Len Rubin's SuperBrompton

En direct de Portland...

http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200338549258&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:FR:1123

sympa 2 poignées tournantes !

Les V-brake, les guides cables sur le cadre, c'est génial !

Mais le dérailleur arrière à 5 cm du sol, je lui donne pas longtemps avant de se prendre une bordure en ville.

Mais c'est quoi ce plateau ou y'a même pas "d'etoile" centrale ?
Y'a juste comme des tiges qui tiennent les couronnes
C'est peut-être écrit dans la description mais le "pavé" de texte est plutôt indigeste.

A combien va-t-il se vendre ???

Je n'arriva pas à voir l'annonce. Y'a quelqu'un qui pourrai l'intégrer au post???

Par ailleurs, c'est un cadre "ancien modèle".

Own a piece of folding bicycle engineering history! - Free Shipping in U.S. - Actual Shipping Charges will be charged for international purchase. Unique original prototype of Len Rubin’s “SuperBrompton” (predecessor to the “Ulitimate Folding Bicycle”) —now for sale! The complete legendary SuperBrompton has not been made for almost a decade now. The bike we have for sale today Includes the very first, completely hand-built prototype rear triangle that started it all! Below is an excerpt from a history (a work in progress by Len Rubin) of the SuperBrompton Project...If you want to skip ahead to the 12 photos of the bike we are selling please click on the photo at the top of the page. Disclaimer: this is a used prototype bike and has wear and tear associated with a bike of this age & use. It does not have a perfect finish, etc. It was recently re-assembled (please read on for details) - Please take a look a the photos and ask questions BEFORE bidding. Thank you. ______________________________ [in 1996] “...I became increasingly curious to see what might happen if I crossbred the exciting fruits of my own 20+ years of R&D with the ultra-compact folding design of (British inventor) Andrew Ritchie—the Brompton. ...After riding a Brompton around for a few days, I confirmed that I did not like much about the new bike in its current form (at the time it was equipped with a Sturmey Archer 3-speed internally-geared hub, underwhelming brakes and heavy, low-performance components throughout; it had a very upright riding position, a big squishy saddle and heavy tires—and compared to my own high-performance, racing bike-influenced prototype, which I was accustomed to riding—it still kind of reminded me of that very first folder I owned, that old Raleigh Twenty!) ...It wasn’t long before I stripped that Brompton down—throwing nearly all the stock components into my extra parts box, and then began major surgery on the frame itself, undertaking the complex process of modifying the geometry of the rear triangle (cutting, bending, grinding, fabricating and welding on new bits here and there!) to allow the use of lightweight, efficient, wide-range derailleur gearing, better brakes, etc.. Next I just needed several non-existent custom components! While working for Sutherland’s, I had developed contacts inside several bicycle component manufacturers. I now put those to good use. I convinced Marty Sacks at Sun Metal to custom roll some of their world-class, double wall, super light rim extrusion down to the diminutive 16” wheel size of the Brompton. I asked Ric Hjertberg at Wheelsmith to produce some of their featherweight double-butted spokes in an ultra short 150mm length. I commissioned Virgil Schrauner, formerly of TNT, to build a custom set of very light hybrid titanium & aluminum alloy hubs, optimized for the tight dimensions of my new rear triangle design and the bike’s narrow front fork. By combining Shimano’s seven speed freehub body with TNT’s clever lockring-replacement 10T cog and a Sachs GripShift twistgrip shifter, the lowly 3-speed rear hub had now been superseded by a super-light, wide-range 8-speed cluster! (When Shimano later introduced their 8-speed, titanium freehub body I adopted Tom Ritchey’s newly developed special 9-speed version of that shifter for an even-wider-range 9-speed cluster!) For the front gearing, I developed a custom front derailleur braze-on to mount the widest range front derailleur of all time—the Sachs Quartz Triple. This made possible a full mountain bike-style 24-speed gear train setup [and soon thereafter, 27-speed], using chainrings specially made for the project by Avitare (60T/48T/36T) on the at-that-time world’s lightest crankset—the Sweet Parts’ Sweet Wings TIG welded hollow tubular CroMo crankset that featured an integral CroMo, oversized splined BB spindle and oversized/outboard sealed bearings—revolutionary design elements that are still echoed in most of today’s top cranks! I upgraded the Brompton’s underwhelming side-pull brakes by adding braze-ons for Magura’s hydraulic bicycle brakes (later substituting Shimano’s newly developed, state-of-the-art XTR V-brakes, featuring their patented Parallel Push technology, which proved particularly well-suited to that bike’s geometry.) Further refinements included a specially fabricated, titanium micro-adjust seat post, a nice ti-rail saddle, high quality alloy headset and many custom-made titanium fasteners, such as replacements for Brompton’s heavy seat post quick-release and quite heavy fixing bolts for their folding pedals. Subsequent improvements included the light, wonderfully flexible and nearly indestructible IRD Metawire housing (later discovering the original, superior German-manufactured Nokon housing), a design perfectly suited to the tortuous and abused cable runs on folding bikes; despite its expense, I now use Nokon housing on every bike I build!, and around the same time, MKS’ streamlined, versatile and MUCH lighter (than Brompton’s clever but quite heavy folding pedals) neat quick-release pedal system. Finally, I chose Primo Comet tires, for their light weight and low rolling resistance. The bike met with positive reviews, from the American cycling magazines “Bicycling!” and “Adventure Cyclist” to multiple articles in the British periodical for folder enthusiasts, “The Folder” (later renamed, “A to B”) to stories in several foreign language periodicals devoted to cycling.There was even a nice network news television story with an interview and footage of me riding and folding my bike! It was dubbed, “The SuperBrompton Project” and it began to garner a devoted fan base, including discussions on many web sites, online articles and videos that I continue to stumble upon! I was invited to be a Keynote Speaker at the first “Folder Forum” gathering in Weymouth, England [where I first met Andrew Ritchie in person, who—despite my being forewarned might disapprove of the