I cycled over to my nearest Brompton dealer today - a round trip of 25 miles on my Merc. I needed a few odds and ends and I spoke to him about the Shimano Nexus. He was highly critical of the hub saying that the changing mechanism was fragile rubbish and that the supply of spares was terrible. He had a new birdy in there with a shimano 7 which a customer had broken in a few weeks. It was the fragile bit mentioned above. He said the guy had been waiting six weeks for the changing mechanism to be supplied. I think that was what was wrong with Cyclist John's new bike when it wouldn't change gear. Anybody else got experience of the Shimano hub some of us were proposing to go for on the Flamingo? Total reliability is non-negotiable for me, and the SA SRF-3 hub though limited in range is completely solid in taht department.