Dahon Doubleplay or Carradice Folding Bike Carrying Bag -- stock in London?

[David Ing]

I'm visiting in London for one day on Friday, and will probably buy a Brompton folding bicycle.
(They not impossible to find in North America, but are relatively rare over here).

Although I would love to find a 24"x24" suitcase to take the bicycle on airplanes, my visit with my
local luggage experts say that they don't know of any softside bags, and Samsonite hasn't made the
square suitcases for some years.

At http://users.pandora.be/zweistein/brompton/chapters/Carrying.html , there's a posting of someone
that owns the original Brompton bag, the Carradice folding bike carrying bag, plus the 16" Dahon
Doubleplay. Without seeing the bags in person, the Dahon bag has the nice feature of padding in the
back. I'm not sure if the material is more or less rugged for Carradice than the Doubleplay.

The price of the Doubleplay seems lower, however. At http://www.dahon.co.uk , there's a full price
list that suggests a price of 24.99 pounds. This is below the 34 pounds suggested on the brompton
posting, and the 55 pounds that a stockist had suggested to me via e-mail.

Could anyone suggest a stockist in the London area that is likely to have a 16" Doubleplay
bag on hand?

 

[Daren Austin]

[email protected] (David Ing) wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> I'm visiting in London for one day on Friday, and will probably buy a Brompton folding bicycle.
> (They not impossible to find in North America, but are relatively rare over here).
>
> Although I would love to find a 24"x24" suitcase to take the bicycle on airplanes, my visit with
> my local luggage experts say that they don't know of any softside bags, and Samsonite hasn't made
> the square suitcases for some years.
>

The hard case for the Airnimal fits the brompton and is sold as such on their website (you have to
remove the saddle). They are based in Cambridge and you could easily pre-order.

<http://www.airnimal.com/accessories.html>

click on the link : packing the Brompton folding bike!

I think this is what you really want

Kind regards,

Daren

PS there is rumour of a trailer conversion in the pipeline, a la Bike Friday

 

[Tom Worthington]

[email protected] (David Ing) wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> ... Dahon bag has the nice feature of padding in the back. ...

I didn't think the Dahon bag had enough padding for airline use, so have a home-made one for my
Boardwalk 20" folder. It cost about £20 in materials. See: "Bicycle Bag to Brisbane":
<http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/bb/brisbane.html>.

If starting again, rather than rectangular I would have the bag curved to the shape of the bicycle
and increase the closed cell foam thickness from 3mm to 10mm.

Tom Worthington FACS [email protected] Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088
714 309 http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617