Category: Gear

At the 2012 Philadelphia Bike Expo, I saw something called “Bar Mitts” — neoprene covers for hands that attach to a bicycle’s handlebars. The idea is that you wear thin gloves, and the neoprene keeps your hands warm.

I really couldn’t see how they could possibly work. They’re open in the back! When I hit the Internet, though, people were raving about them.  However, none I could find were going to work on a M bar Brompton, so I made my own.

Neoprene is expensive, and hard to come by.  I bought two large laptop sleeves that I found in a discount bin; this gave me more than enough neoprene to make my prototype mitts.

Then I made a “muslin”, fitting paper and cloth around Basil’s handlebars until I had a pattern I thought might work.  I took the laptop sleeves apart, put it on the neoprene bits, and drew around the pattern on the neoprene. (This photo shows only part of the pattern.)  Neoprene is easy to cut with strong scissors.

Most commercial mitts of this type seem designed for mountain bike bars, or bikes with twist shifters.  Basil’s a six-speed Brompton, so he has protrusions which require accommodation.  A lot of trial and error was involved; these mitts have a much more three-dimensional shape than most of the commercial ones.

Sewing the neoprene was surprisingly easy.  I used a large needle, a wide zizgag stitch, and went at a slow, even speed, pushing the edges close together as I stitched.  The final stitching on each mitt involved installing a separating zipper, so that it would be possible to open the mitts and fit them over Basil’s shifters.

Here’s the underside of one of the finished mitts. (Actually, it’s not completely finished because I haven’t yet bound the opening at the left, which goes around the handlebars, but you get the idea.)

My mitts are huge, by design, and the opening very wide. I’d read about concerns that people sometimes got their hands trapped inside — an obviously dangerous situation.  It’s a problem I wanted to avoid.

The wide opening allows me to use my mirror without obstruction, too.

The neoprene keeps its shape rather well — it floats nicely above the shifters, and I don’t have any trouble shifting, or even ringing my bell, which is only slightly muffled by the mitt.

There’s an elastic band inside the right mitt to hold it onto then handlebar, so that my hand can’t get tangled in the mitt when I’m pulling my hand out.  The elastic slips right over the handlebar and is completely unobtrustive.

A hook-and-loop band secures the mitt on the left side.  Because of the mirror, a loop can’t slip over the handlebar on this side.

I’ve tried these briefly in 24-degree (-4 C) weather while wearing thin gloves; much to my surprise my fingers stayed reasonably comfortable, although I’d probably want slightly thicker gloves if staying out longer.  I had no trouble at all shifting or braking, although it was a bit odd to be doing both when I couldn’t see my handlebars. Pulling my hands in and out of the mitts was fast and easy.

Here’s how they look from the front:

Dorky?  Oh yeah!  But so are the commercial ones.  Mine are dorky with polka dots!

Can I fold Basil with the mitts in place?  The left mitt can be left on, although it will touch the ground.  The right mitt touches the spokes, and interferes with a full fold, so I unzip it and pull it off when folding Basil.

My next scheduled ride is a 55 mile one that is likely to be at cold enough temperatures that these might be a desirable accessory.  However, I’m unwilling to attempt my longest ride ever with experimental hand coverings, so further testing will have to wait a bit longer.

Some people claim that the commercial mitts have something of a windsail effect, and slow their riding pace. This seems likely, though it’s not something I’m going to care much about if I’m doing transportation riding, or even while doing a lot of my recreational riding.

One last note:  Most butted neoprene seams seem to be vulcanized or glued together, but my seams weren’t going to face the wind directly, so I didn’t bother doing that for this iteration.  If I want to, I can probably modify these later to achieve a similar result.  This set is proof of concept, not necessarily the ideal final result.

 

I made an amateur mistake when putting together my Lightweight Brompton Bag. Instead of folding under  the edge of the middle webbing strap, I simply sewed across the (melted) end. Here’s what it looked like after I used it as a travel bag on my ill-fated trip to (not) pickup my Brompton:

Bar-tacking directly across the melted end only made it easier for the end to separate from the strap.  I knew better!  The right way to handle the strap end is to melt it (as I did), and then fold the end under, protecting it, before stitching across the strap. Here’s the properly-done fix:

Actually, it’s not quite proper, since the fraying chewed up so much of the strap.  I melted the end, turned it twice, and then zigzagged like mad (and in two rows) across the end.  This is inelegant; better to do it right the first time.

