Reassembling the Brompton

The frame and stem are resprayed so I collected them yesterday, but immediately dropped the frame off to have the rear pivot bushes fitted and reamed (a very quick job for the dealer; the worst part is getting the rear triangle off, which of course he doesn't have to do).

I've assembled the front and rear end as far as I can without the main frame, which actually has very little attached to it anyway.

Here's the stem and handlebar with the modified shifter. It hangs just in front of the bars so that the long lever can be pulled down to engage "1", only used with a 4-speed hub like the FW. For 3-speed hubs you just use 2 to 4.

Argos masked off a bit too much of the handlebar catch nipple threads (the black plastic Tic Tac sticking out from the stem) and I'll have to put red nail polish on it. This will look OK over the white primer, since it's only a bit of thread.

You'll see that I now have bottle bosses on the stem. There are also two on the main frame tube, just before the "kink". These are about the only places you can have them and still fold the bike.