Brompton Black Edition: bike review | Martin Love

Folding bikes used to be the preserve of cycle nerds and DIY engineers, but Brompton has changed all that. Now comes its sleekest model yet

In 1975 Andrew Ritchie was working as a landscape gardener when he came up with the idea of a folding bike. He named his design after the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary - aka the Brompton Oratory. Since then he's gone on to sell more than 400,000 and this year his company plans to sell a further 48,000, making the Kew-based manufacturer Britain's biggest bike builder. Some of these new bikes will be the latest Black Edition. For the first time the key components - rims, spokes, seat post, handlebars - will be sleek matt black rather than chrome, while the frame can be black, white, orange, lime or blue. The change is only cosmetic, but then they're not going to mess with their winning formula: ride it, fold it, carry it, store it (brompton.com).

Price: 945
Gears: 2 speed hub
Weight: 11kg