 litre (7.8 cubic foot) package has to be held together as you heave it into a car boot, for example.

Get the feeling we don’t like it? The problem is that we know folding bikes rather well, and this simply isn’t a good folding bike.The Bliss appears to be designed in China to appeal to overweight overly- wealthy Westerners who want something to chuck in the car boot – all shiny alloy and go- faster coil springs, but a functional disaster area. If you have very low expectations of folders (or electric bikes, for that matter), you might be happy with something like this, but if you’ve ridden something better, you’ll be extremely disappointed.

…If you have very low expectations… you might be happy with something like this…

The Drive System

This is the neat bit.The brushless DC motor measures only 130mm in diameter, and 100mm in width. So if the engineers at Pashley, Brompton or Dahon are reading, yes, this sort of thing could be squeezed into the front wheel of your folding bikes. At a rated output of 180 watts, it’s not particularly powerful, but the peak power of 288 watts at 8mph is useful enough, and combined with the low gearing, gives the Bliss a capacity to climb just about anything, albeit at a fairly sedate speed. The motor doesn’t so much buzz or whine, as emit a pleasantly high-tech harmonic, just like state-of-the-art Millennial machines are supposed to do.

Speed control is switchable to avoid the legislative morass. In ‘pedelec’ mode the bike cranks gently up to full power when you pedal, but the ‘e-bike’ mode is much better, providing full control via a sensitive and responsive twistgrip throttle. As is so often the case, we tested the pedelec mode and never used it again, so if we were buying the bike, we’d dump the friction box straight in the bin, Euro- regs or no Euro-regs.

Elsewhere, the battery box is claimed to contain a Nickel-Metal Hydride pack of 192Wh, 216Wh, 240Wh, or 312Wh, depending who you believe. Our test equipment suggests a true figure of 170Wh or even less, making the claims look a bit naughty.With a range of 11 miles at a rather lethargic 10mph, overall fuel consumption (including charger losses) comes out at 19 watts/mile. That’s one of the worst figures we’ve seen, but it’s probably not the fault of the motor – most of those watts are being absorbed by the tyres, the wonky wobbly bits, the see-sawing suspension and so on. If pedalling isn’t your style, the Bliss will motor for about seven miles, provided you keep clear of hills (it won’t quite climb a 10% gradient). We should point out that the manufacturer claims the bike will climb a 10% gradient without assistance, and run for 20 to 30 miles. These claims are clearly as inaccurate as the battery capacity.

The battery includes a multi-LED fuel gauge, but you can’t see it when on the move, and it’s pretty useless anyway, zipping up and down the scale according to throttle position. When stationary, it gives some useful data – the 1st light goes out at three miles, the 2nd at 4.5, third at 5.7 and forth at nine miles. As the battery conks out two miles down the road, the remaining half dozen LEDs are superfluous. The good news is that the battery weighs only 3.8kg (8lb 6oz), and a full charge takes less than three hours, after which the charger maintains a safe ‘trickle’ charge.

If you’re thinking of buying any electric bike, always test ride it with the power off for at least a kilometre to make sure you can get home with a flat battery. Riding unassisted, you realise just how unpleasant the Bliss really is – pedalling is a bit like treading treacle.

The way Forward…

Now, we must apply a bit of imagination. Let’s take an ordinary Brompton or Dahon, costing £250-£500. As standard, the bike might weigh 11kg or so, and be capable of a good 15mph cruise on the flat and reasonable progress in mildly hilly country. It’s a good compact folding bike, but not really up to 600 foot ascents.

Now factor in a decent NiMH battery pack, Bliss-style brushless motor and a few other bits, and you have a bike weighing about 17kg, that folds well, nips along at 15mph on the flat, but can also climb gradients of 10% with relative ease, and much steeper hills for short periods. Bring all these elements together and you’d have a viable machine.

Conclusion

We’re told that the Bliss is selling well to motorists evading the congestion charge. That’s great news, of course, but we still think it’s a poor purchase. Electric bikes dwell in a fairly well defined viability envelope – step outside it and they cease to serve any purpose.The best are light enough, free-running enough and efficient enough to thoroughly outclass their non-powered equivalents, but the Bliss simply cannot compete with a human-powered folding bike. In other words, you really would be better off buying a conventional Dahon (a third of the price) or a Brompton (anything up to the same price, but faster, lighter and a sheer delight to ride).

The Bliss costs £700, and to be perfectly honest, we wouldn’t recommend buying one if it cost half that. If you can live without the fold, the far superior Giant Lafree costs about the same to run, because it goes further and faster on a charge. Are there any better electric folders around? In a word, no, because most of the alternatives are heavier and even cruder. If you really want one, go for a Heinzmann-powered Fold-it or Brompton.This option is expensive, but you’ll have a proper folding bike with decent equipment and a near 20-mile assisted range.

Specification

Bliss £699
Weight Bicycle 19.1kg (42lb) Battery 3.8kg (8lb) Total 22.9kg (50lb)
Gears Shimano SIS 6-spd
Ratios 29″ -58″
Batteries Nickel Metal-Hydride
Estimated Capacity 170Wh
Maximum Range Pedelec 11 miles Motor-only 7 miles
Fuel Consumption Pedelec 19Wh/mile Motor-only 30Wh/mile
Full charge 21/2 hours
Running costs 7.5p per mile
UK distributor Bliss Bikes tel 0870 241 8446 web www.blissbikes.co.uk mail sales@blissbikes.co.uk

The Caledonian Sleeper

‘Green Tourism’ is a rather hackneyed phrase these days, but the bottom line is that large number of tourists almost always end up destroying the things they’ve come to gawp at. Fortunately, there are a few enjoyable, relaxing holidays that won’t perforate the ozone layer (or your wallet), and we think this is a superb example.

The Highlands

Scotland is a great holiday destination, but if you drive there, you’re committed to long tedious hours on the M6, with all the pollution and unpleasantness that entails, or fly north, and either wrestle with airport buses or hire a car to reach your destination. Neither option is particularly enjoyable, but there is another way – Scotrail’s Caledonian Sleeper.To avoid awkward transfers, we took the train theme even further, hiring a holiday coach at Rogart station on the Far North railway line, reached by a simple cross-platform connection from the sleeper at Inverness station.

The golden era of the holiday carriage was more or less over by the 1950s, making the privately-owned examples at Rogart amongst the last in the country, but if you think sleeper trains are a thing of the past, think again.The only real casualty in recent years has been the West of England-Scotland service (which would have suited us very well), leaving trains from London to Scotland only. Some of the more tenuous Highland services were threatened by railway privatisation in the early ‘90s, but all survived, and Scotrail runs trains from London Euston every night (except Saturdays), to Glasgow & Edinburgh (the Lowlander), and Fort William, Aberdeen, and our destination, Inverness (the Highlander). The company provides 800 berths, plus around 240 seats, six nights a week, removing some 500 cars and 250,000 car miles from the over-stressed motorway network nightly. That’s more than 77 million car-miles each year.

…800 berths, six nights a week… That’s more than 77 million car-miles each year…

caledonian-sleeper-2 The Lowlander leaves London at close to midnight, splitting and arriving in both Glasgow and Edinburgh just after 7am, while the Highland portions leave London at 9.05pm as one massive 16-coach train (currently the longest scheduled passenger service on Britain’s railways) before splitting at Edinburgh into more manageable chunks. Despite a leisurely schedule, arrival times are 7.35 in Aberdeen, 8.30 in Inverness, and 9.43am in Fort William. Coming the other way, all trains are scheduled to arrive in London between 7.30 and 8am, making the sleeper something of a favourite with businessmen facing an early meeting in the capital.

If you’re unfamiliar with sleeping on the move, the motion (including occasional jolts from the locomotive) can be unsettling at first, but we dropped off relatively quickly and slept quite well. Air- conditioning in the berths is very responsive, and the subtle lighting and efficient sound-proofing would help to get most people in the mood for a kip.

Bicycles

We had no problem fitting four Bromptons and luggage into three sleeper berths, with three bikes and a child seat in one berth alone

The Caledonian Sleepers include a reasonable-sized luggage area for skis, bags and/or up to six bicycles.We would have been pretty nervous about taking full-size bikes on a multi-train journey of this kind anyway, but the Inverness portion of the Sleeper carries containers of fresh shellfish to select London restaurants (yes, honestly) and thus offers space for only three bicycles. In any event, the Class 158 trains from Inverness northwards only carry two bikes on a good day, so we’d strongly recommend leaving the cumbersome at home.

…In the south, Rogart would be considered a hamlet, but it’s quite a regional centre…

In practice, a couple of Bromptons (plus a child seat) fitted easily onto the spare bed in our 4-bed family berth. For two travelling together in a single berth, one compact folding machine will fit on the floor and another on the shelf, although this can make late-night tooth-brushing a bit of a Houdini job. Although the cabin attendants hardly raised on eyebrow at the bikes (and we’d guess a fully dismembered Bike Friday or Airnimal would be no problem in a travel case), anything larger would have to take it’s chances in the luggage area.

Actually, a bicycle is very much an option for this holiday, because the pair of 8-berth holiday coaches at Rogart are situated in the station yard, less than 100 metres from the platform. Accommodation is fairly basic, but with weekly rates of £195 to £225 for eight (cheaper mid-week deals are available off- season), extremely good value.The coaches have retained their full-length corridor, with original toilet and additional shower at each end. Four of the former 1st-class compartments have been converted into two-berth sleepers, one into a sitting room, another into a dining room, and the last making a practical kitchen. For serious rail enthusiasts, a fully functioning Class 127 DMU will be converted later in the year.The coaches also provide hostel accommodation at a reasonable £10 per night (under 12s £7.50), with a further 10% discount for cyclists and/or rail users.

The Highlands

caledonian-sleeper-4 In the south of England, Rogart would be considered a hamlet, but in Highland terms, it’s quite a regional centre, with a good pub/restaurant and the sort of general store that stocks everything from bootlaces to smoked salmon. For walkers, the moors and peaks are just off the station platform, and we spent many happy hours dodging sleet showers to peer down at our tiny carriage from wind-blasted peaks with unpronounceable names. For cyclists, all roads except the A9 are quiet, back roads virtually car-free, and the local drivers courteous without exception.The easiest ride of all is to take the train ten miles up the valley to Lairg and cruise back: down hill all the way, with a prevailing tailwind.

For more serious on or off-road types, the Far North offers great opportunities for adventure. Our favourite was 60 miles up the line to Altnabreac, surely one of the loneliest railway stations in Britain, with no electricity, and some miles from the nearest tarmacadam road, followed by a swift ride north on well surfaced trails to the slightly less remote Scotscalder station, for the train home. As if this trip weren’t surreal enough, Scotscalder has been restored to the way it might have looked in around 1930, although rather disappointingly, the stationmaster has been replaced by a track ganger from Jarvis with a Ford Escort and a mobile phone.

Altnabreac’s lonely shelter has a phone, which is fortunate, because if you normally commute on the 5.11pm, you’ll be facing a 14 hour wait for the next train if you happen to miss it.The Far North line has only three trains a day, so trips must be planned around the scanty timetable. Fortunately, the timings from Rogart are perfect for leisure journeys – outward on the 8.36 (south) or 9.07 (north), and back for lunch or supper.

The Dornoch Firth road crossing and (dotted line) the rail crossing that never was

There are buses along the coast too, and unusually the bus south can be faster than the train.When the Dornoch Firth was bridged in the 1980s, the A9 road took the short-cut, but funding was refused for a combined rail/road bridge, leaving the railway wiggling and squiggling inland for twenty miles, while the road coaches head due north.This very British scandal has caused mutterings in Highland transport circles ever since, but a rail bridge looks unlikely in the current climate. It’s the usual story: the Department for Transport refused to allow investment in track and rolling stock to give the line a long-term future, but – quite frankly – hasn’t got the guts to close it either.These days, of course, they’ll tell you that improvements are ‘a commercial decision for the operator’.That’s funny, we thought the taxpayer was funding the railways – we must have misunderstood. Nevertheless, Far North rail services are well-patronised, particularly in the summer, and since 2002 Scotrail has taken the unusual step of providing a road van to carry overflow bicycles at peak times.

Against all the odds, the line also has a new (and very successful) commuter service into Inverness and occasional freight trains, including timber and a daily train for Safeway supermarkets. If you want to know more about such things (and anything relating to trains, tractors or bicycles in the Highlands) you’ll need to talk to our hosts at Rogart, Katy and Frank Roach.When he’s not helping with the sleeper carriage business, Frank Roach is Rail Development Manager for the Highland Rail Partnership.

How does the sleeper compare?

The daily Safeway train passing Rogart

Cheap flights abound to Edinburgh and Glasgow – albeit at slightly odd hours – but flying is more problematic than you might think, and Inverness can be expensive.To start with, most departures are from Heathrow or Gatwick, necessitating quite a trek out of London, and many flights stop-over in Glasgow, giving a four-hour plus journey time.

TOP ABOVE

We found return Inverness air tickets from £170 to £500 per person (yes, four-year- old Alexander would pay too), but we couldn’t find an arrival time before 12.30, to which you must add a couple more hours for hiring a car, and driving the remaining 80 miles to Rogart. All things considered, we would have been lucky to get much change from a grand, including transfers. Driving from London means a journey of 621 miles each way, which the Automobile Association reckon will take you about 12 hours, but you’d need some sort of rest break too, unless you’re completely potty. On the AA’s figures, the cost of the journey would be £500 to £600 in a typical car.

Waiting at Scotscalder

Scotrail offers a bewildering array of fares aboard the Highland Sleeper. Looking only at return packages, fares start at £38 per person (effectively a standby fare, booked via the internet up to 12 noon the day before travel, but you need to be flexible about dates) to £215 for a 1st class return.The ‘normal’ fares are £149 return for a 2nd class sleeper berth (solitary travellers may have to share with someone of the same sex), or £90 return for a seat, albeit the comfy reclining kind. That could prove good value if you find sleep impossible on the move. Advance Apex tickets cost £99 in a sleeper berth or £55 seated. Our Family ticket, for up to four people in two inter-linked cabins (at least one occupant must be a child), cost £290 for the return journey – quite a bargain against the alternatives.

Sleeper tips:

– Try to avoid travelling on a Sunday while the West Coast engineering works continue. Until 21st March, Glasgow and Edinburgh trains will be diverted on Sundays, but the Highland portions will not run. Discussions are underway to keep disruption to a minimum during the busy summer period.

– If taking a folding bike, make sure it’s bagged and well-disguised prior to departure.There’s usually plenty of room in the guard’s van, but choose the right van

– the Highland train starts out with three! – The lounge cars are a popular (if smoky) destination for a nightcap, but regular travellers tend to grab the best seats early on. Send someone straight along to get the pints in.

