Brompton owners

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.

Don't forget to cable tie the folding rear triangle to the seat tube before installing a Brompton in a cycle stand ! at the LBS that I worked at all Bromptons were dealt with this way (and before doing bunny hops up and down the shop floor)...most Brompton owners were unable to go through the complex engineering required to fix a puncture on their machines.