“This is my Brompton. There are many like it but this one is mine…”
As I stand, poised and ready, in the holding area of the first heat of the Brompton World Championships, my own version of the Rifleman’s Creed, popularised by the cult Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket, is going round and round in my head.
Any competitive cyclist will tell you the most stressful part of any bike race is the brief period just before the flag drops. It’s only ever seconds but it feels like hours.
Unlike the typical cycling event, whether that’s road or track, my fellow racers and I are starting some 50 yards or so away from our bikes, with not a skinsuit nor pair of bib shorts between us. A further complication comes, when we reach them, from having to assemble them.
That’s where my mantra comes in “…without my Brompton, I am useless…”.
Folding bike races and I have what might best be called ‘previous,’ you see. More than half a decade later, I’m still not entirely over it. I had entered the Brompton category of the Urban Hill Climb taking place on Swain’s Lane in north London.
Run in time-trial format rather than mass-start, the event also included the unfold before setting off.
A YouTube search for my name, followed by “Brompton fail” will summon the most mortifying moment of my life ever captured on camera. Words cannot do justice to this disaster but the title tells part of the story, while the numbers fill in the gaps.
My minute-man almost beat me off the line and by the time the entire field had made it to the top, I had missed out on victory by a mere 14 seconds. Don’t just take my word for it that I lost more than that before pressing down on the pedals. See for yourself.
This time, some 3.5 miles south in Kings Cross’ Coal Drops Yard, a shopping and dining development transformed into an 800m race circuit for the weekend, I’m better prepared. Not in the Lance Armstrong sense, nor in terms of fitness.
Long Covid means this is the first time I’ve pinned a number on my back this year. But I’ve at least been able to practise transforming my beloved 4-speed P-Line from 10 kilos of dead weight to race-ready ride.
At the sound of the starter’s airhorn, I jog towards my bike, still breathing calmly. I execute the three separate steps; not as deftly as some but without major error.
Demons successfully exorcised. I’m far from the quickest away but there are definitely others still in the blocks as I’m getting up to speed.
When I said there was no Lycra in sight, I didn’t mean participants weren’t wearing anything, but rather one of the few rules of the Brompton World Champs is that entrants must take part in “normal” clothing.
It may sound silly to some, but for Brompton’s CEO Will Butler-Adams, it serves a serious purpose. It’s about “positioning it as not hyper competitive. We’re just trying to have fun and celebrate urban cycling in an amusing way.”
Why so serious?
The BWCs were born in Barcelona in 2006, the brainchild of the company’s Spanish distributor Kroos Kroon.
Bromptons are now so ubiquitous it’s hard to imagine, but back then, says Butler-Adams, “no one knew our bike, and the problem with the Brompton is it’s counterintuitive when you first look at it. It’s got these funny little wheels, resembles a wheelchair and [you think] it might collapse on you.
“[Kroos] thought he’d race it just to demonstrate how capable this bike was, that it rides well, is extremely well engineered and is a serious piece of kit.”
After three instalments, the race had become so successful it was too big for Kroon to manage, so the London-based company repatriated it to Britain.
In the decade and a half since, it has been held variously at Blenheim Palace, Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit, in front of Buckingham Palace as part of RideLondon, and at South London’s Herne Hill Velodrome.
This is the first time the event has incorporated multiple heats, rather than being run as a ‘one and done’.
That means, Butler-Adams explains, that more people see it.
“A whole pile of people just turn up thinking they’re going shopping, who didn’t even know about it, and wonder what the hell is going on.
“We don’t want to just have a Brompton love-in,” he adds. “We want other people to come across it and go ‘Hey, that looks like fun’. The fact that people are wearing glorious outfits says it all really.”
But who am I wearing? I’m glad you asked. I am neither the smartest dressed nor the most wackily attired – an award which must either go to the guy dripping head-to-toe in gold, or the one who has come as a Minion – but I’ve made an effort.
My get-up is practical enough to put up with 18,000 pedal turns without causing me to overheat, while still being vaguely stylish (in an understated way.) Yes, it was chosen almost entirely by my fashion graduate partner.
With the palette intended to complement the bronze of the bike, she has picked out an embroidered linen short-sleeve shirt by British casual brand Folk.