Conclusion

The advantage of the sleeper is that it sets you down refreshed and ready to start enjoying yourself, then whisks you away at the end of a hard day’s entertainment, depositing you back in the capital in time for (and ready to face) work or leisure. But travelling the length of the United Kingdom at night, the Scotrail sleeper is vulnerable to delays and disruption from engineering works, and when we travelled in October, the West Coast mainline was in total disarray, resulting in an arrival in Inverness over an hour late. Fortunately, there’s a generous ‘connection’ for the Far North trains.

Coming home, the promised eight o’clock arrival in London eventually stretched to eleven-something – awkward if you’ve arranged onward travel. None of this can be blamed on Scotrail, of course, but you’ll know our view by now:The problems will only really be over when the rail industry is stitched back together. Delays aside, the sleeper is enormous fun, especially for four-year-olds, but then isn’t everything?

Sleeper info & Reservations: Scotrail web www.scotrail.co.uk mail enquiries@scotrail.co.uk The Rogart Railway Carriage Co: Kate Roach tel/fax 01408 641343
mail kate@sleeperzzz.com web www.sleeperzzz.com

Recommended night reading: Iron Roads to the Far North & Kyle. A fully illustrated guide book to the Far North line, full of railway and background historical information. Good value for £4.99. Michael Pearson . ISBN 0 907864 98 8
Publisher Wayzgoose web www.wayzgoose.org.uk tel 01283 713674

Letter from America – The Party’s Over

letter-from-america-the-party-is-over How do you explain Jan Lundberg? He isn’t at all what one would expect from his family background. What do you say about a man who has torn up his driveway and planted a vegetable garden in its place? Perhaps he is just odd, or maybe it is because he lives in Arcata, California, a small town in the far northern part of the state. Arcata is in redwood country – cool, damp and foggy. Life among the redwood trees takes some strange turns for some people. It has happened before.

In 1855, about 12 miles down the road from where Mr. Lundberg lives now, U.S. Army Captain Sam Grant was busily destroying his Army career. He was stationed at an obscure Army post, far from home, lonely and thoroughly miserable. He spent most of his days wandering around the post in an alcoholic haze. Captain Grant’s dereliction of duty was so clear that his commanding officer strongly ‘encouraged’ him to resign his commission and leave the Army. He did, and returned, defeated and humiliated, to his family roots in the Midwest. For the next five years, former Captain Grant failed at just about every profession and occupation available to him.

In 1861 the American Civil War erupted while Sam Grant was working as a clerk in his father-in-law’s leather goods store.The Federal government was desperate for any sort of military experience in its drive to suppress the Southern Confederacy and Sam Grant managed to talk his way back into the military life.Two years later, in 1863, after a series of small victories and then the destruction of an entire Confederate army at Vicksburg, Mississippi, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was appointed commander of all Federal armies by President Lincoln. As far as General Grant’s ‘difficulty’ with certain beverages was concerned, Mr. Lincoln’s answer was: ‘I can’t spare this man. He fights.’

…world oil output will peak around 2015, and after that will enter a long decline…

For the next 20 months, General Grant – Unconditional Surrender Grant to the Northern states, and Butcher Grant to the Confederates – directed a series of ferocious campaigns against the failing Confederacy. By the summer of 1865, the Confederacy had been wrecked, the war had sputtered to a close, President Lincoln had been murdered, and former Captain Grant found himself hailed in the victorious Northern states as the Saviour of the Union. In November 1868, Sam Grant was elected President of the United States. Life takes some strange turns in the redwood country.

Jan Lundberg’s life, though not nearly as important or as dramatic as General Grant’s, has taken some strange turns as well. For many years his family has published The Lundberg Letter, which still advertises itself as ‘The Bible of the Oil Industry’. Mr. Lundberg’s roots in the oil business are wide and deep, and yet he has turned away from all that.These days he operates the Sustainable Energy Institute from his headquarters in Arcata, and publishes articles like ‘The Fall of Petroleum Civilization’ and ‘Peak Oil: A Turning Point For Humankind’. His website [www.culturechange.org] is stacked with articles like these, both about oil and related subjects. Jan Lundberg does not like a lot about modern life. He does not like cars. He does not like roads. He considers our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil, as a gigantic dead-end. He has been singing this song for about 15 years now, and lately many other voices from the oil industry have joined the choir.The general consensus among the oil experts is that all of the world’s oil supplies, with the exception of the fields of the Middle East, have reached and passed their peak. American oil production peaked in 1970, and has been declining ever since.The best estimates these days are that world oil production will peak sometime around the year 2015, and after that will enter a long and irreversible decline.The title of Richard Heinberg’s book on the subject tells the story – The Party’s Over.What happens then?

A to B readers would probably think in terms of the effects on transportation.That may be the least of our problems. One expert has calculated that if petroleum were to disappear tomorrow, world food production would drop by two-thirds. Every area of modern life will surely be affected, and we cannot even begin to see the total picture.The USA is well positioned to make the transition away from the Age of Oil, but it will be vastly expensive and difficult.We have huge reserves of coal in America, but then coal is dirty and rather inefficient. Nuclear energy is available – and lethal.The American Southwest has good potential for solar energy production, and the American Midwest has enormous potential for wind power.The Age of Oil came into existence over several decades, and will fade out the same way, if current projections can be trusted.

The governments of the world are of course well aware of these projections, but have chosen not to publicise them, so far. Such estimates in the past have proven too pessimistic, and no government is interested in stirring up needless panic.What looks different this time is that the pessimism is coming from the oil industry itself, not from the usual collection of eco-buffs. It appears that we of the 21st century will once again learn the truth of the ancient Chinese curse.We are going to be living in interesting times.

Sam Grant and Jan Lundberg – two lives separated by 12 miles and 150 years.Yet they are tied together by more than redwood trees.The American Age of Oil began around 1870 with the operations of an obscure Ohio businessman. His name was John D. Rockefeller, and in those years he began to put together the American colossus of oil, the Standard Oil Corporation. It happened during the White House years of President Grant, and with his enthusiastic encouragement. Now, in our time, clear notice comes from Jan Lundberg and others that the Age of Oil is about to peak.

For the young, this transition will probably be the great event of their lives. How will we cope? We will surely be brave. As one of John Steinbeck’s characters said in The Grapes of Wrath, ‘It’s easy to be brave when you have no other choice’.

A to B 39 – School Run – Dare to be Different!

Our advocacy of electric bikes continues to cause controversy. Some readers have made the point that they never see electric bikes on the road, so why bother testing them? Had ‘A to B’ been around in 1903, we would certainly be trying the new steam and petroleum-powered automobiles. They’d be slow, unreliable and offer a limited range. No doubt we’d get letters telling us that they were elitist, expensive, never likely to replace the horse, etc, etc.

The petroleum automobile went on to be rather too successful, which is partly why we’re looking at alternative means of locomotion in 2003. It’s always hard to judge the future of transport, but we’re bound to see massive change in the next few years, and we’re convinced that electric bikes will have a serious role to play when the dust settles.

We may look back in a decade or so and laugh about the 8mph pedicabs with a range of 19 miles, but we will also be glad that we experimented with – and in a small way, helped to perfect – such pioneering machines. That’s why we will continue to feature electric bikes.

A to B 39 Contents

A to B 39 Blog, Cycling Statistics, Peak Oil

FIRST PUBLISHED December 2003
Dubious Cycling Statistics, Peak Oil
David Henshaw

A plain brown envelope arrived recently at Mole Towers containing a fascinating publication entitled A2B. A vaguely familiar name to readers of this organ no doubt, particularly when we consider that the title in question is bi-monthly and, broadly-speaking, concerned with transport?

A2B is an internal publication from our old friends at the Department for (Road) Transport. Despite the accent being largely (although not exclusively) on road matters, A2B is a perfectly readable in-house journal, but one wonders whether it might not bear just a little too much similarity to A to B? It seems some DfT staff did voice concerns, but their Communications Directorate carried on regardless.

Somehow, one doubts whether A to B has many friends in the Department. Back in A to B 30, a graph appeared in this very column indicating that – on the DfT’s own statistics – cycle usage in the UK appeared to be in a state of terminal decline, while car usage was growing at a healthy rate. Thereafter, the cycling figures mysteriously disappeared from DfT bulletins, leaving us rather in the dark as to trends.

Why worry? Well, rather a lot depends on such figures, notably the local and national funding of cycle facilities for organisations such as the very admirable Sustrans. After all, who in their right mind would pour money into a mode of transport that was apparently doomed? On the other hand, an increase in cycle use helps to unlock funds for cycle facilities and restrict spending on motor cars. ‘Green’ transport look very good at election time too, so accurate figures are important. But once those pesky politicians get involved, there’s often pressure to ‘mould’ the figures to give the desired results.

In the summer of 2003, the DfT cycle figures quietly returned, this time indicating a steady growth in cycle usage rather than the previous marked decline. The discrepancy, we were told, was due to the way the figures had been gathered, as traffic surveys had previously looked only at major roads.

Now, hold on a minute. If every survey since 1993 has failed to spot millions of cyclists, how have the statistics been so precisely revised? Do they now include Sustran’s own – much more optimistic – figures, recorded largely on leisure paths?

Far be it from the Mole to doubt the honesty and integrity of a government department, but one cannot help but wonder whether someone, somewhere might not have been a little economical with the actualité? Either the original figures are correct (suggesting that cyclists are being driven off the roads in big numbers), or cycle use really has been growing steadily for the last decade, but the mandarins at the DfT have been keeping us in the dark.

On the other hand, far from being a conspiracy, the affair might just be a clumsy attempt to bury yet another world-class cock-up. Forget the cycling statistics; the real problem is the steady growth in motorised road transport.A glance at the graph reveals that although car use was checked briefly by the fuel ‘crisis’ of 2000 and the early days of our rather dubious invasion of Iraq, vehicle mileage rapidly caught up the lost ground, growing by more than 2% in the last three months alone.

A to B magazine, Cycling Statistics
As readers of A to B will be aware, fuel cell technology remains in its infancy, but the experts are suggesting that global oil supply is likely to be overtaken by demand within ten years. If one had a barrel of oil for every occasion this had been predicted in the last century, one would, of course, have some significant reserves, but this time the experts appear to be rattled.

Predicting such things is a notoriously inexact science, but the forecasts suggest that an apparently insignificant reversal in the supply/demand equation will cause panic buying and a sharp upsurge in prices, although quite when and to what extent, no one knows.

The nations that will suffer most are those that (a) have used up their own hydrocarbon reserves, (b) concentrated inland transport in oil-hungry aircraft and road vehicles, and (c) declared war on the countries with all the remaining oil reserves. Er, sounds familiar… Some say the crunch could arrive within twelve months.

Speaking of global catastrophes, one is drawn, as if by some invisible force, to the railways, where track maintenance is ‘being brought back in-house’, as Network Rail would have it, but take no notice – this is re-nationalisation. We already have the infrastructure back in state hands, with maintenance going the same way.

According to an internal review: ‘…a single integrated rail maintenance operation’ would deliver higher standards, ‘significant efficiency savings’ and improved safety. Surely British Rail delivered just such benefits before it was dismantled? National ownership ONE, Private ownership NIL, and not a moment too soon. At Bogworthy Junction, a once proud outpost of the Great Western Railway (once privately-owned, then private with state-characteristics, state owned, quasi- private, etc, etc), the nightmare complexity of railway privatisation has resulted in all but one of the staff packing their bags.

On top of the sort of duties one would expect to see in the job description: issuing tickets, waving flags at trains, helping customers over the bridge, cleaning the toilets, sweeping the platforms, dealing with complaints against his employer (and 25 others), staff are expected to provide fax and phone facilities, toilets and a regular brew up for an assortment of gorillas in orange jackets working for contractors, sub-contractors, and any other outfit that might choose to send gorillas to this remote outpost. No one seems to know or care who they are these days.

Incidentally, a rough calculation reveals that Bogworthy may have a turnover of £3 million a year. One wonders how many people would be willing to run such a business single-handedly for wages of a little over £5 an hour? Yes, £11,000 a year. Shouldn’t the DfT be involved?

Electric Bike Range Claims

“I would like to query the basis of the electric bike range statistics you quote. I realise that you are ‘A to B’, but for many people, their use of such a bike for leisure purposes would be ‘A to A’; that is to say starting and finishing at the same location. If one assumes a hilly terrain, and ignores any flat areas, at the completion of a journey the uphill sections will have equalled the downhill. If therefore, one only used the electric-assist on the uphill sections, and turned the motor off on the downhill sections to freewheel, would the ranges you quote notionally be doubled?”

Michael Bartlett, Shoreham-by-Sea

Unfortunately, life is rarely that simple. For one thing, where a bike has the capability, the A to B testers usually opt for speed over range, which is why tests always quote the average speed.To keep speed up, the motor is often used for long periods on the flat, as well as climbing hills. Secondly, you never get back all the energy expended climbing a hill going down the other side! This is partly because motors tend to be inefficient when climbing at low speed, but primarily because most of the energy is dissipated in fighting the wind.This effect is barely noticeable at low speed, but descending a hill at 30mph will scrub off much of the kinetic energy stored on the climb…This is why ‘regenerative’ braking (recharging a battery or other storage device on a descent) is hardly worthwhile on a bicycle.

Think of the hill as a battery:Whether you ride a conventional or power-assisted bicycle, you store kinetic energy on the way up, and discharge it on the way down. A heavy freight train crossing the Swiss Alps will store a great deal of energy, which can usefully be returned to the electricity grid going down the other side, but a bicycle stores a tiny amount, and on such a small lightweight vehicle, wind resistance has a comparatively large effect. On a switchback road, the stored energy may enable you to get half way up the other side, so it can be useful, but in most cases, mechanical or electrical storage devices would be of little help. Now, where were we?

The A to B 17.6 mile test route starts and finishes at about the same elevation, but climbs and falls almost continuously in between, so the motor tends to be used for a high proportion of the ride.The figures published in the magazine are always lower than the maximum achievable, although they seem to equate fairly well to the sort of range a typical rider might expect, making shorter trips in heavier stop-start traffic.

In terms of maximum range, in level country, you might expect to exceed the A to B figures by 40% or more, even when using the motor much of the time. For example, the Powabyke or Ezee Forza can manage 50 miles relatively easily on the flat.

Most bikes complete the test course in 75-80 minutes, but the Forza did the run in 62 minutes – exactly 17mph. How can a bicycle limited to 15mph maintain such a high speed? The reason is that the more powerful machines cruise at close to 15mph and rarely fall below 10mph on hills.Add a few downhill bursts, and the average speed can exceed the maximum assisted speed…This is why electric bikes work so well in hilly areas.

