Nottingham Origami - March 10th

Our next ride will be on Saturday 10th March in Nottingham. Thanks to Susan Young for planning this one. For anyone interested the film Bicycle Dreams will be showing at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham after the ride. Further details of both ride and film here.

Origami ride - February 11th - Windsor

Our February 11th Origami ride starts in Windsor. More details are here

Crossing Continents

A new section describing "Extrordinary Journeys" has been added to the Brompton website here.

Origami ride - January 14th - Codsall, West Midlands

Happy New Year to everyone ! Our first Origami ride in 2012 will be on Saturday January 14th from Codsall, in the West Midlands. More details are here, along with an outline of our planned rides for the rest of the year.

Origami ride - December 10th - Meriden

Our December 10th 2011 Origami Christmas ride and social will start from the Tea Room in Meriden, Warwickshire at 10:30 for 11 am. Lunch will be at the Bull's Head, Meriden, as before. More details are here.

Brompton Bicycles' Will Butler-Adams appointed Industry Champion

Business Secretary Vince Cable and Business Minister Mark Prisk have unveiled a new campaign to promote UK manufacturing - Make it in Great Britain. The campaign will coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games; an exhibition will run in the Science Museum from July 24th to September 9th. Brompton's Will Butler-Adams - together with other leaders of UK manufacturing from Ford UK, GlaxoSmithKline and Bombardier Aerospace among others - has been formally appointed as an Industry Champion to support and promote the campaign. For more information follow the link (you have to right-click and open in new tab / new page).

Origami Ride - November 12th - Stafford

Our November 12th Origami ride is from Stafford. More details are on the Origami web page.

Tern bicycles now shipping

Tern bicycles - the new folding bike manufacturer headed by Joshua Hon - has announced that it has started shipping its bikes with the first batch now en route to Germany. The company has also announced the UK distributor for its bicycles and accessories will be Evans Cycles

October 8th - Warwick Origami ride

Our October 8th Origami ride starts from Warwick, meeting at 10:15 onwards for an 11 am start. The route will include the new Sustrans Connect2 bridge in Kenilworth. More details are here, but note that we're starting from a cafe near the station, not the station itself.

Gocycle G2 announced

On the same day as Brompton announce their long-anticipated eBrompton (see post below) Gocycle announce the new incarnation of their folding eBike offering - the G2 - now with a Lithium battery, extended range (up to 40 miles), integrated dashboard and other new features. More information here.

eBrompton confirmed

Today's post from Brompton confirms what some of us were hoping for - an eBrompton will be coming in 2012! Electric assist - yes, if you are young and fit you may sneer, but for me, I had a severe back problem in mid-2010, which has not disappeared, and I've only been able to ride a Nano Brompton since, so this is important news for me, and I suspect quite a lot of others too. I can't wait to try one, but in the meantime I will be going to local Origami rides (changing platforms for longer journeys is a problem even with a Brompton!) with the Nano.

September 17th Swindon Smallwheels Origami Ride

Our September Origami ride is combined with the Swindon Smallwheels ride, and starts in Swindon on September 17th, a week later than normal, to avoid clashing with the Moulton Club Bradford on Avon weekend. More details are here

Tern Bicycles site goes live

Tern Bicycles is a new company manufacturing folding bicycles that is the result of a split between David Hon - founder of Dahon Bicycles - and his son Joshua and wife Florence. Details and pictures of the new bicycles from Tern are now available at the Tern Bicycles website.

August 13th Origami Ride - Didcot

Our Saturday August 13th Origami ride will start from Didcot in Oxfordshire. Note that we'll be starting from Boswell's cafe in the town, not the station itself. More details are here.

Small wheels, big distances

At least 3 Origamiists completed the 120-mile Dunwich Dynamo night ride from London to the Suffolk coast on a Brompton P6R, a Moulton TSR8 and a Pacific IF Reach over the night of the 16/17 July. I understand that some Origami ride regulars have done much greater distances - Dave "PBP" Minter is a case in point - but 120 miles in one day (OK technically 2 days as it was overnight) is more than I've ever done on any bike before. The small-wheelers held up well over the distance - more than can be said for my knees! A number of other folders and small wheelers were seen on the ride including a Dahon Vitesse, several other Bromptons and at least a couple of space frame Moultons. Other notable bikes included a Cargo bike, complete with 2 spaniels in the front box, and a Barklays 'Boris' bike.