extensive alterations (and fundamental re-interpretation) I had visited upon his original elegantly simple Brompton design—greeted me with genuine interest and was quite generously supportive, as he has continued to be over the years (as one employee of the company later quipped over a beer, “sure—you’re our free R&D department!”)], and later at the first London Bicycle Show, as well as several other shows and bicycle forums in England and the U.S. and at each, the amazing SuperBrompton and it’s history enthralled audiences, attendees and test riders! ...Over the next several years I built up and sold about twenty or so of these “SuperBromptons”; the first couple (of our custom rear triangles and all the braze-ons) were fabricated (at great expense) entirely freehand, without any real jigs or fixtures, but then for the sake of uniformity/interchangeability (and feasibility!) I spent many thousands of dollars to have Paolo Salvagione design a (clever, as always!) two sided, rotating, adjustable, precision frame building jig for welding the complicated rear triangles (and then spent thousands more having a jig builder build that over the ensuing months!). Also, after laboriously drawing and cutting out the dropouts for that first one, I had Paolo build a computer model of the dropout design (which we fine-tuned in the process) in AutoCAD and thus the subsequent triangles were all TIG welded, and their dropouts were all machined in his shop in Sausalito. I still built up the wheels, and assembled each bike in the garage underneath my modest rented San Bruno apartment!” So what became of that first prototype of the fabled SuperBrompton? It is in the hands of [a collector[ in Copenhagen; but that bike has the first titanium rear triangle that I had built—years later. What happened to that very first, steel rear triangle—with the unique, hand-drawn dropouts that were “...laboriously cut out from steel plate with a hacksaw by Conrad Oho and torch-brazed in place while I held the frame...”, on that late afternoon in his little garage in Corte Madera?! The one that started everything? I have steadfastly held onto it all these years for it’s sentimental value [it was my first and pivotal Brompton upgrade, and one of the very few items that miraculously survived the fire, due to its randomly fortunate location in the shop], having turned down all offers for its purchase over the years! It’s also pretty crude, compared to the slick triangles that Paolo built—but it works great, has travelled the world and back, and is a true piece of folding bike history! Now, however, as I need to raise cash to finish up the next prototype of my current all-titanium, 16.5 lb. “Ultimate Folding Bicycle”—so, in the coming months, we can officially launch our new bike company (The Ultimate Folding Bicycle Company, LLC)—I have finally decided to part with it, and so I built up a bike, mating the twin of a special purple mainframe & fork I had made several years ago for a customer in San Francisco (I liked the color so much I painted an extra to keep) with that very special triangle, found I still had one set of wheels left (my “reference master” set that had been—as luck would have it—up in Seattle at EMFCO on that fateful day most of my world burned up [in the house fire that destroyed our home and all of our possessions in 2002], and, against all odds, successfully tracked down all the remaining parts I needed, and then set about lovingly assembling one last SuperBrompton! And this historic bike can be yours! Photos follow. Note: Although I do still have them, and will include them, I chose NOT to leave the original tires on the wheels, as they would be dangerous to ride, due to their age (unlike some wine, bicycle tires DO NOT improve with age!)—so I have replaced them with the Schwalbe Kojak, which is my favorite tire these days! [Please check out utimatefoldingbicycle d0t c@m for details about our latest project which we hope to bring to market very soon. We will be completely revamping the site over the next few weeks so we encourage you to check in for updates.] The steel SuperBromptons I built back in the 1990’s, sold back then for around $6,000. We have a reserve on this Ebay auction, but it is actually less than that original price and it is up to you (our fan base, collectors, bicycle historians and other potential buyers) to determine the true value of this fascinating piece of bicycle history! The bike we have up for auction is clearly depicted in the photos on this listing, however for clarification, below is a partial list of specifications/ details (most of the history of which can be found in a the above narrative:) Purple powder coat custom painted original Brompton main frame w/custom braze-ons Original Virgil Schrauner-built hubs The first, modified Brompton rear triangle (the later bikes had entirely redesigned batch fabricated triangles with fixture-built and CNC-machined parts)—including the one-off, entirely hand-cut dropouts and I’ll even include the original paper design templates for those, which also miraculously survived the fire—having been protected by the steel filing cabinet that sacrificed it’s life to protect my files—and which I only recently discovered while going through some old documents!) Extremely rare Sweet Wings crankset Len’s custom SuperBrompton titanium micro-adjust seatpost, based on the super-rare Onza head—allows you to quickly remove the seat for fitting into a smaller suitcase! LOTS of history! I’ll even include a personalized video of instructions on how to fold it! It is interesting to consider that, even though Brompton now offers many options for upgrading their bikes, including their own titanium rear triangles, seatposts and forks, this all-steel-frame bike weighs in at a still respectable 21.3 lbs. (with the quick-release pedals in your pocket or bag, which they generally are when you are carrying the folded bike!)—even with it’s super-wide-range 27-speed geartrain and “normal” (non-racing) saddle! Note: Our subsequently developed, patented adjustable stem and custom stem riser unit, that became standard equipment on our later bikes, could be substituted for the stock Brompton components, used at that time,—at additional cost—for greater versatility and performance, but at the cost of diminishing the “historical purity” of this bike. [Alternately, I could if requested “dial it back” to it’s earliest appointments, though if the buyer is interested in it’s ridability, as much or more than it’s collectibility, then the later improvements are definitely preferable! Thank you for looking (and reading!) Please e-mail if you have questions. Sincerely - Len (& Tamara) Rubin