Since I was messing around with the bag anyway, I also added elastic to the top of the mesh front pocket. I just strung it though the upper edge of the mesh.

As I’d suspected, I didn’t really need it to hold the magazine(s) I was carrying in it, but the elastic keeps the edge in a bit, and definitely gives the bag a more finished look:

Previously:  Lightweight Brompton Bag

Another cyclist was out on an unusual vehicle while Basil and I were riding on the Erie Canal towpath.

It’s an ICE HD Adventure FS — about 37 pounds (17 kilograms, more or less).  It folds in the middle; That’s a joint, and lever, below.

The cyclist says it is no problem to fold and load solo into her vehicle.

Like a Brompton, these can to be customized according to the owner’s preferences.  This cyclist wasn’t taken by the twisting action required to change gears, so she added flip levers to her ICE instead of the twist grips.

Here’s another view.  (You can see Basil in the background.  He looks positively diminutive by comparison.)

The ICE, and cyclist, were whipping along the towpath with ease.  A third cyclist stopped when he saw two cycles stopped on the trail, fearing that one of us had had a breakdown.  He was riding a mountain bike with fat tires — probably an excellent machine with which to tackle the towpath.

After quite a pleasant chat, we all went on our respective ways.

 

 

I bought the basic Garmin cycling GPS, the Edge 200, to use on a previous cycle.  At the time I was really only interested in tracking mileage, but now I’ve begun to appreciate being able to compare and contrast other data, too, particularly elevation.

The functions are straightforward; they’re not any more complicated than this screen suggests.  The GPS records trips with no fuss; there’s a stop/resume feature that’s easy to use.  Two buttons on each side control the menus.   I can save particular routes as “courses”, if I want to, and store ride histories as I wish.   Other records include average MPH (or kmph), moving speed, elapsed time, elevation gain, calories burned, etc.  All the data can be uploaded, at no charge, to Garmin’s website, and crunched into various reports.  (You’ll also be shown a map of your route.)

The mount is sheer genius; it’s as simple as possible, and takes up minimal room on the handlebar.  The device is very secure, but easy to remove.  The mount itself doesn’t interfere with folding the Brompton; neither would the GPS, but I’m reluctant to fling it around in the same way I do Basil’s handlebar.  The 200 came with two mounts; one is still on my other bike; it’s very easy to move the GPS from one cycle to another.  Additional mounts are readily available.

It’s irrelevant to the functioning of the device, but I love the way the device feels in the hand — it’s almost like holding a favorite smooth stone.

Uploading data is easy and fast (even though I have to do it manually on my computer), and the GPS recharges efficiently through the USB port.  It’s usually charged by the time I’ve finished uploading a ride.

This turned out to be a Goldilocks GPS for me — not too much, not too little, but just right.  It’s incredibly easy to use; that matters most of all to me, since I want to be cycling, not fussing with the equipment.

I use a GPS, a headlight, and a mirror mounted on the handlebars of my Brompton.  As I acquired this stuff, I wondered how it would all fit when I folded my Brompton.

Well, the headlamp doesn’t — it gets removed when I fold Basil.  Ditto for the GPS, but the mounts stay on the handlebars, and the mirror is permanent.  Thanks to clever bases for the GPS and the light (and the right mirror design), it all works.  The mirror even clears the floor; all I have to do it fold it in toward the handlebar before folding Basil.

Here are close-ups of the bits and pieces.   Here’s the lamp mount (the tiny, but powerful) lamp is removed before folding:

The GPS mount:

Here’s the mirror, unfolded.  It’s a Mirrcycle Mountain Bike mirror, fitted into the handlebar end.  It rotates next to the brake lever when folded; it’s quite quick and easy to do.

The mirror just perfectly misses the ground when it and Basil are rotated into the folded position.

Basil has a bell, too, but that came integrated into his gear shifter:

There are also two hook-and-loop fasteners on the handlebars (you can see one just under the bell’s lever, above), for holding a cue sheet, but they (and their small clips) aren’t really taking up any room.  I haven’t used them yet, so they’ll be the topic of another post.  In any case, they don’t interfere with the rest of this gear, nor with the folding.

Bromptons can be purchased with an integrated headlamp, but it’s the one thing Brompton owners seem to uniformly complain about; apparently it gets knocked around too much when the bike is folded.  There are lots of choices for battery-powered, removable lights, so that’s what I went for, instead.