Greenspeed GT3

Recumbent bikes and trikes are cumbersome things, which helps to explain why they remain relatively unpopular for day-to-day use, although for recreation and sheer entertainment, laid-back cycling is unbeatable.

There are a handful of practical folding recumbent bicycles around, notably Bike Friday’s ever-so-clever 16-inch Sat-R-Day, but trikes are trickier to transport. For car-top recreational use, that’s hardly an issue, but we don’t go there, so you’ll have to read about such things elsewhere. For preference we try to choose machines that can be carried by train or plane, or tucked in a bike trailer, that sort of thing.The only recumbent trike that passed the A to B criteria was Nick Abercrombie Andrew’s GNAT folder (see A to B 8), albeit at the expense of considerable cost and complexity.

Greenspeed is an Australian manufacturer, and one of those companies you think you know all about, but discover you knew very little. It all began back in 1990, when Ian Sims, an ICI laboratory technician, lost his job. Ian had been involved in the motor racing world, designing and building his own mid-engined sportscar and a number of electric racing machines, but with time on his hands, he began to investigate more relaxed transport, and his mind strayed towards the alternatives.

This process was given a vital extra impetus when Ian lost his licence (‘94 clicks in a 60 zone!’). After dissecting and dismissing his sons’ mountain bikes, the race-orientated mind began to think along more wind-cheating lines.The final piece in the jigsaw followed a ride on an early Trice recumbent trike, which brought Ian to the time-honoured conclusion that he could do better. Later in the year, with a prototype under his arm, Ian entered the 540km Great Victoria Bike Ride, and – although rider and machine were largely untested – he found himself completing the 80km daily stages by lunch-time and waiting for the more conventional ‘safety’ bicycles to arrive.

In recumbent trike terms the GT3 has a fairly upright seat back, but the small wheels help to create a low profile machine.

The first production machine was sold to a New Zealander who had been on that original ride, and the business slowly grew.Within five years Greenspeed had moved from a family workshop to a factory unit ‘five minutes down the cyclepath’. In another five years, the company had absorbed the two adjacent factory units and was churning out 250 trikes a year. Of the 1,400 built to date, more than 80% have been exported (mainly to the United States) generating foreign exchange of $1.6 million AUD, of which the company is justifiably proud. Ian is much too polite, so on his behalf, we’ll blow a long overdue raspberry at ICI.

The Theory

For some years, Greenspeed has concentrated on smallish 406mm (20- inch) wheeled machines, but there has been a gradual move towards the ‘Brompton’ 349mm (16-inch) format, and the GT3 is the latest of these.The big advance is the incorporation of a hinge in the mainframe, and construction in Taiwan, resulting in a budget price (in recumbent trike terms) of about £1,900.

Small wheels are useful on bicycles, but overwhelmingly beneficial on recumbent trikes: the wheels are stronger and lighter, offering faster acceleration and reduced wind resistance.They also exert a lower twisting force on the frame when cornering, so the frame can be made simpler and lighter, and they reduce the length and the height of the machine, cutting wind resistance still further. And with the rider sitting closer to the ground, a slightly more upright seat can be fitted, improving comfort and visibility.

…if you haven’t ridden a recumbent trike, you’ve missed out on one of life’s Great Experiences…

Rolling resistance is a little higher with 349mm tyres, but the GT3 comes with Primos – still arguably the free-est rolling and lightest 349mm tyres on the market. In any event, the higher rolling resistance is almost certainly outweighed by the benefits.True, the small wheels can ride a bit harshly on poor roads, but as we shall see, this can be improved.

Recumbents are produced with a variety of seat angles, from laid back versions of a conventional bike to a near full recline, which gives the least wind resistance but puts a nasty crick in your neck. In recumbent terms, the GT3 has a relatively conservative 40 degrees seat back – a reasonable compromise between visibility and a low frontal area.

The Practice

Once the boom length has been set and you’ve levered your feet into the toe- strapped pedals, you’re away. Like all the best trikes, the GT3 has lots and lots of gears, fingertip control, and a transmission that translates every ounce of effort into forward motion.

If you haven’t ridden a well-sorted recumbent trike, you’ve missed out on one of life’s Great Experiences. And by any standards, this well-balanced and agile, yet forgiving, machine is an experience you’re unlikely to forget in a hurry. Like all the best mid-engined sports cars, geometry and weight distribution have been chosen to give handling that’s broadly neutral – in other words, should you over-cook things on a sharp bend, the GT3 will neither plough straight on, or head for the apex.We rode the trike in all sorts of conditions, with a variety of tyre pressures and several drivers, and the thing cornered throughout as though on rails.This seems to hold true on dry surfaces, wet surfaces and – a Somerset speciality – manure-covered surfaces.You need to concentrate, because things happen very quickly when you’re sitting on the ground, but we’d guess that’s part of the fun with a mid-engined sports car too.With a bit of familiarity, you soon find yourself cruising through corners that would send a cyclist sliding into the hedge. Once in a while, the front Primo tyres scrabble for grip, and occasionally the rear end ducks and dives on a bump, but at bicycle speeds, there’s plenty in reserve.

Unlike an upright bicycle, it isn’t really possible to absorb bumps using your legs and body. Initially, we inflated the Primo tyres to their maximum pressure of 85psi, which worked well enough at the front, but the jarring and vibration from the back wheel was enough to give blurred vision on indifferent surfaces (they’re the only kind in these parts). After a bit of fiddling, we settled on 40psi at the rear, which improved the comfort level immensely, and had no obvious effect on performance.The front tyres seemed less critical, presumably because vibration from the front passes through a squidgy bottom rather than a relatively bony upper back.

In all the excitement (yes, every ride is exciting), you tend not to notice that you’ve become plastered in the water, mud and bovine waste material that made it all so entertaining.The GT3 has a substantial rear mudguard and mudflap, but there’s no protection at the front. Normally, spray from the front wheels shoots clear in two muddy arcs, but occasional changes of direction or errant wind eddies send a chocolatey spray across your arms, chest and face.There’s not much you can do about this, except emigrate somewhere drier or reckon on taking a hot shower after every ride.

Progress on the GT3 is exceedingly rapid, and even when it isn’t, it appears to be, which is what getting from A to B is all about. Our test hill revealed an average speed of 15.4mph – much faster than a 16-inch wheeled bicycle, indeed broadly similar to a full-size racing bike. On steep descents, speed rises rapidly, and when you’re this close to the ground, 20mph seems fast, and 30mph becomes sound-barrier stuff.

Brakes

Steering a 68cm-high projectile down country lanes is all very well, but sooner or later you’ll need to apply the brakes.The GT3 has no rear brake, so the legal requirement for two independent systems is taken care of with separate Sturmey Archer front drums and levers.This not only gets around the brake balance problem (see KMX trike, A to B 37), but enables the rider to make hand gestures whilst braking in a smooth and controlled manner with the other hand.

The magic ingredient is some carefully chosen geometry, including ‘centre-point’ steering that puts the tyre/road contact patch immediately under an inclined steering pivot. Should you apply one of the two front brakes, there’s very little tendency for the bike to swivel around the contact patch, so it stops in a straight line.

On the GT3 you can make quite harsh stops with one brake and feel barely a twitch in the steering. A panic stop locks the wheel at 0.3G, but the trike still pulls up more or less straight (or in a curve, if you happen to be cornering). Peak performance, using both brakes, is around 0.6G, and those with strong hands can hit 0.65G, at which point the rear wheel begins to lift off. Either way, the stop is nicely controlled and drama-free.

To get the best from the brakes, you have to juggle the levers for perfect balance, but the GT3 provides plenty of feedback, particularly at higher speed. Within a few miles, your body learns to react to the subtle messages from the wheels, but even if you get it wrong, the trike is essentially fail-safe.

Gears

Hill climbing is a bit disappointing, not because the GT3 climbs particularly slowly, but because the climbs are markedly slower than the descents. Actually, the trike maintains a good pace on the sort of mild nagging gradients that might depress a bicyclist, but on steeper climbs, the bicycle is quicker, leaving the trike rider to sit it out and think about the fun they’ll have going down the other side.

Thanks to their relatively poor hill-climbing and slick descents, recumbent trikes usually come with enormous gear ranges, with Greenspeed typically providing three separate stages, and as many as 72 gears. On the 16-inch wheeled GT3, there just isn’t the space, so the machine is fitted with the new Shimano Capreo derailleur, specifically designed for small-wheelers.This nine-speed gear cluster, coupled to Shimano Tiagra triple chainrings, gives a near 500% range, and 27 gears in three groups: 20″- 57″, 27″- 79″ and 34″- 98″. Not quite low enough for serious climbs, or high enough for spinning down long fast descents, but a fair compromise.The Capreo gear cluster is unusual – the six largest sprockets slide onto a conventional freewheel hub, with the 11, 10 and 9-tooth tiddlers individually mounted on a smaller splined shaft.This will no doubt prove useful, because you can bet the small ones will wear out fairly quickly and cost a fortune to replace.With such tiny sprockets, the chain tends to oscillate in speed as each tooth passes, which can be felt as a soft (but by no means annoying) vibration in the highest gears.

It’s hard to judge how efficient the Capreo is, but it provides a good range of gears, and helps to keep the chainrings down to a manageable size, even on a 16-inch bike.

A to B Things

The GT3 puts a new slant on the school run. Panniers have little effect on handling, but 20kg above the rack does!

The GT3 makes an excellent platform for the school run – a bit unconventional, but you’ll get home before the other parents have walked their children to the car. Generally, a child seat is mounted above a 26″ wheel, putting the child behind and slightly below the rider. On the GT3, the seat mounts atop a smaller 16-inch wheel (albeit on a 20-inch rack, so not quite as low as it might be), but you’re sitting lower still, giving the child a grandstand view over your head. Perching 20kg above the rear wheel is a bit like strapping a rhinoceros to the back of a sport car. On corners, the GT3 betrays a definite nervousness as the child seat gently twists the rack and frame, but it still runs true as a die, at the usual rocket-like speeds in a straight line.

Panniers, of course, are mounted much lower, so this pendulum effect should be minimised. Any of the shorter jobbies suitable for 20-inch bikes will fit, and there’s plenty of clearance. The rack has a bracket for a standard LED rear light, and the frame features braze-ons for a dynamo (not a great idea with frail Primo tyre sidewalls), a front light and a bottle cage.There’s also a mirror, mounted on the kingpin in classic trike style, but the stem is really too short to provide much information.

Obviously, light touring is well within the GT3’s capabilities, but with ground clearance of only 7cm, you’d be well advised to stick to the black top. On a more practical note, the turning circle of 3.3 metres (10′ 9″) is one of the best around, making U-turns and other dubious manoeuvres dead easy.This may not look like a shopping or nip-to-work machine, but provided you’re willing to mingle with traffic at wheel-nut height and you keep clear of road humps, all the practical elements are there.

Folding

When folded, the rear wheel settles to the left of the boom.

Almost forgot. Folding involves removing the single seat bolt with a 6mm allen key, which exposes the hinge in the main frame tube, or ‘spine’ in recumbent-terminology. The hinge is a nice bit of engineering, superficially similar to the Zero hinge (see page 35), but neater and lighter, with an even craftier safety catch. Like the Zero, the quick-release pivot shaft forms the catch, engaging through a hole on the front hinge face. But in this case, a peg on the shaft engages with a cam cut in the hinge body, so the catch will only disengage when the quick-release is rotated down and back.

greenspeed-gt3-recumbent-trike-frame-hinge

Note the frame hinge

Like the Bike Friday, the hinge is asymmetrical, so the rear frame swings up and to the left, allowing the rear wheel and rack (if fitted) to nestle snugly between the left front wheel and the boom.The lengthy chain pivots at around the same point, so it stays in tension.With the seat strapped to the right of the fully retracted boom (another 6mm allen key job), the trike measures 82cm wide x 52cm tall x 101cm long.

In bicycle terms, a folded volume of 430 litres (15 cubic feet) would be vast, but for a trike it’s really quite compact. And the folding process takes only a minute or two.This sort of performance brings the GT3 into train territory, provided you keep a low profile and are very nice to the guard if spotted (technically, trikes are not allowed on trains).We’d strongly recommend putting it in a bag, both for protection and disguise. A typical hatchback car would be easy, although squeezing the GT3 into a car boot might require a little more work.

…enough performance to satisfy the hot-blooded young things…

If you’re prepared to get into the oily dismantling zone, there are plenty of other options to make the machine quite a bit smaller. Remove the wheels (a single allen screw for each front wheel), steering assembly (one bolt, again), derailleur and chain (more fiddly) and boom, and in about 30 minutes, the bits can be squeezed into a case measuring 38cm x 71cm x 77cm. We can vouch for that, because that’s how our trike arrived, hot from its launch at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas.Yes, it’s big by train or plane standards, but a transport trike nonetheless.

Conclusion

With most of these machines being unashamedly roof-of-the-car jobs, the GT3 has very little competition. A bit disappointing that the ultimate HPV has to be carried everywhere by car, but there you are. Green transport, eh?

The traditional trike manufacturers seem to have become a bit set in their ways, selling increasingly expensive machines to wealthy and slightly paunchy middle-aged men with beards. For what it’s worth, a typical Windcheetah,Trice or Greenspeed (pricing is difficult because recumbents are virtually bespoke) costs £2,400 to £3,000.That’s a great deal of dosh for most of us.

Against this background, the ‘entry level’ GT3 is a nice, simple practical package, selling for £1,900 or so. No super-duper components, but enough performance to satisfy all the hot-blooded young things who tried it, and leave some of them making lost puppy noises. Quite how many of these un-bearded types with a mortgage and two kids would be allowed to part with two grand is another matter, but there’s no doubt that the GT3 represents a breakthrough pricewise. It’s also a lovely-jubbly machine – do try one.

Specification

Greenspeed GT3 £1,900
Weight 18.2kg (40lb)
Gears Shimano Capreo/Tiagra derailleur
Gear ratios Low 20″-57″ Medium 27″-79″ High 34″-98″
Brakes Twin Sturmey Archer drums
Brake force (one wheel) 0.3G (both wheels) 0.65G
Tyres Primo Comet 37x349mm
Track 74.5cm
Overall width 82cm
Folded size H52cm W82cm L101cm
Folded volume 430lt (15 cu ft)
Manufacturer Greenspeed web www.greenspeed.com.au mail ian@greenspeed.com.au tel +61 9758 5541
UK Distributor Westcountry Recumbents web www.wrhpv.com mail rob@wrhpv.com tel 0870 7401227

FreeRadical Cargo-kit

The carrying capacity of a conventional bike shouldn’t be underestimated – it’s amazing what you can fit into a decent set of panniers. However, with cycling as my main form of transport, I often wished I could carry heavier or awkwardly-shaped items.The obvious solution was a trailer, and I picked up a great hand-built one, but found that for a number of reasons it didn’t quite suit my needs. Most crucially, with a trailer you only have the extra cargo capacity when you’ve bothered to lug it round with you.

