I've come upon a blessing and a curse. I bought a used modified 3 years old S1E Brompton, 54t ring - 13t cog in a good condition with only a front brake. Looking at the rear wheel, it seems that it used to be a 2 speed bike and the handlebar had been changed to a riser which seems to be shaped in between an S and an M handlebar. Recently moved to a hilly area and happen to live in a perpetually rainy country so that requires me to get a bit more mountain goat capabilities out of this bike and fit it with fenders and brakes.
I'm a really lazy rider and I'd like to commute with normal clothing as my office is only 4km (2.5 mile) away. Now, this should be a relatively straight forward process if not for the sad fact that the previous owner tried to save weight by cutting off pretty much all of the cable guides as well as the mount for the pulley housing and the front fender mounting hole on the fork. Which makes it rather difficult to fit brompton's off the shelf components. But hey, luckily the previous owner managed to put carbon fibre decal on almost this entire bike making it magically super light and super fast! oh wait... not really... bummer...
Thus, I'm trying to mod this bike out of necessity not for vanity - so obviously cheaper alternative options would be welcomed, but I'm prepared to spend as required. I'm looking for utility and functionality at foremost and not looking for fancy mods or speed - Think Japanese-grandma-cruising level of speed. Oh and please don't underestimate my laziness, the lower the gearing the better. Ultimately it's for transport, leisure and exercise, in that order.
Rear mudguard - sorted with a brompton standard rear rack.
Front mudguard - My research showed that there's not a lot of alternatives for this so I have to go with Brompton mudguards. Do you think I could use a bit of cable tie to fix this? or is there any other importance in regards to the mounting hole that I am not aware of. As I'm also planning to mount a B&M dynamo Lumotec light, not sure how much it would affect the mudguard, but I think it's mounted on the brakes, oh yes about the brakes...
Brakes - Any alternatives out there to the brompton caliper brakes that can fit the brompton fenders?
Looking at the bromptontalk wiki, alternatives to the brompton standard brake levers are the shimano BLR550 or the Avid speed dial 7.
As the bike has a non standard handlebar, possibly a BLB roadrat riser bar, which one would fit better? or is it worth spending a bit more for the brompton new brake levers?
What about the length of the cable, since the handle bar is in between S and M should I be worried? I have a feeling that it matters because of the fold?
I'm planning to use normal black plastic cable ties for routing cables. But there's that other problem where brompton also uses the cable guides on the rear triangle as part of its transmission system...
Transmission - In my ideal world, it would probably be the combo of 3 speed BSR and mountain drive. 50t ring - 15t cog = 16, 22, 29, 41, 55, 74 gear inches. But without the mount for the pulley housing on the rear triangle, I have a feeling that my options for the 3 speed BSR or 6 speed BWR will be limited if it's at all possible...
So what I'm thinking is
4 speed Brompton - 2 speed derailleur plus swiss mountain drive. 50t ring - 12t/16t cog = 20, 27, 52, 69 gear inches.
Not sure if it's more hassle than it's worth, a tad expensive, requires a complete change of the bottom bracket, and more importantly I'm unsure whether the 2 speed derailleur will fit onto the current brompton with the rear cable guide missing and all that (which affects the rear cable stop assembly)
OR...
The Sturmey Archer X-RF8(W) 8 speed brompton kit from Kinetics - I haven't managed to find a lot of info on this, especially on a brompton. Any thoughts on this IGH? At almost 2kg (4pound) it's not exactly the lightest solution.
According to Kinetics, he normally uses a 33t ring - 20t cog = 27, 36, 40, 46, 52, 60, 68, 89 gear inches. Is there a way to lower the gearing on this even more? It might not be low enough, and not sure if the 20t cog means filing the rear triangle a bit, which is probably not too hard of a job. I'm unsure if it requires any of the cable guides from a standard brompton or not. Also wondering if the twist shifter will fit fine on the handlebar, which I think it would.
OR...
Electric bromptons! How about no... too expensive, too heavy, and where am I going to put my SP dynamo?
Any other alternatives?