The Brompton T Line turned heads when it was announced in October 2021. The lightest fold-up bike the brand has made, its single-speed version weighs 7.45kg – less than most high-end carbon fibre road bikes – while the Urban edition was 500g more but included the choice of having four gears.
Brompton managed this by taking the 150 parts that make up its standard steel Brompton C Line and redesigning them so they stayed equally robust, but at a fraction of the weight. The frame, for example, is handmade from titanium because of the metal’s strength-to-weight ratio, while other neat tweaks include a carbon fibre crankset, a compact cassette rather than a standard, internally geared Sturmey-Archer hub, and even super-light lock-on foam grips.