Few people would be willing to keep even the slickest, lightest trailer permanently attached to their bike. If you’re of a well organised persuasion, this probably isn’t a worry, as you’ll just hitch a trailer on when required. But personally I decided I’d like to be able to hop on my bike knowing I could carry a big load whenever the need arose.That’s why I ended up buying a ‘FreeRadical’, a kit designed to turn a regular bike into a cargo bike.

Installation

According to the booklet, ‘installation is meant to be carried out by a professional bicycle mechanic only’. But I enjoy fiddling with bikes, and had enough confidence in my mechanical abilities to have a go.The first task is to remove the rear wheel, chain, rear derailleur and brakes.The FreeRadical frame then simply bolts into the dropouts for the rear wheel, and is also attached near the bottom bracket.This produces an extended bike frame which seems pretty sturdy – I’ve had no problems with mine as yet. Rear derailleur and brakes need to be re-fitted with the extended cables provided with the kit.

…you can even carry passengers… up to a maximum payload of 90kg…

With the rear wheel slotted into place, you’ll find the wheelbase has grown by around 38cm (15 inches), which means extending the chain by attaching the extra 30 inches of links supplied.With everything back together and re-adjusted, the remaining task is to assemble the load-carrying frame.The FreeRadical has four vertical tubes – one pair in front of the rear wheel, and one pair behind. Into these slot two U-shaped racks, one on either side of the wheel, straddled and clamped into place with what the surfer-dude designers have styled a ‘SnapDeck’, but we would call a bit of plywood.

Carrying Stuff

Load carrying is done primarily in so-called ‘FreeLoaders’: Nylon flaps which attach to the racks. These are open at the top, so shouldn’t be used simply as bags (I initially made that mistake and lost a few things as a result!).The idea is that you put your shopping in bags and put the bags in the FreeLoaders.The open- topped design allows you to carry large or awkwardly- shaped loads, such as wooden planks.

As well as lashing on loads via the FreeLoaders, you can strap big objects onto the SnapDeck platform, and you can even carry passengers this way, up to a maximum payload of 90kg. Footrests are available as an option to make the ride a bit more comfortable! Other options include horizontal racks to give even greater load- carrying capacity. I haven’t tried these, but on the web site there are lots of pictures of sporty right-on types carrying canoes and the like.The full package (bike and FreeRadical), is referred to (with more surf-jargon) as an XtraCycle.

Extending the wheelbase of your bike obviously produces a significant change in handling. I think this is best summarised as an increase in stability with a corresponding decrease in manoeuvrability – a bit like changing from a small-wheeled folder to a conventional road bike. It’s a subjective thing, but I really like the ‘cruiserish’ feel of the XtraCycle.The bike remains nippy enough, and the extra length is a key factor in the bike handling well under loads.The whole assembly adds just over 4kg to the weight of your bike.This does affect acceleration a bit, but not excessively so.

Train Friendly?

Being 38cm (15″) longer and marginally wider at the back than a regular bike, the question of compatibility with public transport is important. In my experience, on trains where bike storage is in a guards van, an XtraCycle slots in no problem.Things become a bit more complicated where bikes are forced to jostle for space with passengers. For instance an XtraCycle will fit fine in the bike space on a Virgin Voyager, provided you remove the front wheel, but on trains with space for only two conventional bikes, an XtraCycle will take up both spaces. And the guard would probably take some ersuading to let it on. Having said all this, in my recent experience you have to be pretty brave to take even a conventional bike on many journeys – I think I’ll follow A to B’s advice and get a folder for the train.

…the design is not well suited to British weather… the SnapDeck absorbed water and warped…

A Few Problems

Most significantly, the design is not as well suited to British weather as it might be, which is hardly surprising, as the designers are based in Nevada.The FreeRadical frame is made of steel, while the racks that slot into it are aluminium. Given a heavy shower the vertical tubes of the FreeRadical collect water, and corrosion occurs rapidly, all the more so because of the interface between the two metals.Thankfully, this problem can be avoided by wrapping some waterproof tape around the junction between the racks and their sockets. Another damp-related problem I encountered was that after being left outside overnight, the SnapDeck absorbed water and warped. I’ve since painted it with exterior varnish, which seems to have worked.

You may need a few extra parts too. I found the new chain did not mesh properly with some of the gears on my rather old and worn rear cassette.This meant I had to shell out for a new cassette… Not a problem with hub gears, obviously.You may also need to upgrade the brakes for the extra weight, although my V-brakes worked fine.

Conclusions

For me, the FreeRadical has been a big success, enabling me to pootle happily about with large quantities of shopping, recycling, and the occasional friend. I’m sure a trailer would be a more appropriate solution for many people, but I definitely think a FreeRadical is worth considering if you regularly pull heavy loads, or simply fancy trying something a bit different.The ability to carry a passenger will also do wonders for your popularity, and helps to extend the role of the bicycle even further.

Unfortunately XtraCycle doesn’t do itself any favours in the way it brands the product: The skater/surfer terminology grates after a bit, and the web site is full of testimonials from born-again cycling-dudes whose lives have been transformed, which can be a bit off-putting to more cynical British eyes.

Specification

FreeRadical £225 (plus £14 p&p)
Weight (claimed) 4kg (8.8lb)
Maximum load 90kg (200lb)
USA Manufacturer Xtracycle mail infousa@xtracycle.com web www.extracycle.com
UK Distributors (England) Re-Cycle tel 01845 4580854 or 4580758 mail merlin@re-cycle.org
web www.re-cycle.org . (Scotland) Edinburgh Cycle Co-op tel 0131 3371484

Glowbag

glowbag It’s a measure of just how in tune we are, that we immediately thought a Glowbag was something you planted tomatoes in (don’t bother – home-made compost is just as effective), but it turns out to be a bag that, er, glows.

As walkers, cyclists, equestrians and motorcyclists will knowl, it pays to be seen, and reflective clothing does quite a good job.The trouble with day-glo jackets is that they make you look like a banana. No problem if you’re a fruit fetishist, or the sort of brave soul who really couldn’t care less, but some people object to dressing up like a Belisha beacon to avoid being turned into strawberry jam by an incompetent motorist.

The answer is to dress in fashionable black, but wear something highly fluorescent, such as a Glowbag, which comes (naturally) in fashionable black, with stripes, a triangle, or large rectangle of Scotchlite material.This is the stuff the professionals use, and it throws back light from car headlights to spectacular effect. As the fashionable young people at Glowbag like to say: ‘This is no fluorescent yellow strip! This isn’t about looking like a complete nerd!’ Ah, quite so.

Glowbags come in two types – ‘Grand’ (a 25 litre courier bag), and ‘Midi’.This is much smaller, indeed the two zip-top pouches on the Midi will barely accommodate ‘two cans of Carlsberg’, according to Glowbag, which could mean multiple trips to the off-licence. For unashamedly nerdy but practical types, a couple of tinnies might translate into an Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 map, A to B magazine, wallet, house keys, puncture repair kit and a few basic tools.There’s also a handy little pouch on the strap, that makes a jolly useful home for your mobile phone, provided you’re fashionable enough to own one, and of course, know how to use it.

Our only real criticism is that you have to make a conscious effort to sling the bag behind for it to be effective.They’re also fairly expensive: the small Midi bag costing £21 to £26.50 and the Grand, £52 to £59.The price depends on the amount of Scotchlite in the design, which gives you an idea how expensive the raw material is. Still, street credibility never came cheap.

Glowbag Ltd tel 0207 5822282 mail sales@glowbag.com

Cycles Maximus Pedicab

There’s a certain romance associated with human power.You know the sort of thing – the bronzed noble savage, pulsating limbs, rippling muscles, incredible loads, and not even a whiff of nitrous oxide. Ooh, enough, enough! The reality – as any gap-year rickshaw pilot will tell you – can be very different. Pedal power can move surprising loads at modest speeds on the flat, but come to a hill and rolling resistance becomes the least of your worries…We regularly drag trailing loads of 70kg uphill to the Post Office, so we know a little about these things (and generally choose an electric bike for the job too).

Out of the blue, we had a call along the lines of the washing powder ads: ‘Would we swap all our regular cycles for a Cycles Maximus Pedicab?’ Living in hilly Somerset, the answer would have been a curt ‘No’, but this machine is rather different, because it comes with power-assistance – either a fairly conventional Heinzmann motor in the front wheel, or a much more exciting chassis-mounted Lynch motor at the rear.With this sort of assistance, rickshaws could be poised to strike out from the flat inner city to become practical load-carriers just about anywhere. It comes at a price, of course: £2,900 for the basic Pedicab or Cargo machine, plus £605 for the Heinzmann power-assist equipment (a great bargain, incidentally), or a healthy £2,095 for the meatier Lynch motor, making a total of £4,995 on the road. If that sounds a bit pricey, remember, we’re talking small van capability here, but without the fuel, servicing, parking tickets, congestion charge, taxation or compulsory insurance.

Despite grumbles from black cab drivers, the practicality of these machines is unquestioned in cities, but could a rickshaw provide practical day-to-day family transport?

Backgroundus

Cycles Maximus is the creation of Ian Wood, a Bath publican (owner of drinking establishments, for overseas readers).The HPV business started in a couple of lock- ups back in 1997, when Ian and business partner Tom Nesbitt set to work designing, and ultimately producing, a lighter, faster version of the classic rickshaw, or pedicab as they’re becoming known. In April 2001, the company moved to a 5,000 square foot factory unit, and notched production up a gear.Today, Pedicabs, and increasingly, Cargo trikes, roll off the assembly line at the rate of about one a week, making Cycles Maximus the biggest producer in Europe and very possibly anywhere outside the Third World.Total sales to date exceed 160, of which around 100 work in London, with smaller pockets in York, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Most of the Pedicabs are pedal-powered, carrying passengers over short distances, but Cargo trikes are more likely to include electric-assist and undertake longer journeys with bigger loads.

The basis of the machines is a neat tricycle chassis that can be adapted to carry loads of up to 250kg in the charming, but very practical ‘Cargo Box’, or up to three passengers in a conventional looking, but high-tech rickshaw body.With only three mounting bolts, the body units are easily swapped, and some machines earn a dual living: cargo by day, people by night. Not many Ford Transits do that.

Perhaps most striking at first glance is that nearly half of the trike’s 2.5 metre length is allotted to the rider.The business end – either Pedicab or Cargo body – fits neatly between the rear wheels, mounted as low as is practically possible above the central differential.There’s no suspension as such, but the bodies are rubber-mounted to give a degree of resilience.

The rolling chassis weighs 46kg, to which you must add 29kg for the Pedicab (27.5kg for the Cargo), and 46kg for the optional Lynch power-assist, making a total of 75kg un- powered or 121kg powered.To put this in perspective for cycling types, pedalling an empty un-assisted rickshaw is a bit like riding a tandem with an unproductive eight stone stoker on the back. No great problem on the flat, but hard going on hills.

Most of the Maximus trikes are fitted with SRAMs’ excellent 3×8 gear system – the combination of 3-speed hub and 8-speed derailleur being ideal for the purpose. Bottom gear is 14 inches – very low for a bicycle, but essential on a load-carrying trike.Without power assistance, this mega-granny gear just allows a reasonably fit cyclist to inch the trike up a 10% gradient with a three-child 80kg test load, but only the seriously fit need apply on a daily basis. Once over the top, low range takes you from 14″ to 40″, mid range from 19″ to 55″ and high from 26″ to 75″. If you can find the terrain, that’s high enough to spin up to a conventional bicycle speed.Typically, speed tops out in the 6-12mph region, but small variations in gradient can make a big difference.

Heinzmann-power

The batteries (twin on the Heinzmann, large single on the Lynch) intrude into the spacious Cargo Box, but not much

Hills present a major obstacle, pulling speed down to 2mph, one, or nothing, should you be unlucky or completely knackered. That’s where the Heinzmann motor comes in, feeding a little extra zest to the front wheel, as and when required. Designed to give a boost to a conventional bike, the motor can rapidly get out of its depth in the commercial trike world, despite being geared for 12mph, rather than 15mph. Hill starts are a particular challenge, because the stalled motor is being asked to grind slowly away with the sort of load it was never intended for.With 80kg on the back, we just managed to rush a short stretch of 15% (1 in 7.5), which is fortunate because it’s part of our driveway. A restart was beyond us.

The Heinzmann-assisted machine will tackle gradients of up to 8% at modest speed with a load in the 50-80kg range, but certainly not fully laden. Once speed falls below 6mph or so, the motor rapidly wilts, leaving you more or less on your own. If the load and/or terrain exceed these limits, you need something a bit hunkier.

Lynch-power

This is a much more sophisticated package – a top quality motor driving a layshaft via its own freewheel. Everything, from the wiring to the mechanical bits, is well engineered, and it needs to be, because the Lynch motor is a seriously powerful beast, designed for heavy commercial use.

Engaging the motor is dead easy.You start by turning an ‘ignition’ key, then feed power in with a twistgrip throttle.To stay within the electric tricycle legislation, Cycles Maximus has provided a torque-sensing switch, so power is only available when you’re pedalling, but you don’t need to be moving, so hill starts are easy. If pedal effort drops below a pre-set limit, the motor resets itself, and you have to pedal harder, wind the throttle back and start again – a good safety feature.

The motor is continuously rated at 250 watts, which brings it within current electric tricycle legislation, so the Lynch- motored trike doesn’t need an MOT, tax disc and all the rest.With a modest load and on modest gradients, 250 watts will keep you chugging gently along all day. Our motor was geared for a comfortable 9mph, but the gearing is up to you, provided assistance is not available above 15mph.

Hit a gradient and the Lynch motor grunts, hardens its note and climbs whatever you put in front of it.The steeper the climb, the more it buckles down and the more power it produces. For example, with Castle Cary’s 10% gradients, and loads of 50-80kg, speed falls to 7 or 8mph and power input from the motor hits 700 watts or so. But restart on a serious gradient with a full load, and power can peak at anything up to 3.3 kw, or nearly five horsepower…We can’t vouch for the accuracy of our test equipment at this sort of level, but the figures are of little relevance, because in everyday use, speed hardly ever falls below 6mph, or power above 1,500 watts.

Maximum power can only be used in short bursts, but it’s nice to know you can restart on more or less any gradient with more or less any load.This is particularly important with the Lynch motor because the heavy-duty layshafts and cogs don’t leave space for the SRAM 3×8 gear system, so you’re stuck with a standard Shimano Deore derailleur giving eight gears of (in our case) 21″ to 58″. Obviously, battery condition is something you want to know about – the Lynch is more likely to be carrying heavy loads in hilly areas, and it doesn’t have the gearing to get home if something goes wrong.

