I see you are concerned about those bars. As a Brompton owner myself with the same bars, I admit that at first it felt odd considering the years of riding bikes with, well, let's say, normal bars. But after awhile you will get acclimated with them. Here's a video of a seasoned rider traveling the east coast. It's a bit long, but I think you will enjoy it.


Cheers
Wayne

Neither my wife or I noticed anything unusual about the bars. You can hold them and they turn the front wheel!

I've always felt awkward on drop bars when I had to reach the brakes, much more comfortable on straight bars. I actually wanted a set of egron gp2's but the bike shop never had them in stock. I thought if I really wanted them I would order them, but for the length of rides I do I've felt just fine.

I might still order a set at some point, I just don't know if I want GP's or GP2's or cork or regular...

I get uncomfortable with the single upright M bar position. The Ergon GP2 bar-ends are very nice for a change of position - you can probably use the GP3s too. Also rigged an aero/drop position in the bottom of the M bar's "U" for the flat smooth straight-aways and headwinds - worth about half a gear up for me but it takes some getting used to.

So for me it's: regular grip for downhills, braking, and shifting; bar-end grip for uphills and climbing; and aero/drop grip for the open flats.

I have tried bull horns, Velo Orange porteur bars and some north road bars. I have always been partial to the "shaking hands" position instead of the palm down flat bar grip. Bull horns make the fold difficult, and the porteur bars wind up being too far back and being narrow really seemed to make the bike twitchier than before. Now I use "dutch paddle grips" at 10.00 per pair from Rivendell bikes and cut down bar ends wrapped in paracord and shellacked. Essentially, I have bull horns with an ergo grip for the flat part. Since I have an S stem I am bent over enough already. Works good for me although after about 20 miles on chip seal road my hands don't feel so good. Bar ends are nice if you want to flip the bike over to work on it, since they can be rotated up to make a tripod with the seat. Have the same deal on my Swift, too.

I have various Riv-sourced Nitto pullback bars on my regular bikes, too, but I don't think I'll be riding the Brompton far enough for the stock bars to bother me much. I like Ergon-shaped grips, though..are the Dutch ones short enough to fit without trimming? I used them on an Albatross a while back and remember them being shortish.