I’ve opted for tan chino shorts rather than the smart trousers and jazzy skirts others have gone with. I suspect a few riders have snuck a chamois under their pinstripes and sequins.
Fortunately, the commissaires take a more relaxed approach to regs than those sock-measuring jobsworths you’ll find at more “official” World Championships.
On my feet are sand-coloured slip-on Vans. Although clipless pedals are permitted, I prefer the convenience of flats. The slope up to Granary Square is the closest thing to a climb that we’ll experience, and that maxes out at a false-flatty 3%.
The course was not designed for the Bromptons, but it might as well have been. Two long straights and a couple of sweeping turns demonstrate the bike’s speed; a couple of 90-degree right-handers and a 180-degree hairpin show off its agility.
The heat is on
Although there’s been time for a few test laps, ours being the first heat rather renders us the guinea pigs.
Later entrants will benefit from identifying marginal gains, such as placing their Brompton as far up the grid as possible. Being the strongest doesn’t mean much if you’re caught in traffic. This is not a problem I am plagued with.
At least I’m not being overtaken.
I am even generally going faster than the riders out ahead – at least those I can see. I settle for picking them off one by one, clawing my way on to a wheel, giving myself a second or two of recovery before going again. This proves a tactic that only serves me for so long.
Around halfway, I catch two spiffy-looking chaps going barely slower than I am. Using what I imagine to be my racer’s brain, I decide there’s no point attacking immediately and we’ll all do better if we work together. Looking to catalyse a cooperative, I give a cringe-inducing cry of “Gas! Gas! Gas!” as I hit the front.
Our alliance lasts a few more laps until, imagining myself to be Julian Alaphilippe, I set alight my remaining matches and reach out for a victory that will exist only in my own mind.
We regroup beyond the finish line after our five laps of the 900m course to enjoy a jolly post-race postmortem. The two men introduce themselves as Welsh-born John Chan, who’s now living in London, and Darren Coates from St Albans, Hertfordshire.
55-year-old Darren is riding his 6th BWC – his best result being an impressive 28th – and says he does all his training on his Brompton, aiming for about 100km a week.
His strategy today was to “pick people my pace,” which was how he teamed up with us. It’s 35-year-old John’s first time, though he’s raced a bit on the local crit scene, which he found took itself too seriously.
He’s only owned his Brompton for a couple of years, but in his pastel summer suit, has embraced the spirit of the occasion. “It just has an amazing community,” he says. “There are so many unusual characters and everyone here is really friendly to speak to.”
I also enjoy a chat with Brian and Kelly Tomajko, and Greg Marquis, who have travelled – separately – from Colorado for the BWCs. (They’re not the only long-haul entrants, with 4.4% flying in from the US, and 4.2% from Asia.)
For Greg, “it’s a unique bike to have”, one that appeals to a certain sort of person and creates what he refers to as “the camaraderie of the Brompton owners”.
Kelly talks about “the values of a Brompton rider”. “If you’re on a Brompton, you’re not the kind of person who is in a hurry,” adds Brian. All wear the quaint label of ‘Brommies’, adopted by devotees of the brand, with pride.
None of us have made the final, nor do we mind a bit because the whole premise of the event really is about “the taking part”.
This is hammered home when the biggest cheer of the day goes not to any of the winners, but to the finalist who has even more trouble putting his bike together than I did on that fateful afternoon on Swain’s Lane.
So long does it take 153 to screw everything together that by the time he starts his first lap, the leaders are almost onto their second. He is greeted by a roar of appreciation every time he comes around, punching the sky.
On the train home, I meet Jo and Craig from Wolverhampton, who tell me the unnamed rider hadn’t realised he had qualified for the final, and had spent the intervening hours in the pub. That’s more of an excuse than I had.
Brompton’s mission statement, Butler-Adams tells me, is: “We create urban freedom for happier lives.”
It would be easy to be cynical about this PR event and to view it as, well, a cynical PR event, but as I relive the fun-filled day in my head, bike beside me as the train leaves Kings Cross behind, there is no question that the Brompton World Championships, and the various forms of the bike behind it, fulfil that company mission statement to a tee. This, after all, is my Brompton and it is my friend.