Frost + Sekers Brompton Quicklock Mount

I heard of Frost + Sekers some time ago and really liked their 'Otis' saddlebag when I spied it on another bicycle. Seeing some photos of a Brompton using their special mount to carry this saddlebag I posted a comment on their Instagram feed saying to consider me if they were ever interested in me doing a review. They kindly said that this would be fine and sent me one of their 'Quicklock' mounts specific to a Brompton. It is worth pointing out they were keen for me to carry out an honest review and provide feedback on whether the instructions were easy to follow, what fitting of the mount was like and what I thought of it overall.

The mount is packed in a fairly small box that has a few details of what the mount looks like and how it works.

Inside you get:

• The mount handle 
• Rail to go on the Brompton Pentaclip - also where the handle goes into with saddlebag attached
• New Pentaclip bolt and plates to fix the rail in place

Also included is an A4 sheet of instructions that are very easy to follow. If you get truly stuck there is even a QR code which takes you to a YouTube video telling you how to fit it. Most probably wouldn't need this but it is worthwhile having a look.

Pentaclip with the Frost +Sekers plates and screw

The Quicklock rails can be moved forwards and backwards horizontally and allow you to position saddlebags of different size or have the bag positioned to your taste.

Once in place the the handle simply clicks in and out. It is very easy to do and takes no effort at all. It is something that you can do very easily with one hand and there are no latches to push in or lift up. Very clever.

Another use I found for it is that the handle makes wheeling the Brompton along on its eazy wheels quite easy. I found this when an over zealous member of TLF staff insisted I fold my Brompton at London Bridge!

I must confess that the ease in which you can click in and out made me wonder if it would do the same on its own when riding. I cycled with a fully packed Carradice Super C Audax saddlebag over the many cobbled sections of east London as well as an off-road section when cycling to and from Box Hill and all was secure. It's a brilliant deign. I also think that the materials chosen - especially the wooden handle complement my Brooks saddle, your saddlebag and the Brompton itself.

Any of my Carradice sadldlebags work with the handle. It is just a case of threading though the leather straps onto the Frost + Sekers handle rather than the mounts/rail on your saddle.

If anything as far as the Brompton is concerned it allows the saddlebag to sit in a much better position. I didn't need to use the strap fastening the saddlebag to the seat post but this is easy to attached if desired.

So why buy it? For me there are times when I use my Brompton for all sorts of adventures. This can involve leaving my bike chained up on a luggage rack on a train with me sitting some way off. With this mount I can very quickly and easily detach the bag and take it with me. At the other end there is is no fiddling around with straps etc.., I can just clip in an go. This alone makes it worthwhile having.

Good Points

• Lightweight - you really won't notice it is there
• Easy to fit with good instructions
• Quality - this is a buy once product and build to last
• The clip in, clip out is done with almost no effort whatsoever
• Once clipped in it is very secure
• It is fully adjustable 
• Very convenient and quick to use

Not so good

Not a great deal that I can see apart from the price.

The mount will set you back £80 on its own. For me I would't buy the mount on its own (unless I wanted to use it on more than one bicycle). The way I would go would be to buy the 15 litre capacity Otis saddlebag and Quicklock mount together for £176. (I haven't used the Otis bag and only seen it on a bike however I am going to check them out in the black version)!

Many thanks to Frost + Sekers for making this happen. Thinking about the Dunwich Dynamo in July and the coach trip back to London, I think that having this system on my Brompton will work really well. I will be able to put everything in the saddlebag and be in a position to quickly take it with me.

https://frostandsekers.com

See.Sense Ace Rear Light on a Brompton

A few months ago I saw an advert for the 'See.Sense Ace' rear light which you could get for £24.99 rather than the usual £44.99 official retail price. At that price I thought that I would give it a go.

The Ace was a bike light originally started as a Kickstarter. It arrived very quickly and opening the packet my first thought about the Ace rear light was how small and lightweight it was. Looking at the specifications it is a mere 35 grams.