So what about that romantic human-power stuff? Well, it’s true that your puny efforts can begin to look a bit sad against the giant-slaying Lynch, but for much of the time the motor rests or hums gently, leaving a human-powered machine to delight the purists.

On the Road

For a bicyclist, the first, and rather unnerving, impressions are: (a) it doesn’t lean into corners, and (b), if you try to ‘lean-steer’ you will simply veer off the road. After a few minutes you get the hang of this, before being unnerved all over again on the first adverse road camber, because then it will lean and you can’t bring it upright.

Handling is merely a concept at 8mph, but rather more important at 30mph…

Some people recovered their composure fairly quickly, but it has to be said that others failed to adjust and were convinced they never would. Even if you master three- wheeled cornering, the conventional looking front forks can lead you to forget that you’re piloting a vehicle 121cm (48″) wide above the seat. Look over your shoulder to place the wheels through a gap and you’ll find that the Pedicab is three centimetres narrower down there… None of this applies to the Cargo variant, which has a lower, narrower body.

Another advantage with the Cargo is excellent rearward visibility, whereas the Pedicab roof is rather awkwardly at driver’s eye height. This turns out to be important, because unlike a bicycle – even a bicycle with a trailer attached – if you’re driving something 121cm wide at 8mph, motorised traffic soon gets grumpy, and they’ll be fighting to squeeze past.

If you’re the sort of person who enjoys winding up motorists, a Pedicab will give you enormous pleasure, but for cyclists more used to sharing the roadspace in reasonable equanimity, a long queue can be embarrassing. Other people’s jams cause problems too, so jam-phobics should stick to something more traditional. Once you’re stuck, you’ll be watching cyclists wiggle through the gaps and telling your passengers what a bloody nuisance they are, just like any other cab driver.

If you’re used to a bicycle, parking a 1.2 metre-wide three-wheeler sounds like a nightmare, but it’s easy.The Cycles Maximus is small by car standards, and with a bit of practice, it can be turned in its 2.5 metre length, enabling it to squeeze into impossible spaces. If you get boxed in by an ignorant motorist, the trike is easy enough to lift sideways – you can often get away with parking side-on too.

On the open road, the Lynch motor does its bit in the 6mph to 8mph region, leaving the rider to play with the top two or three gears. Maximum velocity depends how fast you can pedal – 12mph is easy, and 14mph is feasible if your passenger is late for work.

Once on a downgrade, speed climbs rapidly to 30mph plus – not bad going for the equivalent of a covered wagon. As one might expect, a vehicle with a drag coefficient of a large brick, sitting on three motorcycle tyres, doesn’t roll very well.We managed an average of only 9.2mph on our test hill, and at that speed wind resistance doesn’t have a great effect, so much of the blame must lie with the tyres and mechanical bits. Strangely, with the more streamlined weather shield fitted, rolling speed fell to 8.5mph, which suggests a massive increase in drag.

Handling is merely an esoteric concept at 8mph, but rather more important at 30mph.The rear wheels do exactly what you ask, but the single front tyre sometimes fights for grip on fast turns, causing mild understeer (ie, it threatens to go straight on). Push too hard, particularly when empty on an adverse camber, and the trike will lift an inside wheel, although a touch on the rear brake should get things back under control.

With a maximum gross weight of nearly half a ton, brakes are important and the same attention to detail applies here as elsewhere.The rear wheels are restrained by a pair of Hope hydraulic discs, which are very powerful, but without the surface area for prolonged use.With an empty trike, it’s easy to lock the rear wheels, and we achieved a maximum stop of only 0.38G unloaded. But there’s plenty more power available, so (up to a point) the greater the load, the more effective the rear discs become.

The front Magura hydraulic rim brake would be pretty effective on a bicycle, but on such a heavy vehicle, it struggles a bit.We managed a maximum stop of 0.39G using the front brake – this time the limit being brake lever effort rather than locked wheels. Heaving on both anchors results in an emergency stop of 0.6G, which is good, but not scintillating.The front brake comes with a little parking clip, which is essential, but not really up to holding a loaded trike on a gradient.

With hard use, the rear discs overheat very rapidly, although the brakes fail safe, progressively seizing on until the discs have cooled.This is unlikely to occur in central London, but it’s easily done in Somerset.The only answer is to think ahead and go easy on the brakes on long descents. Electric regenerative braking would put a bit of oomph back into the battery and ease the strain on the brakes – it’s being considered.

Equipment

The weather shield is a great favourite, but it increases wind resistance

For the driver, creature comforts are sadly lacking, but there’s a wonderful ding-dong bell to play with.We’d like to see a decent speedometer too, because E.T.A, current time, ride time, average speed, trip and overall mileage are pretty useful in a business environment.The load- carrying Cargo comes with a nicely engineered aluminium body and drop tailgate. If you know what a Euro Pallet is, the load area of 122cm x 90cm x 96cm will apparently accommodate one, but batteries reduce the space a little on powered versions. Rain and prying eyes are kept at bay with a weatherproof hood, fastened to the body with velcro strips, while zips front and rear allow panels to be rolled up for access or ventilation.The cover is easy to remove too.

The Pedicab has a wider and more complex body.The seat is made of a ventilated rubberised material, which is useful, because it will get wet.The hood is generously proportioned and secured with velcro straps, making it easy to remove.The frame is mounted on gas-struts enabling it to tilt downwards – useful should you want to tip water off, but primarily designed so that vandals will fall off and do themselves an injury.

At low speed, the roof keeps light rain at bay, although water tends to pool on top, then sluice all over the driver on the first downhill, to the great amusement of passengers. For monsoon conditions, the weather shield hooks under the roof and more or less eliminates wind, rain and spray. But fitting is a five-minute job, so don’t wait for the rain to start falling.

Lights are adequate for city use – a pair of battery LED rear lights and a Nordlicht dynamo with Busch & Müller Oval front light. But on the wider Pedicab in particular, we’d like to see white/red repeater lights on the extremities, because it looks too much like a bicycle for comfort.The hefty 12 volt supply for the motor could be tapped to power much better lights too.We’d suggest optional rear-facing indicators and even brake lights. Car equipment is relatively cheap and very powerful.

Range

With supplementary bananas, the human-powered jobs will run all day, but the electric-assist batteries have a finite life.We only had a brief time with the Heinzmann-powered trike, but from our Heinzmann experience, we’d suggest 20 to 40 miles from the 984 watt/hour lead-acid batteries, depending on load, gradients and the amount the motor is used.The more powerful Lynch is a faster hill climber, with a smaller 828 watt/hour battery, so range is rather less. Around town, carrying modest 50-80kg loads, we achieved 17 – 181/2 miles, at an average speed of 7.7 to 9.3mph… heady stuff.

…the machine ambles up killer hills, even the 14% kind…

Daft wombats that we are, we couldn’t resist testing the Pedicab over the 171/2 miles of switchback roads and killer climbs, more commonly known as the A to B mountain course.With a good electric bike, this ride takes an hour and twenty minutes, but with a gross weight of over 300kg, including a realistic 100kg load – Alexander (43/4), Jeffrey (8), Alice (10), charger and tools – we were reckoning on a couple of hours.

As expected, the machine ambled up the killer hills, even the 14% (1 in 7) kind, at a steady 6-8mph, and we hit some wild speeds on the descents (31mph, would you believe). But a long trip of this kind can be soul-destroying work for the rider, because the motor only assists up to 8mph. At higher speed, you soon lose the will to live, speed drops back to 8mph, and the cycle repeats itself.

The Lynch motor comes with a sophisticated fuel meter, graduated in ten steps between empty and full, but it’s far from linear.The first light went out at 6 miles, the second at 9.7, third at 12.6, forth at 16 and 5th at 17.1 miles, within sight of journey’s end. That might sound like half a tank, but in fact there were only a couple of miles in reserve. Maximum range in hilly country, carrying 100kg, is 19 miles, but unassisted progress is so scary a prospect, that we wouldn’t recommend trips in excess of 15 miles or so.

Average speed turned out to be 10mph, giving a door-to-door journey time – including two punctures and a brief stop for refreshments – of two hours. Strangely, the trikes’ chunky 23-inch moped tyres proved particularly vulnerable to thorns.We say this because the machine was accompanied by the Greenspeed trike (on racy Primo slicks) and our Giant Lafree, neither of which suffered any harm. Both punctures were fixed with Tyreweld foam, although rather disappointingly, both were flat again by journey’s end.With the frame supported on bricks, tyre repairs are straightforward, although bicycle tyre levers might not be up to dealing with tough motorcycle rubber.

Thanks to a state-of- the-art German charger, recharging is reasonably quick: A 90% charge takes 41/2 hours, followed by a lengthy ‘trickle’ charge, completed in another four hours or so. Unfortunately, we set off after four hours, which took the machine only 121/2 miles.That’s much less than we expected, which might have something to do with the drag characteristics of the weather shield, which was fitted on the way home to keep the 100kg load cheerful.

…one cyclist transported three children in safety and comfort… that’s hard to do without a car…

If you haven’t ridden a loaded rickshaw up a 17% (1 in 6) gradient, let us try to set the picture.With a cyclist standing on the Note the battery under the seat. The motor is behind the differential pedals in the bottom 21″ gear, and two other adults and most of the 100kg load pushing behind, we just inched our way over the summit. In other words, it’s something you might want to do once in life, but never again.The last four flattish miles are lost in mists of pain.

To be fair, this is testing in extremis, and should not be taken too seriously.Yes, we had a few problems, but while the battery held out, one relatively relaxed cyclist transported three children a considerable distance in safety and comfort – something that would otherwise be hard to do without a car. In an easily graded city, Lynch-motor Pedicabs will run for a full shift, but carrying heavy loads in hillier areas, active duty can be two hours or even less.

Conclusion

It’s crazy, but the ridiculous Powershift Grants (see A to B 35) cannot be applied to a Cycles Maximus Cargo or Pedicab because, er, they have pedals. If you have a commercial or private use for such a machine and would like a hefty rebate on the purchase cost, we can only suggest you lobby your MP.

The Cycles Maximus machines successfully bridge the gap between the humble bicycle and diesel-fuelled delivery vans and taxis. Even the Lynch-powered machine is legally a pedal tricycle according to the latest interpretation of the rules, so it can go anywhere a bicycle can go (provided there’s room, of course) and park without risk of a ticket (although the police could presumably invoke the obstruction laws).

For commercial use, these machines make a lot of sense, and the electric options should help to spread the assisted-pedal power message.The Heinzmann gives a gentle push at a reasonable cost, and the Lynch – although expensive – has most of the capabilities of its smaller infernal-combustion cousins, but without the downsides.

We also think a community or local authority-owned machine would find all sorts of uses, including a daily school run.The Pedicab (Bike Bus in Alexander-speak) will transport three children in comfort, and the Cargo (Bike Van) could be adapted to carry four or even six small ‘uns, replacing a veritable fleet of motors. Over short distances, door-to- door journey times compare well with a car, and the young (and young-at-heart) absolutely love travelling this way.Why does everyone choose the dreariest way of getting children to school? Kids really don’t want to be strapped into a bulbous four-wheel-drive with tinted windows – they want to wave, shout at their friends and generally release a bit of energy. For smaller children, the Pedicab is the last word in cool transportation.

Coming from a bicycle background, we wouldn’t swap our vehicles for a Pedicab.True, we need a shed full of folding bikes, a trailer bike, child/luggage trailer and power-assisted bike, to achieve much the same thing, but these individual machines give greater flexibility, no parking hassles, and higher speed (almost double). But if we had several children – especially if we wanted to dispose of a second car – we would seriously consider it.The concept of travelling together as a family, and offering lifts to friends, relatives and passers- by, gave priceless entertainment.We’ll certainly miss the Bike Bus.

Specification

Cycles Maximus Cargo or Pedicab £2,900
Heinzmann power-assist £605 extra
Lynch power-assist £2,090 extra
Weight (unpowered) 75kg (powered) 121kg
Payload 250kg
Overall width (Pedicab) 121cm (Cargo) 118cm
Overall Length (Pedicab) 250cm (Cargo) 234cm
Gear range (non-Lynch motor) 14″ – 75″ (Lynch motor) 21″ – 58″
Battery type Sealed lead-acid
Battery capacity (Heinzmann) 984wh (Lynch) 828wh
Range (Heinzmann) 40 miles est. (Lynch) 19 miles
UK Manufacturer Cycles Maximus tel 01225 319414 mail info@cyclesmaximus.com web www.cyclesmaximus.com

Top-draw Dynamos – Bush & Müller Dymotec S12 & Dynosys LightSpin

Dynamo lights have many advantages.They’re always on call, lightweight, and extra- bright, but traditional dynamos are noisy, inefficient and unreliable.These days, there’s a renewed interest in hub dynamos, which are virtually silent and more reliable, but expensive to buy and fit.We’ve looked at the best bottle dynamos we could find, to see if they’re: (a) worth the extra over a conventional bottle and/or (b) comparable to a hub.

Two manufacturers dominate this business – Swiss company Dynosys, manufacturer of the LightSpin, and Busch & Müller from Germany, manufacturer of the Dymotec.The LightSpin is basically a high-tech version of a conventional six volt bottle dynamo, with improved bearings and electronic voltage control, while the Dymotec comes in three forms: the ‘6’, a more efficient version of a conventional dynamo, the ‘S6’, like the ‘6’, but with voltage control, and the ‘S12’, with everything else, plus a greater output. All can be fitted in place of a conventional bottle or hub dynamo except for the S12 which has an output of 12 volts (all other systems are six volt) and thus needs dedicated lamps, or hard-to-obtain 12 volt bulbs if upgrading older (ie, electronic-free) lamps.

While we’re on the subject, if adding a new bottle to an old system, it’s worth bearing in mind that some ‘medium-tech’ lamps may contain zener diodes to dump surplus voltage and improve bulb life.With the exception of the basic Dymotec 6, these posh-end dynamos contain more sophisticated voltage control and should not be used with zener diodes, because the dynamo will do its best to supply power to the bulbs and zener, which will simply throw the surplus overboard. If in doubt, it’s a good idea to replace the dynamo and lamps at the same time.

We’ve tested the LightSpin against the top-of-the-range B&M Dymotec S12.The 6 and S6 are cheaper, and broadly similar, but with lower output. For the purposes of making the test as realistic as possible, we fitted the dynamos to a hack bike with slightly wobbly wheels, although if spending this sort of money you’d be well advised to have the wheels trued, because a wobbly wheel will reduce efficiency. Both the designs dealt manfully with wobbles and inclement weather.

