Originally Posted by ningnangnong
That was my thinking. Would be a bad buy if the train turned out to be too busy for the bike and the bike caused a lot of ill-feeling.
I'm edging towards a Brompton LX (mod'd to 6 gears), Mezzo D9 or Birdy (Red or City, not sure) or Dahon Jetstream P8 or XP - very nice looking in photos.
Matt52 - option of the Capreo 9-26 - is that something that can be added? Do you ever find yourself wishing for another higher gear?
Not sure what the gearing is on other options, but on Mezzo, gear ratios for 52 x 11-26 are (according to the Mezzo site (I haven't got a calculator to hand)): 11t: 76, 12t: 69.6, 13t: 64.3, 15t: 55.7, 17t: 49.2, 19t: 44.0, 21t: 39.8, 23t: 36.3, 26t: 32.1
The Brompton L6/T6 gearing is (by comparison) 40.3, 46.5, 54.8, 63.3, 74.6, 86.1 - giving you that extra high gear. By way of comparison, if the Mezzo had a 9t high gear, that would take you up to 92 inches on top gear.
Having said that, I've found the Mezzo fine on the lower gears, certainly no danger of running out of gears going up Havistock/Rosslyn Hill from Camden to Hampstead. In terms of higher gears, there are the odd occasion when it would be nice to have one more high gear, but frankly in London I find the gearing works ok for me - I prefer a reasonably high cadence, and I've never really felt that restricted by the 11t. I certainly don't find myself pedalling faster than I want to to get to the speed i want to go at (if that makes any sense).
But it does still baffle me a bit that ATB put a standard hub on the Mezzo (as part of their commitment to "all standard parts") - all this offers is the possibility of swapping the 11-26 cassette for a 11-32/34, giving me extra gears where I don't need them (unless someone does a 9 speed cassette with normal hub fitting starting at 10t - I haven't seen one).
As to swapping to a Capreo hub - I guess you could do it, but it would involve building/rebuilding the back wheel, which might be more bother than its worth, though I'm sure someone could do the job for you - you can pick up a hub for £40 from SJS
http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=13433 , another £60 for the Capreo cassette and pay some more for the wheel building. I guess that might provide a clue as to where ATB are coming from - by opting for a standard hub and SRAM PG-950 cassette, they saved themselves about £60-£70 on parts. But if you've got £1k to spend and want to custom specify your bike, it might be worth the bother.
[edit] Final word of warning - the Mezzo originally came specc-ed with a 12-26 SRAM cassette, but upgraded to 11-26 sometime last year. I swapped out my 12-26 when I had a service last and replaced with the the current cassette (on basis that it only cost me £25 extra). If you find a Mezzo at your bikestore which still has the 12-26 on it you WILL notice the missing high gear. Even I did...
Best of luck deciding. Let us all know what you eventually go with, and how you feel about your decision a few weeks/months in.