Crikey. This is all beginning to sound a bit like the comedy sketch (one of several) where the innocent man goes into the shop and asks for a record player, and is mercilessly ribbed by the spotty youths behind the counter. Ask for a folding bicycle these days, and you’ll be laughed back onto the pavement: ‘With or without the titanium crown-fork assembly, sir?’ ‘Hub, dynamo or battery lights?’ ‘Pentaclip or traditional clamp?’ P-type bars?’ With or without Stelvios?’ And so on through the gear options, ad infinitum.

For those with plenty of money, the easy answer is to opt for the P6R- XDL. Assuming you’ve had the foresight to jot the code number on the back of an envelope, and you have a cool £1,225 in your pocket, you can walk out of the shop with just about every option and cut out the tiresome discussion.

We’re being flippant, of course, but no doubt some people will buy this top of the range model because it’s the most expensive option and thus (hopefully) the best that money can buy. But is it? That depends what you want. The P6R-XDL is aimed at cycle tourists and professional folding bike users: the Sustrans Rangers, map-makers and surveyors for whom a folding bike is a work station rather than a means of getting from A to B.

T6 to P6

The core of the machine is the current T6: rear rack, six gears, dynamo lights, and front luggage. Under the skin the bike is very different, but the most striking difference is the odd rectangular handlebar assembly.This looks ludicrous at first glance – the sort of geeky accessory fitted by earnest types searching for an extra 0.1mph on the Great North Road. But please do put your prejudices away for long enough to try it, because the P-type handlebar works really well.

Like drop-handlebars of old, the bars give you two very different riding positions: high for traffic, and low for fast riding in open country. At 104cm from the ground, the top riding position is ideal for city use, with the brake and gear levers immediately to hand. Once out of town, the idea is that you move your hands down to the lower position, where the bars are shaped like the turned-down bars favoured by scorcher cads at the turn of the 20th Century. At 89cm or so, these lower bars reduce your frontal area, giving a comfortable and wind- cheating position.

Unless the roads are seriously empty, you shouldn’t relax too much in this position because the gears, and more importantly, the brakes, are now a long way from your fingertips.Whether sleepy P-type riders will start ploughing into stationary buses remains to be seen. After a while on the ‘drops’ you tend to forget and reach for the brake, then realise your mistake and change position. This process takes a few heart- stopping milliseconds. Otherwise, the system works well, the two primary positions and myriad alternatives giving relief from aches and pains as well as headwinds.

Interestingly, the difference in frontal area seems to make quite a difference to the roll-down speed. Riding in the low position and attempting to create a good wind- cheating shape, we recorded a speed of 15.9mph – a whisker faster than the slightly more upright S2L-X. Holding the bars in the top position, rolling speed drops back to 14.7mph; a huge difference.The differential would probably be of little consequence in town, but at higher speed, the new bars will have quite a big effect.

…high for traffic, and low for fasty riding in open country…

The other major design feature of the P6R-XDL is the same titanium kit used on the lightweight bikes. In this case, the chunky rack and other accessories rule out a headlining weight, but at 12.1kg, the bike is still a little lighter than its predecessor.

On the road, the machine rides broadly like a traditional Brompton.The only downside for those expecting to scale the Himalayas is the narrow gear range of the Brompton 6-speed, which remains unchanged.There are a number of upgrades around, of course, from cheap and cheerful Highpath sprockets to a pricey but capable Mountain Drive, but it seems odd that Brompton has not engineered a solution of its own.This bike does deserve more gears, or at least, a wider range.

…professionals will choose their own spec from the long list of options…

Interestingly, this top-end model comes with Brompton’s own cheaper ‘Green Flash’ kevlar tyres rather than the Schwalbe Marathons fitted to the cheaper P6R-PLUS. If you keep in touch with Professor Pivot’s musings, you will know that we’re not overly-keen on any of the kevlar-reinforced options, but this tyre is at least cheap and pretty light.

Which brings us to illumination. If you’ve had enough of seized dynamos, broken wiring looms and faulty bulbs, the lighting package on this bike should help to get your night-life sorted.The rear lamp is the familiar stand-light version of the Basta LED used by Brompton for several years, while the front is a Basta Ellipsoid halogen.This pair are powered by the new narrow version of the SON hub dynamo, designed specifically for small- wheelers.This delightful thing is controlled by an equally small (and rather inaccessible) switch on the back of the front light.

With the switch off, the rolling resistance of the dynamo is almost unnoticeable.Turn it on, and the lights work well, right down to a walking pace. Rolling resistance increases, but in terms of roll-down speed, the difference is barely noticeable.We can’t claim that the wires won’t break or connectors drop off, but the basic hardware is very good indeed and should work effortlessly and quietly for years.

Other Accessories

With Brompton’s mix-&-match policy, published spec gives no more than a guide. If you don’t want the SON hub dynamo, you can choose a lighter bottle dynamo, or battery lights, or all three, or nothing. Similarly with luggage: the P6R-XDL will accept any of Bromptons range of four front quick- release bags, although there is a one small proviso with this handlebar pattern: if you fit the front battery light, it will be obscured by all but the new lower S-bag.

For the rear rack, Brompton and Radical have come up with a neat bag which – in marked contrast to the S-bag, which has a tardis- like interior – looks huge, but holds only 17 litres (slighter more than the old Pannier bag, but rather less than the Touring bag). That said, it more or less doubles the bike’s carrying capacity, so it will have its uses.

Conclusion

One thousand two hundred and twenty five quid sounds a lot of money. All right, it is a lot of money, but in this case it buys an awful lot of technology. For that sort of amount you could have a Birdy Black, which weighs about the same with a similar accessory pack, provides a bigger gear range, but folds into a much larger package. Otherwise, we’re well into Moulton/Bike Friday territory; machines that can’t compare folding-wise, but offer legendary performance. In this company, the real strength of the P6R-XDL is that it combines the folding ability of the Brompton with reasonable weight and decent equipment. The feedback we’ve had is that professional users wouldn’t go for the P-type bars (‘not really that keen’) or the lightweight components (‘didn’t notice it’). But in this market, reliability is paramount, so users will happily pay big money for such extras as SON hub dynamos, hub brakes (not yet an option) and puncture-resistant tyres. It seems the professionals will choose their own spec from the long list of options. Our prediction is that they won’t go for the P6R-XDL, but for cycle tourists, reduced weight and alternative riding positions are more important.

Specification – Brompton P6R-XDL

Brompton P6R-XDL £1,225 . Weight 12.1kg (27lb) . Gears Brompton/SRAM 6-spd Ratios 40″, 46″, 55″, 63″, 75″ and 86″ . Folded Dimensions W29cm L58cm H58.5cm Folded Volume 98.4 litres (3.48 cu ft) . Manufacturer Brompton Bicycle tel 020 8232 8484

A to B 47 – April 2005