Originally Posted by
CEBEP
Even though R&M Birdy Touring comes with low-rider front rack and rear rack I’m thinking of using my existing Brompton bags instead of panniers. I’m not doing touring but still need a bag for short trips. I’ve also see one member mentioning that adaptor slides down a little and opened the front fork latch leading to the accident. I wonder of there is a risk of that.
I have comfort 10 degrees stem so I don’t really need a protruding adaptor to mount the bag. Do you think going with this adaptor instead of panniers a good idea? Any possible damage to the frame in the long run? At the end of the day this frame wasn’t designed for luggage mounted on it this way.
I found 3 options on Ali Express:
1.
TiParts
2.
Litepro
3.
Trigo
4.
TWTOPSE
I gravitate more towards Trigo as it seems to be the least protruding. Will appreciate ideas.
I have the
H&H Brompton front block adapter it works fine, there is no problem of unlatching (the video showing unlatching at a steering angle that never happen while riding was with another one, the Litepro I think).
I use it since about one year without problems. The H&H was the first release front block adapter and its specially made for the Birdy.
I have also a Brompton block on my Titanium Birdy. This bike was originally equipped with the soft 10.5 turn front suspension spring (probably because its aimed at the Asian market where riders weight is typically lower that in Europe) and with high load I had some shimmy effect. This disappeared when using the hard 8.5 turn spring (which is factory installed on all R&M Birdy).
I fully agree with Glye: the solution of the Birdy with smaller wheels but full suspension and 50mm wide tires is much better than 24" max 40mm wide tires without any suspension and the ultra rigid single arm fork.
For the tires, there are almost no tires available in the Helix ETRTO507 size with a width of 40mm or less that fits for Helix, (ETRTO507 is a BMX size and almost all tires are wider at least 50mm). The lack of tires is a major problem of the Helix design, It was a very bad idea to design a bike that accepts only tires not wider than 40x507.