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The UK’s biggest bicycle maker, fold-up specialist Brompton, is seeking to capitalise on the popularity of “gravel biking” by launching its first machine with bigger wheels and more powerful brakes to handle off-road trails.
The G Line, which goes on sale on October 7, marks the first break by the London-based manufacturer from making bikes with the 16-inch diameter wheels it has used since launching in 1975.
The bike will still be foldable but will have 20-inch wheels and hydraulic disc brakes instead of traditional brakes acting directly on the wheel rims.
A purely pedal-powered version — which will sell for about £2,500 depending on optional extras such as mudguards, lights and a luggage rack — will have eight-speed gears in the rear wheel hub instead of the three-speed gears the manufacturer has traditionally favoured. An electric-assisted G Line will have four speeds and cost £3,499.
Managing director Will Butler-Adams said the company had started developing the new design three years ago because managers had wanted to ride such a bike themselves.
“We wanted to create something that would allow people to go further,” he said.
Designers concluded that the new machine would need greater stability than a traditional Brompton to handle rougher surfaces, Butler-Adams added.
“We’ve changed lots and lots of fundamental principles of design in order to make the machine as capable as we could,” he said.
The G Line will weigh at least 13.9kg, compared with 11.35kg for the standard C Line variant of the traditional steel, folding Brompton. The G Line will also take up more space when folded than the traditional version.
Gravel bikes — with chunky tyres and powerful brakes — are one of the few growth areas in a generally depressed market for purely mechanical bikes.
According to the UK’s Bicycle Association, sales of gravel bikes were 11 per cent higher in 2023 than in 2022, while the overall mechanical bike market fell by 5 per cent in the same period.
Small wheels are extra sensitive to bumps and more readily caught in holes than larger sizes.
Brompton, which is privately held, declined to say how many G Lines it expected to sell annually. The company sold 91,785 bikes in the year to March 2023, down 1.8 per cent on the previous 12 months.
While there are other bicycle companies designing and marketing bikes in the UK, most manufacture overseas, predominantly in Taiwan. Brompton still builds all its machines at its factory in Greenford, west London.
Carlton Reid, an author on cycling issues, said the G Line was a competitor to other folding bikes with 20-inch wheels — a field dominated by machines made by Taiwan’s Tern Bicycles.
He expressed scepticism that there was a sizeable market for such a machine, although he suggested the electric version might prove more attractive.
“I would suspect that the electric would be the one that’s more likely to be a market-mover,” Reid said.
Butler-Adams said the new model performed a different role from the existing, 16-inch Brompton.
“It isn’t so compact and isn’t so light,” he said. “But it has serious capability, which allows you to do more with it.”