Dymotec S12

The Dymotec 6 costs £38, the S6 £110, and the S12 (complete with 12v versions of the Lumotec Oval Plus front light and Toplight Plus rear lights), no less than £300. Sounds like a reasonable budget for a bicycle. But for engineers everywhere, this is more or less the dream spec for a dynamo: 12 volts, 6.2 watts and 60% efficiency. For the rest of us, let us just say it’s solidly made, reliable and efficient.

So, what do all the numbers mean? As any woman will tell you, it’s largely a man thing: big numbers meaning a generous wallet, unrivalled fertility, and so forth, but a 12 volt dynamo really does make some sense.

Most battery lights are three volts, and dynamos six volts – the voltage being a measure of the electrical ‘pressure’. On its own, this tells us nothing about the light output, but the greater the pressure, the easier it is for the power to fight its way through those embarrassing dodgy joints held together with sticky tape. In short, a 12 volt system is more reliable.

Efficiency is the difference between the power you put in and the electrical power that comes out of the dynamo. Some are atrociously inefficient, turning only 20-30% of your hard won effort into light, while the rest floats off into the night as heat and noise. Fortunately, dynamos are small, absorbing 15 watts or less for an output of three useful watts. For those who’ve forgotten their school physics, voltage (electrical pressure) multiplied by amps (the current or volume of electricity) equals watts – the measurement of electric power.

Fifteen watts doesn’t sound much, but if you’re tooling gently home on a bicycle at a modest 13mph, your total power output may be less than 75 watts, so a crummy old dynamo could be absorbing nearly a quarter of your leg power.

Better quality bearings, and other much more complicated things, bring greater efficiency. Busch & Müller claim 40% for the 6, 55% for the S6, and 60% for the S12.That efficiency is used to cut the overall power consumption on the six volt units, but with the S12, B&M has chosen instead to provide a greater output: 6.2 watts, plus the 40% chucked away as heat, giving a total drain on your legs of 10.3 watts.All a bit complicated, but the result is a bit less effort, twice as much light, and a very tiny reduction in global warming.

In practice, our test yielded a whopping peak output of 8.7 watts (the extra power recharges the standlight lamps in the first few minutes of operation). But with a steady output of 15.2 volts above 8mph, we suspect the S12 might be powerful enough to eat bulbs relatively quickly. Don’t care, eh? You will when you find the bulbs cost £12.99 each.

Rolling resistance is barely discernible.When we tested a down-market three watt dynamo in October, it knocked 1.4 mph off our typical coasting speed.The S12 (generating 8.7 watts), only reduces the coasting speed by 0.5 mph – noticeable, but insignificant.

Fitting

…not a bad chat-up line…you could ask them to come up and inspect your zener diodes…

Fitting the S12 is quite straightforward, and we managed to assemble a complete system including the front and rear lamps in about an hour. One bit of advice – do solder the connectors if you can.There’s no point in spending £300 just to see the wiring fall apart on the first soggy night. If you don’t have the technology, trim the wires to length and seek out a man or woman with a soldering iron (not a bad chat-up line, all things considered – you could ask them to come up and inspect your zener diodes too). Otherwise, assembly is fairly self-evident.The dynamo needs to be carefully aligned, like any other, but the Dymotec units also feature a crafty contact pressure adjustment, which should be set as low as possible for any particular tyre/weather combination. If the lights flicker, increase the pressure a bit. For rough conditions, the rubber roller can be swapped (hardly a roadside job) for B&M’s ‘weather-proof’ design, a rotary wire brush that would do a decent job of buffing up your small parts.This should be kept well away from frail tyre sidewalls and small fingers for obvious reasons. B&M make the point that it should only be used ‘temporarily’ in ‘rainy, snowy or icy’ conditions.We didn’t need it, but it was nice to know it was there.

Light output

We tested the S12 with Busch & Müller’s wonderful Lumotec Oval Plus front lamp and Toplight Plus rear lamp, produced in 12 volt versions specifically for this dynamo. Both have a standlight function too – the rear LEDs continue to burn at full brightness for about five minutes, while the front switches to a single white LED that lasts for ‘at least’ ten minutes. Ever tried waiting for a standlight to go out when there’s something good on the telly? Should your unsoldered connectors drop off, the front standlight is as powerful as some elderly filament bulbs, and easily bright enough to get you home.

As for the halogen main beam, don’t expect two or three times as much light as normal, just because you’re generating two or three times as much power, but in terms of brightness and spread, the Lumotec is unrivalled. Country roads are easily navigated at speed, and oncoming cars tend to assume you’re motorised, treating you with a bit of respect. Our only criticism is that enough light scatters through the transparent rim of the lens to dazzle the rider in open country, which is a bit counter- productive.The easy answer is a strip of black masking tape, but surely this should be sorted at source?

LightSpin

Unlike the B&M S12, this is a six volt device, so you can use it with conventional six volt lamps, provided you seek and destroy those pesky zener diodes. It’s also relatively cheap at £70 – a full £40 less than the B&M S6, which has a lower output. Efficiency is claimed to be 65-75%, so with our measured power output of only 2.6 watts, we estimate a power requirement of less than four watts.With such a low demand, the wheel can be spun quite easily – you can’t feel it on the road.The coasting speed was reduced from 15.3 to 15.2 mph – a barely discernible effect.

Incidentally, the low power output on our graph doesn’t necessarily make this a seven stone weakling amongst dynamos. Traditional bottle dynamos tend to call it a day at three watts, but the LightSpin provides whatever the bulb demands, up to a recommended maximum of 4.8 watts. It just happens that our bulb combination demanded only 2.6 watts. With this dynamo (and the B&M S6 too) it is permissible to fit a three watt bulb at the front and 0.6 watt at the rear, making 3.6 watts in all.

We paired the LightSpin with the neat little Hella Micro FF front lamp.The result was noticeably less exciting than the B&M S12, but the lamp throws a smaller, well defined pool of light just where you want it. Or at least, it does if you take great care aiming the lamp.

Conclusion

Value for money is a difficult concept at this level. After all, you can buy a basic dynamo for less than £10, but we wouldn’t recommend cutting corners to that extent if you commute on a regular basis.The B&M in particular is frighteningly expensive, but it offers unrivalled light output.The cheaper B&Ms and the Lightspin have a more conventional power output, but great efficiency.

They’re all better than the cooking variety, but are they as good as a hub dynamo? They’re certainly noisier, and compared to the hubs we’ve tried, the useful power kicks in at a slightly higher speed – 5mph instead of 4mph.That might seem irrelevant, but a hub will keep the lights close to full brightness at a smart walking pace, whereas the bottle dynamos will not.They’re relatively vulnerable too, both to the elements and vandalism.

On the positive side, a bottle dynamo is quick, easy and cheap to fit, and there’s no drag when it’s turned away from the tyre, although drag has been virtually eliminated from the hubs these days anyway.

Our instincts are moving towards the weather-proof, no-nonsense hub, but there are plenty of reasons why you might prefer something easier to fit, and if you want hub performance from a bottle, one of these might suit. If you’re looking for low rolling resistance above all else, the LightSpin is the best, but if power matters, go for B&M’s S12. There’s enough oomph here to recharge a mobile phone, or even a lap-top, provided you can find a suitable adaptor.

Specification

Dymotec S12 (c/w lamps) £300
Power output (claimed) 6.2 watts
Efficiency (claimed) 60%
Manufacturer Busch & Müller tel +49 2354 9156 mail info@bumm.de web www.bumm.de
UK distributor AMBA Marketing (UK) tel 01392 840030 mail sales@amba-marketing.com

Dynosys LightSpin £70
Power output (claimed) 4.8 watts
Efficiency (claimed) 65-75%
Manufacturer Dynosys tel +41 62827 4828 mail info@dynosys-ag.ch web www.dynosys-ag.ch
UK Distributor Gearshift tel 0700 0700 531 web www.gearshift.co.uk

Zero Shaft-drive

zero-shaft-drive-folding-bike Shaft drives look great on paper, trading that grubby old chain for a completely sealed unit – no gear teeth, no oil, no grime, and no hassle. In reality, they’re relatively inefficient, noisy, heavy and expensive. Altering the gear ratio is a major engineering job, and even measuring the ratio can be complex. Forget what the salesmen say.The chain remains with us today – essentially unchanged for over 100 years – because it’s a damn good solution, unmatched by older and more recent inventions, such as the toothed rubber belt, shaft, oscillating rods, hydraulic, electric and all the rest.

Having demolished the genre, we couldn’t resist a review of Zero’s shaft-drive folding bike, partly because we think a folder brings a novel set of problems to which a shaft- drive is particularly well suited, but also because it’s a really pleasant little machine.

For £475 (about the same as the Giant Halfway) you get a simple, rugged 20-inch wheel fold-in-half bike, with V-brakes and Shimano Nexus 3-speed hub. Is it a better buy than a conventional 20-inch folder?

How it Works

Crank shaft (top), bearing assembly (right) and crank bevel gear (left)

Zero, the Bristol-based importer of shaft-driven bicycles, make no bones about the origins of the folding derivative.Taiwanese manufacturer Sussex sent over a rather heavy steel folder, but there was some interest, so a deal was done for supply of a lighter alloy-framed version, and this is it.

The business end is simple in terms of components, but no doubt fairly complex to manufacture.Where the bottom bracket bearings would normally be, there’s a large shell containing two substantial ball bearings and a shaft with a bevel drive cog splined loosely to it.We’re not over-keen on this design, because bevel gears exert forces in all sorts of directions. Only time will tell whether the splines are sufficiently robust – if they wear out, the unit will probably have to be scrapped. From the bevel gear, drive is transferred through 90 degrees, along a shaft to the rear wheel, where another pair of bevel gears transfer the pedal effort to a conventional geared hub.

Right-angle gears need to be precisely machined and installed if they’re to operate smoothly and quietly.This system can be a little noisy, because alignment between the bits and pieces is not all it might be (we’ll come to that), but the efficiency feels good – certainly streets ahead of a toothed rubber belt, for example. Zero claims efficiency similar to a chain drive, but we’ll stick with Bicycle Science, which quotes figures of ‘up to 98.5%’ for a chain drive and 92% for a shaft drive, admittedly an early 20th Century example, when such things were last in vogue. From a seat-of-the-pants observation we’d say that figure was probably a bit pessimistic, but losses there certainly are, compounded by the somewhat inefficient Nexus hub.

The bearings and cogs are pre-greased, but they’re not packed with grease and the assembly is not sealed, so if you were to ride through deep salt water for example, the system would need a thorough service.There’s a grease-point at the front, but this only lubricates the front bevel gears, not the bearings. At the rear, the assembly is effectively open to the elements, because of the way the rear wheel pops out.You whip off a plastic cover plate and slide the wheel back complete with its bevel gear. Grubby water can, and will, find its way in here, so the rear cogs are quite exposed. Not as exposed as a typical chain, of course, but by no means safe from the elements.

The Zero arrived with junior 150mm cranks – a strict no-no unless you’re a junior, or an adult with particularly bijou inside leg measurements.This felt most peculiar, but when swapped for more conventional 170mm cranks, the folder felt relatively normal. Not quite normal, because the gears produce a low hum, which can be felt as a slight roughness through the pedals. Incidentally, if you do go for 170mm cranks, the bottom bracket is a bit low, so the pedals are liable to hit the ground on sharp turns.

Gearing is effectively fixed, and although the ratios are on the low side, they’re an acceptable compromise at 30″, 40″ and 55″. First gear will climb reasonable inclines and top will just see you up to a passable cruising speed. For riding short distances in an uppy- downy sort of town you might be all right, but 55 inches is too low for spinning along on the flat with a following breeze.Take it or leave it – the ratios are not for changing.

On the road, the bike feels stable and quite sprightly. It’s easy to ride hands off, and the frame is surprisingly rigid, even when riding out of the saddle. Sussex recommend greasing the drive-shaft at 500km and every 4-6 months thereafter.We mention this because our bike developed some strange squeaking noises within a mile or two. Grease at the rear made no difference (simply remove the plastic cover and spoon it in), but a few strokes with a grease gun at the front solved the problem.What we can’t tell you is how the shaft will survive in the longer term. In theory it will last for decades, but if muddy water gets in, it could grind itself to bits in a few weeks.

…wheel location is rather vague… the drive could do itself a whoopsie…

Equipment

Every thing is unbranded, but by no means the worse for that.The V-brakes have smart alloy levers and work well enough, although the rear brake is hampered by a long and rather convoluted cable run. Both the gear and brake cables are forced into some excruciating positions when folded, so we wouldn’t expect them to last very long.Tyres are Kenda Kontacts – yet another 47-406mm (20-inch) design from this prolific Taiwanese manufacturer.The descent speed of 13.6mph on our test hill is the sort of figure we expect to see from good 16-inch tyres these days, so a relatively poor performance for a 20-inch bike. Mudguards are silvery plastic and unusually generous for a machine of this kind, offering reasonable weather protection, although the front could do with a mudflap.

With the plastic cover removed, the rear bevel gear looks rather exposed

Should you be worried, the rear wheel is easy to remove. First, the plastic cap comes off the shaft housing, then the mudguard stays, because a horizontal drop-out means the wheel has to be removed from behind.With the gear shifter removed and the wheel bolts loosened, the wheel is free. It’s different, but no more difficult than normal.

Reassembly is a bit more critical. Engineering types may be wondering how the wheel bevel gear is accurately relocated in relation to the shaft bevel – it isn’t, or at least, not with precision one might expect. A the flanged hub nut fits into a recess in the frame, and that’s it. On the other side of the wheel, location is rather vague, and assembly is not helped by the propstand, which mounts on a splined washer that also locates the hub and acts as an anti-rotation washer. It’s much too fiddly, and if you fail to fit these bits together correctly, the drive could slip, run roughly, or do itself a whoopsie. To be fair, derailleurs require some meticulous fiddling too, but that’s no excuse.

Both the saddle stem and handlebar stem are adjustable – the saddle from 75-96cm from the ground, and the bars from 101-110cm.That saddle height is broadly similar to the Micro or Brompton, but the bars are unusually tall, giving what some people would regard as a rather upright stance. Fine tuning of the saddle is easy, thanks to a nice micro- adjust seat post.

Folding

zero-shaft-drive-folding-bike-folded Sussex markets the steel-framed shaft-drive folder quite widely (you can buy it in the US for $385), but the alloy-framed bike is a more substantial, attractive, and unusually cleanly styled machine.The frame is finished (rather unnecessarily one might think) in lustrous silver metallic paint.The main hinge is a monstrous alloy block in classic Far Eastern style, but it works well enough and incorporates a clever safety device.The pin carrying the quick-release runs in the rear part of the hinge, and when engaged, it drops into a hole in the front part, locking the hinge shut. Even when the quick-release is unfastened, the hinge will not open until the pin is lifted. Simple and effective.The lighter handlebar stem hinge has a similar fitting.

