Lighter Luggage on your Brompton

A classic way to carry luggage on a Brompton while touring is a T-Bag and a Rucksack at the back. If you don't need as much stuff or want to reduce your overall weight here is a lighter weight way to carry a full camping setup on your next bicycle tour by Brompton.

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Tutorial

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Touring on folding bikes. The Pros and Cons

I have been throwing around the idea of getting a folding bike for cycle touring. I took test rides on a Brompton and a Bike Friday but haven’t pulled the trigger and bought one yet. I have put together this list of pros and cons of touring with a folding bike to help me make a decision. Hopefully it helps you too. For an analysis of 8 of the best folding bikes for touring, skip to the second half of this article.

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Links

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Charging Gadgets on your Brompton

When you tour with a Brompton bike you are probably carrying a mobile phone maybe a camera, a goPro to film your tour and other electronic gadgets that need charging. If your are planning a tour where you stay in hotels overnight all you need to take is adaptors and cables to charge at the end of the day. One thing I have done in the past if I needed is stop at restaurants or cafes asking if they wouldn't mind me charging my mobile while I had my meal.

If on the other hand you like more freedom and don't want to be limited by hotel bookings, you might find that access to electricity outlets is not always available. 

How to keep everything charged

The best way to keep your gadgets charged during a Brompton tour is to bring along a battery pack together with a solar panel. Every year these become more and more powerful and efficient in storing power. I carry two products from Anker that have been of great use on my tours. Anker PowerPort Solar https://amzn.to/2rafJnx and an Anker PowerPort https://amzn.to/2qf2KAw. 

During the day while I cycle, I open the Solar Panel on top of my T-Bag like you see on the picture above. I use 2 carabiner to attach it to the plastic loops that are on the bag and carry the cable into the zip Pocket at the back of the T-Bag which is where I store my battery pack that gets charged. You will also notice from the picture that I have a registration plate hanging forward. The reason I do this is that the three panels of the PowerPort Solar should be on top of the bag to get a better exposure to light. This means that if you cycle fast and especially when riding downhill the wind will probably push your panels and often cause them to close. By putting some kind of weight hanging on the bag ( in my case a registration plate! ) you can prevent this from happening. If I do sometime stay in hotels of course I can charge the battery pack overnight but if your Solar Panel is open all day while you cycle I find that I am able to charge all my gadgets.

As I use my mobile phone for pictures, videos and to store my maps for guidance it is important to make sure that I have an efficient way to keep it powered. These two gadgets solved the problem.

For a video tutorial follow the link below.

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Basics

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