10 fresh Brompton bike hacks for you all! Let me know which one was your favorite!
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As many of you know, I keep quite a few bikes in my bedroom, and one of the best ways to save some space is to put them vertically, on the wall. The downside of that, is that sometimes I miss the bike stand and end up leaving a tire mark on the wall. Luckily, we can quickly get ride of those using an eraser. You can literally just... erase the dirty spot in a matter of seconds. This hack also seems to work well for other marks, depending on what caused them.
Every now and then I need to work on bikes in my bedroom, which has a nice and clean carpet. To avoid dirty tires from touching it, I use a layer of packing wrap around them. These are very similar to food plastic wrap we have on the kitchen, just a lot easier to apply and less wasteful. Wrap a bit of film against itself at any spot to create a starting point, then continue to wrap the tire until you have some overlap. One layer should be enough to avoid making a mess. This hack was particularly useful when I was trying to find the best position to install my vertical bike stand, and wanted to test a few different positions by leaning the bike against the wall.
Moving on to hacks that are specific to the Brompton, if you have the quadlock phone mount and use your bike as a shopping cart, you can attach your shopping list to the phone mount like this. It’s held securely in place and you’ll keep your hands free for other stuff.
Moving on, if you have a bottle, but don’t have a bottle opener, well... at least you have a Brompton. Fold it up, and use the latching mechanism behind the seat post clamp to open it up. It may take a few tries until you get the hang of it, but it works like a charm.
Next, this is an Apple Airtag. It’s a tracking device made by Apple, that has become very popular with many people using them to keep track of their bike’s location. Its effectiveness to locate a stolen bike is still debatable, but one thing is for sure. It needs to be hidden away, and certainly not under your bike seat. If you have a Brompton, you may think about hiding it inside of the frame, but the metal completely cuts off the Airtag’s signal, so that’s not really an option. An alternative would be to remove the luggage block lever, place the airtag in there and put some foam to prevent it from moving around. It works like a charm. Some alternatives, that are also applicable to other bikes, would be to look for accessories that are permanently attached to the bike, ones that a bike thief would not immediately take off. By making a small cut on my handlebar bag, I’m able to hide the airtag between the layers of fabric. Alternatively, if you have a reflector like this, you may be able to open it up, hide the airtag inside along with some plastic film, and install it back on the bike. You’ll have about a year before having to replace the battery, and bike thief would never imagine there is a tracking device hidden in there.
Next, a couple of weeks ago I reviewed a Brompton bag that I thought was a bit too small for my taste. However, it would be the perfect size to use on the handlebar and leave the luggage block available for larger bags. So, I decided to remove the Brompton frame and make a new frame that’s compatible with the klickfix adapter on my handlebar. To do that, I used an aluminum rod of a quarter inch in diameter and a bench vise to make all the necessary bends. I used the klickfix adapter as a guide, and a pen to mark where bends should be made. To bend the rod with a smooth radius, I used a steel bolt between the vise and the rod on the side that I was bending towards. This is the final shape of the frame when I was done, and this is what it looks like on the handlebar. Now, all I need to do is install is back on the bag and attach it to the klickfix adapter. As you can see, now I can use it along with a larger bag on the luggage block. Both of these bags are made by Wotancraft, and I’ll leave a link to them down in the video description.
18 сен 2021