Bikes like this tend to be tricky to fold, but the Zero does the job easily, quickly and without oily fingers.This is where a shaft drive really pays dividends, because you can grab the bike anywhere you please without getting a sticky surprise, and once folded, there’s no oily chainring to snag passers-by or make a hole in the carpet.

With both hinges released, the frame folds back on itself and you can choose whether to keep the front wheel pointing forward, Brompton style (in this case placing the handlebars between the wheels), or not, Dahon style, which puts the bars on the outside, leaving the cables rather vulnerable. Folded size Dahon style is 41.9cm wide by 61cm tall and 75cm long, giving a neat folded package of 191.5 litres or 6.8 cubic feet: almost identical to the similar Dahon Vitesse. Folded Brompton style, the package is both longer and taller, with a volume of 233 litres, or 8.3 cubic feet. Like most bicycles of this type, the Zero has no mechanism to keep the folded bike together, but Zero supply some nice velcro straps.

The folding pedals (the bike only actually needs one) are similar to the old VP – you pull out a locking plate and the pedal drops down leaving a rather large bearing housing. Branded Sunshine, they’re new to us, and not very clever. We’d advise Sussex to buy a few Next pedals, because they’re just that bit better in every respect.

The Zero folder weighs 13.8kg (30.4lb).That compares quite well with cheap and nasty 20-inch machines, but it’s about a kilogram heavier than the elegant Vitesse, which is exactly the penalty Sussex and Zero claim you’ll be paying.

Conclusion

For all its faults – primarily the 150mm cranks and 55″ top gear – we like the Zero folder and think it could make the basis of a low-maintenance canal path commuter, but only for smaller people. Make sure to ask for longer cranks, and to avoid fiddling with that rear wheel, we’d certainly want to fit puncture-resistant tyres (such as the Schwalbe Marathon Plus, just released in 20-inch form).That leaves only the brakes to go wrong, which they’re bound to do, now we’ve said that.

Price-wise, the Zero is in a weak position in a highly competitive market.You could buy two acceptable Dahons for £475, or spend the money on one well-equipped alternative, such as the Trek F400, or the stylish Giant Halfway. If you opt for 16-inch wheels, the Brompton L3 is lighter, a better folder, faster on the road, and cheaper.

Normally such comparisons would be the kiss of death for a newcomer, but the Zero has a certain indefinable something that keeps it in contention. It won’t become a design classic, but it’s different, and sometimes that’s enough.

Specification

Zero Folder £475
Weight 13.8kg (30.4lb)
Folded dimensions W41.9cm H61cm L75cm
Folded volume 191.5 litres (6.8cu ft)
Gears Shimano 3-speed hub
Ratios 30″ 40″ 55″
Tyres Kenda Kontact 47-406mm
Manufacturer Sussex Enterprises web www.sussex.com.tw
UK distributor Zero Cycles tel 01454 316563 mail info@zerocycles.co.uk

Brompton 5-speed Upgrade

Old mechanism (front) and new (behind). They are effectively identical, except for the longer axle on the new item. Note the old and new locknuts.

Once upon a time the finest hub gears in the world were churned out from a factory in Nottingham, many finding homes in the Raleigh bicycles made just across the Triumph Road.The sad demise of Sturmey Archer in the autumn of 2000 is a subject we’ve returned to many times. For A to B newbies, this healthy company was brought down by a combination of corporate greed and downright stupidity, resulting in Sturmey being handed to a bunch of asset-strippers, who bled the company dry in a few weeks and chucked out a life-less corpse, the remnants being shipped to Taiwan by Sunrace.

One of the biggest potential losers was Brompton, a company with a full order-book for a folding bike designed specifically for the Sturmey 3 and 5-speed hub gears. In the final weeks, some hastily arranged heavy transport brought a reasonable stock of hubs down to London, giving a breathing space for the bikes to be adapted to accept the German/US SRAM hubs.

The excellent 3-speed SRAM worked well, but the 5-speed was much too wide for the bike. Brompton was forced to become a 3-speed manufacturer for a while, until its own 2-speed derailleur entered production in May 2002 and was fitted alongside the SRAM to produce the elegant 2×3-speed L6 and T6 Bromptons.

…the Sturmey 5-speed wasn’t the most reliable of hub gears.. thanks primarily to poor adjustment…

Meanwhile, Sturmey 5-speed spares were running low – a potential problem for the estimated 20,000 5-speed Bromptons, and countless Moultons, Bickertons and Micros in regular use worldwide. Most bikes could be adapted to take a SRAM 5- speed hub, but the Brompton could not. Conversion to 2×3 spec is not viable either, because the parts alone (3- speed SRAM and wheel, rear frame, cables, changer and 2-speed derailleur kit) cost more than the bike is worth.

In early 2001, Sunrace put the Sturmey 3-speed back into production in Taiwan, and things began to look a little brighter. In late 2002 the 5-speed hub returned too, and although very different on the outside, it was almost identical internally to the ‘ball- locking’ hubs fitted to the Brompton in the last year or so of UK production. Not quite identical, but we’ll come to that.

Can this hub – produced three years later, and 10,000 miles from Nottingham – really be fitted to an elderly 5-speed Brompton? It turns out that it can, and for a reasonable cost, new Sunrace-Sturmey ‘internals’ could revitalise your old folder.

It has to be said that the Sturmey 5-speed was not the most reliable of hubs – a fair number of machines losing one or more gears, thanks primarily to poor adjustment, made worse by a rather woolly gear-shift action. Broken axles were relatively common too.

The ‘ball locking’ mechanism was introduced to hold the hub more positively in gear. Ironically, it came into production just a year or so before the company was dragged under, but the tooling and expertise were kept together, and when production restarted in Taiwan, it was natural that the latest system would be used.

Buying the Bits

All the grime will have to be removed. Carefully check the parts for wear - this sprocket is marginal. The thin lock washer and locknut will be re-used

We’re going to describe the process of swapping old-style Sturmey hub internals for Sunrace-Sturmey parts. For the mechanically-minded, it’s all quite straightforward, and the only specialist tool required is a 16mm cone adjusting spanner. If you’re unsure about mechanical bits, contact Sturmey and Brompton specialist, Bicycle Workshop in west London (tel: 0207 229 4850).

Step one is to buy the necessary bits, and once again, unless your local cycle shop is particularly keen and knowledgeable, we recommend Bicycle Workshop.The hub gear internals will cost £70, and the indicator chain £4.50, plus postage, together with a labour cost of about £15 if the shop does the work for you.

Other parts may be needed though. Carefully inspect the inner and outer gear cables, gear shifter and Brompton cable guide. If the action of any parts is sticky or rough, replace ‘em! The same applies to the sprocket and chain. If they were fitted more than a thousand miles ago (always replace these parts together), you will also need a new 13 or 14-tooth sprocket and chain from a Brompton dealer.The new nickel-plated chain works perfectly well, but it must be 1/8″ and not the 3/32″ derailleur-type chain, fitted to the new 6-speed bikes.

Getting Started

Removing the right-hand bearing cone. The next step is to unscrew the internals from the other end

You’ll need to remove the rear wheel, and as we delight in saying, if that proves tricky, this might be the stage to hand over to an expert.With the wheel off, thoroughly wire brush both the sprocket assembly and associated (right-hand) cone and locknuts. Repeat this operation for the opposite, left-hand bits and pieces too. It’s essential that grit doesn’t find its way into the hub, and you’ll be re-using these locknuts.

Screw the new internal assembly into the shell and tighten. Note the old locknut and lock washer.

When the hub is reasonably clean, mount the wheel in a vice and remove the sprocket assembly, right-hand locknut and thin lock washer, putting the parts carefully aside in the order in which they were removed. Remount the wheel in the vice and remove the left-hand locknut and bearing cone.

You’re now ready to spin the internals out of the hub shell. If you don’t have the special ‘C’ spanner, and a hammer and punch fails to shift the ring, clamp the assembly in a vice and spin the wheel anti-clockwise.

Final adjustment to the left-hand bearing using the cone spanner

With the old internals removed, carefully inspect the inside of the shell for foreign bodies, rust or signs of water damage. If all’s well the new unit can be screwed straight in and tightened with a hammer and punch. If not, the shell will have to be carefully degreased, cleaned and regreased – tedious, but very necessary.

You will now be in a position to screw on the left-hand bearing cone and the old thinner locknut. On the right (sprocket) side, carefully hold the bearing cone and spin off the right-hand locknut without disturbing the cone. If the adjustment is upset, the cone should be hand-tightened and backed off half a turn before being locked in place. Finally, put back the dust shield, spacer and sprocket, checking sure that the circlip beds down correctly in its slot.

…the most common cause of failure is misassembly following roadside repairs…

With the axle back in the vice, it’s time to adjust the bearings.The sprocket is an important part of the adjustment process, because the left cone should be tightened until (quoting Sturmey) there is ‘minimum’ free play at the wheel rim, but noticeable play at the sprocket, with no tightness or roughness. Lateral rocking of the sprocket looks alarming, but it’s quite normal.When satisfied with the adjustment, hold the cone nut steady and tighten the locknut. Don’t spend hours fiddling – it will need checking after a few weeks riding anyway.

The hub should now look exactly the same as the old one, but with a longer axle stub on the left-hand side.Again, this looks alarming, but it has no harmful effect. If you really want to, you can angle-grind this (very hard) axle back, but we wouldn’t recommend it.

Sturmey produced a special short axle hub for the Brompton, but the difference is merely cosmetic.The only other Brompton-specific parts are the thinner locknuts and right-hand washer that just enable the 5-speed hub to squeeze into the Brompton’s narrow frame drop-out.

Assembly details. Note that the gear selector guide is followed by the lock washer and nut. The gear selector guide must point directly at the cable guide roller on the rear frame

It’s now time to refit the wheel to the bike, taking great care that the stepped anti- rotation washers sit comfortably in the drop-outs, and that the gear selector guide support (the washer with a funny bent bit sticking out), is followed by the lock washer and hub nut.The most common cause of 5-speed failures is misassembly following a roadside puncture repair, so do take care to get it right, or you could damage £75 worth of shiny new bits.The tab on the guide support is easily bent – it should stand at 90 degrees to the washer face – and the tab must point towards the cable guide roller assembly. If any of these parts are loose or poorly aligned, the gear cable will stick or wiggle around, causing missed gears. Finally, fit a new ‘blue’ ball- locking gear indicator rod, and refit the tensioner and chain.

Final adjustment

Adjustment is critical and needs to be carried out in second gear.You can either use a mirror to observe the blue band on the indicator rod, or very carefully turn the bike upside down, taking care not to move the gear shift.What you must never do is adjust the cable with the bike partially folded, which will give a completely false reading. In 2nd gear, the blue band should be entirely visible, but only just, if that makes any sense. As with the hub bearings, it’s a good idea to reset the adjuster after a few rides.

Upgrades with new parts can be unpredictable, but our conversion worked perfectly, and yours should too.With careful adjustment and maintenance, the revamped Sturmey hub should last for many years and revitalise a tired Brompton.

Bicycle Workshop tel 0207 229 4850 . Brompton tel 0208 323 8484

A to B 38 – Ten Years On…

Yes, ten years and 61 editions ago, we started publishing the diminutive ‘Folder’ magazine that evolved into A to B. Thanks to all those individuals who’ve helped in various ways over the years (if only by subscribing), and to the companies that have backed us from Day One – shops such as Avon Valley, Cyclecare, Cycle Heaven and Norman Fay, and manufacturers: Andrew Ritchie of Brompton (subscriber 30), Hanz Scholtz of Bike Friday (55) and Mark Sanders of Strida (91).We now have more than 2,400 subscribers, incidentally…

Things have certainly changed in the office. If you’re sending us written material or photographs, do put your name and contact details clearly on the item itself. The A to B office is in a permanent state of chaos: cats demolish teetering piles of paper, children reverse Range Rovers and trailers across the desk, and magazines, envelopes and maps stack up in every corner. If we lose your name, we probably won’t be able to use the item!

A to B 38 Contents

A to B 38 Blog, October 2003, Fuel Cell Symposium

FIRST PUBLISHED October 2003
Fuel Cell Symposium, Cycle 2003
David Henshaw

One hesitates to take sides in the railway national/private ownership debate, but as an ordinary commuter one becomes increasingly suspicious of industry pronouncements on targets and achievements. Take, for example, the claim that 80% of trains run within five minutes of time – itself, a shocking indictment of the private network, but nevertheless pure fiction, as most commuters will agree.

Visiting a selection of London-based shows in September, the Mole keeps a personal record of rail performance between Bogworthy Junction and Paddington, a line hewn from Wessex shales by Great Men, but operated today by a loathsome crew of bus executives and anonymous business types.

During a typical week’s commuting, involving no adverse weather conditions, miscreant leaves or other hazards, one observes that a modest 60% of trains depart on time, but only half that number – ie 30% – arrive on time (or within five minutes of time) at the other end. Most were small delays of six to ten minutes, but two trains arrived disruptingly late – 15 and 30 minutes apiece. Excuses were many and varied, and mostly aimed at Network Rail, although some were a little odd, such as we’ve stopped to let another train pass. What train could be more important than the Bogworthy Flyer? The royal saloon, perhaps?

But we digress from the real matter in hand, for having arrived (some minutes behind the royal party, one assumes) one sets forth on the long and rather complicated trek eastwards to Excel, a conference centre located even further east than docklands, but convenient for the M25 and City Airport, apparently.

Several hours later, one arrives at the Fuel Cell Symposium, where groups of jolly-looking boffins are eagerly expounding to knots of nervous suits why liquid hydrogen is out this year, but compressed gas is in. And with another ten million they’ll be able to prove it…

Without delving too deeply into such unpleasant things as oxides and polymers, the Mole gathers that the hydrogen economy (or at least, the transport part of it) remains some way off, or as one helpful boffin put it: ‘as viable as a pixi’s fart’, which seemed rather apt.

…the boffins are adamant that compressed hydrogen is safe… they would say that wouldn’t they?

Jörg Weigl’s Hydrogen-powered trike

The transport display proves suspiciously static, with only one vehicle on the move – an entertaining hydrogen-fuelled recumbent, produced by one Jörg Weigl of Germany. For fuel cell geeks, the Optima trike weighs 65kg and can be ridden for up to 550 miles at speeds of up to 40mph on a tank of compressed hydrogen. It also utilises a low temperature polymer-exchange-membrane fuel cell and lithium-polymer energy buffer, which is just about understandable, although the Mole was floored by the ‘four-quadrant-synchronous-engine-frequency-transformer’, choosing to nod wisely at this point.

