Gordon Neville has ridden one or another of his Brompton folding bicycles more than 5,000 kilometres since 2020, across the UK, Taiwan, California, and France, including up the famously brutal Mont Ventoux ascent, the so-called “Giant of Provence”, where the grades are as steep as 10%.

“I’m not unique,” says Gordon modestly. “I do enjoy the freedom of the Brompton and the flexibility.”

Gordon had biked as a young boy, but the love affair with cycling that eventually turned him into one of Australia’s great folding bike riders didn’t really start until his late teens.

“I used to cycle to work,” he told CycleHub. “And I realised to myself that I never wanted to work anywhere I can't cycle to.”

While most of Gordon’s teen friends were buying motor bikes and cars, he went the opposite way. “I wanted to get everywhere under my own steam. Also, I had no money, and the bike was cheap.”

Gordon is now in his sixth decade, so it wasn’t until 2020, many years after his teenage epiphany, that he got his first folding Brompton.

“I knew about Bromptons, but I kind of turned my noise up at them,” he recounts. But when Sydney went into its Covid lockdown, he was stuck in the UK, where he had been visiting his mother.

“We were going round visiting friends and family in a hire car, so I thought I'd try public transport and get a Brompton instead.”

Gordon found a second-hand bike on Facebook Marketplace and was “absolutely gobsmacked”, he says, when he first pedalled it. He realised it rides just like an ordinary bike, except that the smaller, 16-inch wheels mean you feel every pothole.

The Secret Behind the Ingenious Brompton

A young, passionate engineer named Andrew Ritchie invented the Brompton as a lightweight bike with an ingenious three-part fold that allowed it to convert from a lightweight vehicle into a small locked package in less than 20 seconds. It was, and still is, a bike that you can take anywhere.

Ritchie described it as a ‘magic carpet for the city' and named it after the church he could see from the window of his flat, the Brompton Oratory.

Folded, the Brompton takes so little room that they say you can squeeze 42 of the bicycles into the space taken by one parked car. Even so, it wasn’t until 1987 that Ritchie was able to obtain the investment he needed to mass-produce the bike.

Today, the bikes have become a symbol of British design and innovation, as much a London icon as the red double-decker buses. Over 1 million Brompton bikes have been built, and they are still hand-assembled in the UK.

Gordon’s Brompton Adventures

Gordon himself has four Bromptons and eight other bikes, for a total of 12.

He paid $1,400 for his cheapest Brompton and around $9,000 for his most expensive, a T Line, lightweight titanium model with a super light carbon saddle and other carbon parts throughout.

“I sold them to my wife by saying we should pro rata the cost against the kilometres ridden and the time spent on the bikes,” says Gordon. “You’ll surprise yourself by how cheap even an expensive bike becomes over time. It's cents per kilometre.”

Gordon likes bike packing and doing the odd cycling event. He didn’t see any other folding bikes at the Bobbin Head Classic on Sydney’s North Shore, which was 104 kilometres this year.

That’s about the same distance he rode each day during his 2025 trip around France.

“But in France, the bike was fully loaded, and it was 35 degrees while I was over there,” he points out. “Even so, the Brompton is so comfortable you can sit on it all day long.”

On his road bike, Gordon says he gets uncomfortable, numb hands, and a numb undercarriage. The only advantage a regular road bike has is that Gordon is about 10% to 15% less efficient on the Brompton in terms of converting his energy to forward motion. But he considers that a small price to pay.

While in France, Gordon climbed Mont Ventoux. The so-called "Giant of Provence" is a 1,910-metre monolithic peak that is famous for its barren, moon-scape of a summit. It is one of the Tour de France's most painful climbs due to its brutal isolation and extreme weather.

Mont Ventoux is the mountain that killed British professional cyclist Tom Simpson during the 13th stage of the Tour de France in 1967. He collapsed and died during the climb from a combination of heart failure and severe heat, brought on by the difficult climb.

For Gordon on his Brompton, the climb was hard enough, but the long steep descent was its own challenge.

“I was freewheeling for 45 minutes,” Gordon says. “The issue with a small-wheeled bike with rim brakes is that braking a lot can overheat the rim.”

Gordon had to stop now and then to let his rims cool and avoid having a tyre blow.

After that adventure, Gordon cycled about 500 kilometres north along the Rhone River, all the way up to the city of Dijon. In total, he pedalled his Brompton about 1,500 kilometres during his France trip. He did it alone, which gave him plenty of opportunities to practise his incipient French language skills.

On another trip, Gordon and his daughter celebrated her completing her HSC with a 700-kilometre Brompton ride around Taiwan.

And during a visit to San Francisco, Gordon ended up cycling up to Sacramento on his Brompton and then onto the town of Folsom to see its 1950s-era dam (of great interest to engineers). He took a longer route back to the Golden Gate city, passing through Santa Rosa and Napa Valley, then over to the coast and down to San Francisco. The whole trip was in excess of 1,000 kilometres.

A Passionate Evangelist

Gordon is an engineer himself, so he knows a thing or two about how things are built. That’s one reason he loves his Bromptons.

“It's faultless,” he told CycleHub. Everything on it is optimised, from the fold to the size of the wheels to the vibration isolation.

“I would recommend a Brompton to anyone,” Gordon says. “You don’t need a car. Public transport and a Brompton is all you need.”

Gordon’s love for the Brompton is so great that, if he had to get rid of all his bikes but one, he would keep a Brompton, without a doubt. (Probably one of the steel Bromptons, he says, which he considers more durable than the titanium model.)

When he is out on one of his folding bikes, Gordon says he gets looks from people, ranging from disdain to amazement and often encouragement. He is such a friendly man that he has likely converted many to the Gospel of the Brompton over the years.

And more to come, because later in 2026, Gordon will do the 80-kilometre MS Gong ride from Sydney to Wollongong. After that, he is planning to ride his Brompton across Korea with his friend, Matthew, an actor and musician who is new to Bromptons but keen.

But Gordon’s dream ride is the one he’s planning across Vietnam with his daughter and two sons, all on Bromptons. That is, if he can talk them into it.

“I’m trying to entice them by offering to pay for flights,” he explains.

Talking to CycleHub, Gordon mentioned how many wonderful people he’s met while travelling the world on his Brompton, and he would like to meet more. If you have a folding bike or anything unusual, he says, he’d love to meet.

Just email inbox@cyclehub.com.au and we’ll put you in touch.