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  • Sturmey Archer 3 speed... thankfully I discovered my puncture at home and not on the road.

    What a ball-ache these things are.

    If ever there is a reason to get Schwalbe Marathons it is the hell that is changing a puncture on 3-speed Brompton.

    Process is basically:
    1) Undo gear cable
    2) Undo bolt that gear cable runs through
    3) Release tensioner
    4) Undo bolts on axle
    5) Release/Free holding plates (which likely are welded to the frame by grease and dirt)
    6) Release wheel

    You definitely need a decent pedal spanner for this. And that process in reverse is a fiddly thing (hope you didn't misplace the holding plates).

    I'm far too used to just doing:
    1) Release QR or bolts on axle
    2) Release wheel

    Even on the Rohloff that is basically the whole process.

    What has been an end-to-end 2-3 minutes to fix a puncture or replace a tyre becomes a 15 minute epic on the Brompton.

    Oh, and you really need to have used the lower bolt on the gear cable connector to indicate position of the upper bolt, otherwise your gears are indexed incorrectly when you start riding again.

    The more I use a Brompton the more I'm surprised that something so cheaply made actually works as well as it does. It's all about the incredible fold, but everything else is a sub-par experience.

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