An eccentric inventor, an ambitious CEO and the ‘nearly perfect’ British bike that changed the world

telegraph.co.uk:

Over the pandemic demand soared, with the company doubling down on production. Its current turnover is close to £100 million and Brompton is now planning an ambitious new eco-friendly site to expand even further.

Release the clip that connects that rear frame and fold the back wheel under the main crossbar; unscrew the mainframe hinge and swivel the front wheel back; lift the lever to drop the seat post; then unscrew the angled second hinge so the handlebars fall flush against the rest.

These are the mechanics of a quirkily British success story. For novices it can seem a bewildering exercise in public humiliation.

But more experienced hands can collapse a Brompton in about 20 seconds and true experts, as documented in countless YouTube videos, manage it in under six, transforming a 147cm-long strand of metal and rubber into a cube 58cm long and 27cm deep, convenient enough to be hauled on to the Tube, into the office, or even, says Will Butler-Adams, 47, the company’s plummy-voiced CEO, into ‘pubs and nightclubs’. ‘I love going to nightclubs,’ he says, gazing out over the factory floor in Greenford, west London, where about 650 bikes are made each day, four days a week.