July Origami Ride - Market Harborough

The July Origami ride starts in Market Harborough, Leicestershire - apparantly a medieval 'New Town' - whatever that means. The ride is mostly over the county border in Northamptonshire; the outward leg will be on quiet rural roads taking in the sights of the Battle of Naseby for any history buffs among you. Lunch will be at the Coach & Horses, Brixworth - renowned for the fastest change of horses in the days of the stagecoach! Return will be via the Brampton Valley Way. Full details here.

Pro-folding bikes demo

Inspired by the UK Origami rides some years ago like-minded folks in Germany and the Netherlands started their own rides, characteristically named 'Origamitours'. These rides are still going strong and, for a recent Birdy-themed ride through the centre of Hamburg, the organisers decided to register it as a demonstration - affording a police escort no less! This spectacle can be seen at our Flickr gallery here.

June 11th 2011 - Origami Ride - Tutbury, Staffs

Our June 11th Origami ride starts in Tutbury, Staffordshire and visits the site of the RAF Faulds explosion. More details are here.

Dunwich Dynamo

I plan to ride the Dunwich Dynamo in July. At least a couple of other Origamiists have expressed an interest. The ride is a 120-mile through-the-night unsupported semi-organised free-to-enter ride from East London to the lost city of Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. Road transport can be booked for the journey back to London (coaches and removal vans for riders and their bikes, respectively) via the organisers. If anyone is interested in joining us perhaps you could contact me via my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/karl.wooldridge), or you may wish to just turn up. For further details on the ride follow the link.

Pacific folding bikes to feature on The Gadget Show

We have it on good authority that some of Pacific's folding bikes will feature on The Gadget Show, which will air in the UK on 23rd May on Channel 5.

New Dahon with Brompton-like fold

For a number of years Dahon have been the largest manufacturer of folding bikes, most of which have folded using the same basic fold-in-the-middle design. In 2009 they showed off a prototype of a new bike, the Curl, at the Taipei Cycle Show. The design incorporates a 3-way fold somewhat like the Brompton. The rear wheel (a swingarm rather than a triangle) folds under the bike in the vertical plane and the front section folds backwards, although to the left of the bike, unlike the Brompton. It won an award at the Taipei show but little has been heard of it since. It has now finally appeared on Dahon’s Chinese website. Details are all in Chinese but it appears to have 20” (406) wheels.

Origami ride - 14th May - Milton Keynes

Our May 14th Origami ride starts at Milton Keynes. More details are here.

Bromptons for Hire

News of a new bicycle hire scheme opened to season ticket holders at Stoke-on-Trent railway station (in the UK) has been reported by the BBC. Virgin Trains have made fifty Brompton folding bicycles available in a trial scheme, which if successful the company plans to extend nationally.

New UK distributor for Pacific Cycles

Pacific Cycles, Tiawanese manufacturers of a number of highly innovative folding bikes, now have a new UK distributor - Pacific-Europa. According to their new website the bikes will be available soon, and you can register your interest or pre-order their bikes now. The bikes were launched in the UK at The Gadget Show Live (13-17 April); you can see the Gadget Show's Dionne talking to Juan Marquez of Pacific-Europa and test-riding the iF Mode here. The bike, which along with others in the iF range folds using an ingenious mechanism designed by Mark Sanders of MAS designs, has been nominated for the Innovation and Design Awards 2011.

Origami ride - 9th April - Princes Risborough

Our April 9th Origami ride will start from Princes Risborough. More details are here. Please note that travelling by train to the ride start has been made more complicated by weekend engineering works - check the links on the detail page.

"Something Special" from Brompton?

Brompton are being all coy and secretive about "something special" which "doesn't have a name yet" but "promises to be big" - if I were a gambling man my money would be on the long-awaited e-Brompton, but I know nothing. If you check out their home page you can ask to be added to the mailing list to find out what it is when they release it.

The beauty of the bicycle in pictures

For those with an interest in unusual bicycles there are a series of very nice pictures by Michael Embacher on the BBC website this morning - follow this link. Featured bikes include a modern take on the 1940s BSA paratrouper and an unknown folding bike that takes up to an hour to fold into a package that has to be towed!

March 12th Origami ride

Our March 12th Origami ride will start in Windsor, Berkshire at 10:30 for 11am. More details are here. If the weather continues to be damp, please note that some parts of the ride may be muddy.