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Super-interessant le Super-Brompton, c'est une mine d'idées !

Je me suis dépéché de sauvegarder toutes les images avant que l'annonce sur e-Bay ne disparaisse :

stephlouv a écrit:

Les V-brake, les guides cables sur le cadre, c'est génial !

Les guides câbles, c'est une super évolution. J'ai retrouvé la même idée sur le site de ce fameux Len Rubin qui a peut-être anticipé la future évolution des Bompton-X, c'est-à-dire full titane.

Enjoy



Le site du môsieur : www.ufbusa.com

Message signé par Tamara Rubin sur Brompton Talk ("Ultimate Folding Bike Facebook Page", 10 novembre 2013) :

"Hi,

I just joined the group. I'm Len Rubin's wife.

Many posts around the web over the years talk about "whatever happened to Len..." and for those who know him & are curious - our focus for the last several years has been founding a nonprofit to protect children from lead-poisoning and making a documentary film about our children's poisoning (film's trailer & details here: http://www.LeadSafeAmerica.org )

Now that the film is nearly finished, Len is getting back to his "life already in progress" --- custom making Brompton upgrades (mostly in titanium) here in Portland, Oregon.

He posts here very infrequently - however for those wanting to follow his projects & progress more closely - we just (tonight) started a new Facebook page for his work: https://facebook.com/ultimatefolder & we invite you to "like" the page.

Thank you all for your support over the years!

- The Wife"