CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Brompton Bicycle

British manufacturer of folding bicycles

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ926943 ↗
Source-derived summary

Brompton Bicycle Limited, trading as Brompton, is a British manufacturer of folding bicycles based in Greenford, London.

The Brompton folding bicycle and accessories are the company's core product, noted for its self-supporting compact size when stored. All available models of the folding bicycle are based on the same hinged frame and ETRTO 35-349 mm (16-inch) tyre size. Components are added, removed, or replaced by titanium parts to form the many variations. The modular design has remained fundamentally unchanged since the original patent was filed by Andrew Ritchie in 1979, with small details being refined by continual improvement. Ritchie was awarded the 2009 Prince Philip Designers Prize for work on the bicycle.

Brompton is the largest volume bicycle manufacturer in Britain, producing approximately 50,000 bicycles each year. The company's bicycles are also available for hire.

Design

All Brompton folding bicycle models share the same curved frame, consisting of a hinged main tube, pivoting rear triangle, fork, and hinged handle-bar stem. The main tube and stem are made of steel in most models.

Editorial summary

“Brompton Bicycle” enters the record as british manufacturer of folding bicycles. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Brompton, Bicycle and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976-06-03. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Brompton, Bicycle and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Brompton Bicycle” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Brompton, Bicycle and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q926943. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979 and 2009.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Brompton Bicycle”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Brompton Bicycle primary sources, Brompton Bicycle archive and Brompton research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Brompton Bicycle”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Brompton Bicycle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.