Is it practical? Er, it cost E32,000 to build (Jörg will knock up another for E20,000 should anyone be interested), and it carries fuel at a pressure of more than 5,000psi.The boffins at the Symposium are adamant to a man and woman that compressed hydrogen is perfectly safe, with 10,000psi being the Next Big Thing, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?

The real problem is that no-one has yet dreamed up a practical way of refuelling a vehicle of this kind, so filling stations are a bit thin on the ground. The general consensus is that robot actuation will be required, as the risks of (a) some clown blowing up the immediate neighbourhood or (b) inflating his jacket and floating off into the stratosphere, are not insignificant.

The city of Middlesbrough, which strangely enough has a ready made hydrogen ‘grid’, is considering installing a filling station, but that would involve travelling to Middlesbrough, a prospect too frightful to contemplate.

BOC/Sigen Marathon Car

The fuelling problem was brought into focus by the BOC/SiGEN marathon car – ˜ticking over’ on the test track, but too cumbersome to steer around the circuit. Designed to compete in the annual Shell Eco- Marathon, the car should have finished amongst the leaders, but achieved ‘only’ 1,200 miles per gallon. It seems that fuel consumption is measured by weighing the fuel tank before and after a run – fine with conventional liquid fuels, but hard to accomplish with hydrogen at 5,000psi…The judges quite rightly ruled that the vented gas should be included.

…Ten years and millions of dollars to develop, and it’s a complete and utter load of old rubbish…

The only bicycle on display (safely static and de-fuelled) was the very same Aprilia Enjoy compressed hydrogen machine dismissed by Professor Pivot in A to B 27. This has a claimed range of only 47 miles, so would only be of use to those living in or around Middlesbrough, even if Aprilia had kept the Enjoy in production, which it has not. All things considered, one is increasingly optimistic about the future for pedal power.

This impression is reinforced by a visit to Stuff 2003, a show promoted by something called Stuff, a magazine stuffed largely with partially clad young ladies, and aimed at young men with more money than sense.

For 2003, Stuff invited alternative transport manufacturers to display their wares in a ‘Stuff the Congestion Charge’ zone. Thus, the bicycle world was represented by Brompton and Airnimal, two suitably techie folding machines, plus the single speed Bike-in-a- Bag; arguably less techie, but useful enough for the young man with neither money nor sense.

Otherwise, Stuff the Congestion Charge was clogged with electric scooters of all kinds, which, as good A to B readers should know, are not legal on roads or pavements in the UK. This technicality seems to have escaped the attractive young people busily flogging the machines to gullible passers by. When the Mole produces a copy of A to B 35, complete with damning legal judgement on the matter, the retailers go into a huddle and decide the scooters might be legal in some areas. Further discussion results in a grudging acceptance that the scooters could be legal, but only if registered, taxed and insured as mopeds. Quite why anyone would choose to travel to work on a machine with six-inch wheels and a three- mile range, when they could be riding a nippy Honda 50, is beyond the Mole, but it takes all sorts.

Superstar of Stuff the Congestion Charge was undoubtably the Segway, an example of which performed a number of demonstrations over the weekend. It’s hard to see quite what the purpose of this device is. Range is claimed to be ‘up to 15 miles’, but judging by the frequency with which the demo Segway sneaked off for a crafty recharge, that looks a bit optimistic.When your Segway conks out on the road, you’re supposed to lift it into a car trunk and carry it home. Oh yeah? This ‘portable’ machine weighs 38 – 43kg (83 – 95lb), according to spec…

Top speed is put at 12.5mph, which sounds reasonable enough, but it’s still somewhat slower than a 15mph electric bicycle, with half the range. So at £4,000, no less, what is it actually for?

In any event, the Mole understands that all 6,000 Segways are to be recalled after reports that a number of users – including Hero of Baghdad, Bush Junior – had fallen off when the battery went flat. Sad but true; when the battery coughs and dies this multi-million dollar gyroscopic machine falls over, tipping its human cargo into the gutter. Ten years and millions of dollars in development, and it’s still a complete and utter load of old rubbish. We’ll give it three months before they pull the plug.

It was with some relief that the Mole arrived at CYCLE 2003 on the lookout for proper bicycles with pedals. Now in its second year, the show remains something of a mixed bag, with spinning (ie, bicycling without a road, or indeed, a bicycle) appeared to get the upper hand over the real thing.

Electric bikes were absent, apart from the ludicrously dumpy little Bliss, described rather breathlessly as a high quality lightweight dual purpose ultimate leisure, folding electric bike. Whatever happened to the comma?

Trek F400

The folding bike sector was much more interesting. New to the market are Trek and Specialized, both cashing in on Congestion Charge mania (it’s surprising how much panic a £5 charge can generate). The Specialized is more or less a badge-engineered Dahon Roo, so unless badges mean a great deal to you, stick with Dahon and keep a couple of hundred quid in your pocket. On the other hand, Trek seems to have done some real evelopment work, producing a range of quite interesting designs, albeit on what might be described as a Dahon floorplan. The range runs from a decent Sram 3- speed at £470 to a sexy any-colour-you- like-as-long-as-it’s Starry Night black variant complete with Shimano Deore 9- speed derailleur, for a cool £750. All have the same love-it-or-hate-it vertically stretched alloy frame tube that looks as though it’s been sat on by an elephant.

Specialized Globe Mity

Birdy has introduced a new White model fitted with Shimano’s small-wheel-friendly 9-speed Caprio gear system, but thanks to exchange rate anomalies, it’s going to cost £1,050. Hmm. Less excitement at Brompton, which has launched three new colours – orange and two shades of blue, making no fewer than four blues in all. There’s also a new bag frame, which doesn’t sound very exciting, but produced from a complex array of alloy tubes and plastic mouldings, it’s noticeably lighter and altogether more Bromptonesque.

Surprise hit at the show was the Zero shaft-drive bike. Yes, shaft-drive adds a lot of complication, cost and friction to a conventional bike, but on a folder it neatly eliminates that oily troublesome chain. Claimed to weigh a reasonable 13kg (281/2lbs), the new alloy-framed Zero comes with Nexus 3-speed hub for £475 – a neat, low- maintenance folding bike, one suspects.

Condor’s 20-inch wheel tiny-tourer

The best prototype folder on display was the Knightsbridge (see page 12), produced by the irrepressible Mike Burrows. A brief spin around Islington confirms the bike to be one of the nicest 20-inch machines around. The unusual frame is superb, and the bike performs better with a single well-chosen ratio than some multi-speed machines. A real delight that may yet see limited production in folding or rigid form.

The best product fixed firmly to the wall was Sturmey Archer’s new S80 Phoenix hub gear: 305% range, 8-gears, 1.45kg, and so on. A bicyclist’s wish-list, but as yet unavailable in the shops… One awaits developments with keen interest.

For children there was very little to see. KMX seemed busy with their recumbent trike, but star of the show was Condor’s new range of diminutive 20″, 24″ and 26″ wheel touring bikes. There are no plans for a 16″ version, but there seemed to be plenty of interest, despite a price in the £500 region.

A miniature tourer should please the Cyclists Touring Club technical officer, Chris Juden, who’s rumbled on about the lack of such things for decades. Chris, it seems, has finally given up hope of guards vans returning to the Portsmouth line and decided to buy a car instead. He won’t be alone amongst Britain’s car-free journalistic community: The Mole understands that Folding Society supremo Mike Hessey has purchased a Smart car, and having experienced the state of Central Trains rolling stock, one has a certain sympathy. Which brings us back to the railways. British Rail pork pie anyone?

Slow Coast Home – Josie Dew

If you ride a bicycle you will probably already know of Josie Dew, patron saint of cycle touring and diminutive travel writer, whose previous volumes The Wind in my Wheels, Travels in a Strange State, A Ride in the Neon Sun and The Sun in my Eyes, have rightly become classics of their kind.Well, they have at A to B Towers, anyway.

For the uninitiated, Josie is afflicted with a genetic urge to travel, and she’s been doing it since her parents finally loosened her reins, at the age of about ten. Many of us suffer from travelitus, of course, but Josie also turned out to be a fine writer and observer, thus allowing the rest of us to share her experiences in exotic and sometimes rather odd corners of the world.

Slow Coast Home is a rather different – and in some ways more difficult – project, because it’s the story of a cycle tour in dear grubby old Blighty: a 5,000-mile circumnavigation of England,Wales, and a scattering of rocky satellites and islets.

It must be easier to write about foreign parts, because in Britain most encounters seem to begin, end, and very often major on, the weather and the lack of camping accommodation. All credit then, to Josie, for producing a readable and at times very enjoyable volume.

One also needs to take extra care with the research at home, because most people will claim to be an expert on at least part of it.We’re glad to say that in our own little corner, Josie is spot on, unearthing the same charming Westcountry factlets we love to bore you with ourselves.

In places this is a thoroughly depressing book. It’s the story of a land populated largely by fat, vulgar, rude and arrogant folk, with a few decent old dears thrown in when you least expect ‘em. From the gormless, aggressive youths spitting on passing cyclists to the lethal, muddle-headed elderly motorists, we’re all in here somewhere.

Ah yes, motors. As any ‘A to B’ cyclist will appreciate, cars were bound to be a key theme in Slow Coast Home. As Josie discovers (as if she didn’t know already) there are too many cars, being driven too fast, on roads that simply weren’t designed for such unpleasantness.True to form, cars sit in country lane-blocking jams, fill our heroine’s lungs with mucky particulates, then break free and sweep past with inches to spare. Again and again and again. Once in a while, the monsters behind the wheel vent their anger and frustration on this innocent passerby, but the best passages are reserved for the surreal moments, as when Josie gets boxed in by a pair of 4x4s on a Devon lane:

“Her dirty glower said,‘Go on you pesty pedalist – get out of my way! For I am bigger and I am grander!’ But trying to get out of her way was pointless… I knew that any moment now, Mrs Discovery would come haring round the corner… Right on cue, loomed Mrs Discovery who, amidst much burning of rubber, just managed to slam on her brakes in time before I became entangled in her bull-bars. I was now pig in the middle of two very fat and shiny elevated bonnets, polished up like cut glass… behind which sat two irritated women staring down their noses at the low-life in their way… Such are the consequences when one chooses to drive tanks down narrow country lanes.

Finally, there was nothing for it other than for Mrs Cherokee to relent and reverse. Unfortunately, I don’t think Mrs Cherokee had ever relented in all her Cherokee-helmed life, for it became evident that she couldn’t find reverse. I watched her, and Mrs Discovery watched her, as she sat strapped in her all-terrain flight deck grappling unsuccessfully with her controls…

But oh! – what reversing! With diabolical technique, Mrs Cherokee edged her way in reverse down the hill by way of rear-view mirror navigation… She ground up the bank one side before mounting it on the other, removing whole clumpfulls of delicate wild flowers in the process… Eventually… having obliterated great chunks of rare bankside flora, Mrs Cherokee reached the mouth of a track… the dust settled and we each went our respective ways.”

What sort of pitiful world have we created? Travelling by bicycle, Josie is greeted like a creature from another planet (another thing A to B types might recognise), but as an alien, she’s well placed to convey just how odd our little planet has become. Even the familiar bits. After reading Slow Coast Home, you will never look at familiar places and familiar attitudes to transport in quite the same way again.

Everyone should read this book. If nothing else, the terminally lazy might grasp that if a diminutive woman of five foot nothing can haul 70kg right around the coast, they might just be up to cycling to the corner shop themselves once in a while. And despite all the unpleasantness, Josie usually manages to pull a silver lining from behind the clouds, which is fortunate, because there are plenty of them.

Three warnings should you happen to bump into the author: Don’t mention the weather, don’t comment on her youthful looks, and don’t shout; ‘You could do with a motor on that, love!’, or she may throttle you with her bottom bracket. Ooh, the unkindest cut of all!

Slow Coast Home Josie Dew . ISBN 0 316 85362 3 . Pages 457 . Illustrations 32 colour photos Publisher Time Warner Books . Price £20.00 (UK) $38.95 (Canada)

Folding bikes on Airlines

The road from A to B can be strewn with legal hurdles. Send your queries to Russell Jones & Walker, Solicitors, c/o A to B magazine

“I regularly travel overseas with a Brompton, checking the bike into the hold, but I was disturbed to find that Ryanair is now demanding payment of E25 for a fully-folded Brompton. The charge, brought in on 14th February, is described as a ‘sporting equipment’ fee. Surely if the luggage is within the weight limit and does not contain any dangerous items, the contents are your affair?” John Wilcox, Derby (our thanks to the many others who have written).

I’m afraid that the answer is not necessarily going to be one you will want to hear. It is up to the airlines what they allow onto their planes at the end of the day, but there is an expectation that they will allow reasonable luggage within their stated size/weight allowances. It is reasonable to refuse to carry luggage in order to comply with law, or if it would affect the health and safety or comfort of other passengers or crew. It is also reasonable to refuse luggage which is unsuitably packed, fragile, or contains perishables.

Most airlines permit hand luggage conforming to International Air Transport Association guideline dimensions: length 56cm, width 45cm and depth 25cm (but the sum of all three dimensions not to exceed 115cm).There is also a 5kg weight limit. Even the Brompton folding bicycle (height 56.5cm, length 54.5cm, width 25cm) is just outside the guideline dimensions, but with the lightest model weighing 11.35kg, there is an automatic excuse for every airline to refuse it as hand luggage.

Checking it into the hold is another option, but still not guaranteed.These excuses might sound feeble, but if ground staff are determined to refuse you, these are tried and tested winners: ‘It can’t travel on the conveyor belt like an ordinary suitcase/rucksack’, ‘There is a risk that staff might damage their backs handling it’, and so on.

As for Ryanair’s ‘sporting equipment’ supplement to store folding bikes in the hold, the Air Transport Users Council (who run an advice line for air passengers) have confirmed that they are entitled to charge, on the basis that since a folding bike is different to a suitcase or rucksack, it will require special handling during storing and transporting. However, they did point out that it was unusual to charge such a supplement, and more likely to occur on a charter flight. Most other leading airlines would not charge a supplement if the bike was within the overall weight allowance.

On a more positive note, my research produced accounts of people taking their folding bikes on planes with no such problems, including the marketing director of Brompton, and Simon Calder, travel correspondent for The Independent, who termed his Brompton ‘without a doubt, the best travel accessory of them all’.

The best advice is really to check-in early, before storage space becomes an issue, and to wear your brightest smiles for the ground staff.With enough charm and finesse, you might even wangle an upgrade! [See also Letters, page 11. Eds]

Your legal enquiries are answered by Russell Jones & Walker, Solicitors – the best national firm servicing the needs of individual people, with branches in London, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield, Cardiff and Bristol. For further information call Jeremy Clarke-Williams on 020 7837 2808