For those who were wondering, we hear that the new Henshaw baby is named Alexander David - Zippy for short! Not surprisingly, production of the new Henshaw has slightly delayed production of A to B.
Some of you may also be wondering what my new acquisition mentioned in the last issue of FSN is. No one who entered the competition even got the make right, the most common guess being that it was a New Series Moulton. I must admit that I wish it was, but the price of one of those is beyond my means. It's actually a 19 year old Cross Micro (which means the colour is white). It's in remarkably good condition, and with a bit of cleaning up it looks almost unused. As I am having some problem preventing the rear brake rubbing, it is temporarily fitted with an Alhonga at the back, but I hope to restore the original brake soon. I found the overall gearing, with a S-A 3-speed hub, 14 tooth sprocket and 52 tooth chainwheel decidedly high, so a 16-tooth sprocket has now been fitted, and the badly bent brake and gear cables have been replaced. These early Micros apparently had a shorter wheelbase than the current Cresswell/Brilliant Bicycles/Pashley versions, which meant they are a bit inclined to perform wheelies, particularly on steep uphill slopes. As a small rider, keeping the handlebars as low as they will go, that has not been a problem so far, and indeed it is rather fun to ride, though I would not use it for longer runs. The bars have a Y shape, and are designed to be kept low (reducing the risk of wheelies), and this seems to result in a stiffer arrangement than I recall on the occasion I rode a modern Micro a couple of years back. You can expect to find a Special Interest section on Micros in the web pages soon as a result of this addition to my stable.
Our ride on 10th April was blessed with superb weather, and a good turn out of separables and folders - but no Bromptons! A report on the ride can be found on our web pages at http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/origami/orig0499.html. I had originally thought of taking my 'new' Micro to this event, but as the weather looked rather uncertain first thing, and this was one of the longer Origami rides, I changed to the Moulton APB.
The rather steep price rises which affected Bike Friday models late last year have now been reversed in part by the introduction of some alternative specifications on many of the models. The New World Tourist, Pocket Rocket and Llama are now available with lower specification components and without the hard case at prices around the same as the better equipped models prior to the price rise. The standard (as opposed to custom built) Metro model is still the cheapest model in the range, and is very competitively priced. For more information on these and other Bike Fridays, take a look at their web pages at http://www.bikefriday.com, or if you are in the UK contact Valley Cycles on 01933 271030, email valley@primex.co.uk.
We have just received the sad news of another stolen Brompton, a T5 no. 147289, which disappeared in Amsterdam. For more details, see our web page on stolen folders at http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/foldsoc/stolen.html.
Saturday 17 April - San Francisco Spring Ride
The ride will leave the San Francisco Ferry Building at the base of
Market Street at 10.00am. For more information, e-mail Tom Vogt
(VeloVot@aol.com) or call (510-237-7380).
Sunday 18th April - London Ride
The regular ride on the third Sunday of the month (which means it is on
the 18th, not 17th as I foolishly typed in the last issue of FSN),
starting in Battersea Park. For more information contact Rob Cope,
rob@mrportly.demon.co.uk.
Saturday 1st May - Mud Dock
Saturday 8th May - Origami Ride
Watch the web page for more details, at
http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/origami.
14-16 May - Weymouth
This is our informal gathering in Weymouth. It's strictly informal, so
there is nothing arranged, but we'll give a bit more information on some
of the ideas for things to do over the weekend in our next issue. In the
meantime, if you have any ideas of places to go and things to do while we
are there, drop us a line.
National Bike Week
Another folder orientated event during National Bike Week has been brought
to our attention - The Smugglers Run in Leeds on Friday 18th June at
6.15pm at the Leeds City Station. For more details see our events web page
at http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/foldsoc/events.html.
Please send any news for inclusion in future issues of FSN, or for inclusion in the web pages, to The Folding Society at the address given below.
The Folding Society
email: foldsoc@whooper.demon.co.uk
Web: http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/foldsoc
If you have any news or other information of interest to other members of
the Folding Society, please email us at the above address.
If for some reason you wish to be removed from this mailing list, please send a message to this effect to the same email address.
All information given here is provided in good faith, but no responsibility can be taken for errors or for any consequences arising from the publication of this information.
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Copyright (C)1999 Ferrets Anonymous
Last updated: 12 April 1999
URL: http://www.whooper.demon.co.uk/foldsoc/fsn/fsn023.html