As part of the pack you get:

• The Ace rear light of course
• 1 x Ace mount and insert
• 1 x aero mount (nit really of any use to me)
• 1 x bag mount (very useful indeed)
• 4 x straps of varying size
• 1 x micro USB cable

Plugging the light into charge didn't take long and in about two hours or so I have a full charge. The light can be operated by the button on the front but where it comes into its own is the additional functions to be had via the app.

The app has worked really well with my iPhone and there have been no issues connecting it to the light. With the app you can power the light on and off and control the different modes. You can choose between having the light on constant, flash, twin flash, burst, pulse and Eco mode. They are all pretty useful but for me the best feature is the ability too dial down the brightness for the obvious but also to increase burn times.

 Another option that can be turned on / off is the brake mode. With this on, when you get to a point where you come to a stop - traffic lights, junctions, roundabouts - the Ace increases its brightness automatically. Again this works very well.

Other options include the ability to send crash alerts to a designated contact or you receiving an alert shock you bike be moved.

The light pumps out 125 lumens at it maximum setting and provides 200 degrees of side visibility and is IP67 rated for its waterproofing.

The mounts are small and discrete and work well. I like the bag mount in particular. The lightweight clip is strong and there is little chance of it coming loose from a saddlebag, jacket or jersey. The seat post mount, attached via two rubber straps works well, holding the light very securely.

I have used the light on a couple of all night rides and had plenty of juice left on the light when I am back in London in daylight. Dialled down it is still an excellent rear light after 7 - 8 hours of constant use but can then be put to the maximum brightness setting for daytime use so that it can still be seen.

For £24.99 it was a bargain but you can get one for about £33 from a few shops. It is a great little light and I am really glad that I bought it.

Brompton Toolkit Still Brilliant

When the Brompton Toolkit originally came out, many of us Brompton types looked upon it with glee and bought one. I had one of the original ones with the tyres levers that many reported snapping when they attempted to take a tyre off. Brompton replaced them for the all steel ones we have today and not thinking I needed it anymore, I sold it. Zoom forward to this morning and I found myself in a cycle shop on Great Portland Street with an unused £25 gift voucher and within two minutes I was all but reunited with an old friend.

The Brompton toolkit is in many ways pure indulgence. It is sold for anything between £50 - £55 (and if you are silly enough even more) so it isn't cheap by any means.

The plus point is that its clever design means that it can be stowed away neatly in the top tube of the frame and thus always there whenever you need it. This cuts down on the need to scrabble around in your saddlebag for a spanner and tyre levers.

The tyre levers have a magnet so that they stick together neatly when in its little tube case. The levers are not just pretty to look at, they work. I have used them to take off a Marathon Plus tyre.

The levers also have the function of 8mm and 10mm spanners.

The toolkit contains the following:

• Tyre levers with integral 8mm and 10mm spanners
• 15mm spanner (for wheel removal) with integral ratchet driver
• Pozi drive and flat head screwdriver bit
• 2.5mm and 5mm Allen key / hex wrench bit
• 2mm and 6mm Allen key / hex wrench bit
• Puncture repair patches (glueless) 
• Sandpaper
• All held in a strong metal tube

I have a dynamo front wheel and the toolkit contains the necessary Allen key for me to use to take it on and off. This means that I could quite easily get away with not taking a dedicated tool that contains lots of different Allen keys.

Space in my saddle bag (usually a Carradice Zipped Roll bag) is sometimes at a premium. This is usually when I am carrying some wet weather gear and a few snacks. I have been trying to carry the bare minimum and the return of the Brompton Toolkit will certainly help that minimalist drive. Of course, if you have ready my blog you will know that when cycling through the night in the middle of nowhere, having good tools readily available is important. This for me is the killer feature of the Brompton Toolkit.

Perfect fit

Always ready

The end magnetised so it stays in place

So, do I think it is worth it? For me at least, yes. I like the idea of having many of the tools ready and waiting in the top tube without me having to give a great deal of thought as to where they are or whether I have taken them with me. The quality shines through - this is something you will probably buy once. It is quite expensive and you will have to weigh up whether you want what I suppose is a luxury item. I am very pleased to have the Brompton Toolkit back in my possession.

Garmin Edge 820 review

A few years ago I owned a Garmin Edge 510. For me this was a near perfect sized GPS device and although I eventually ended up with an 810 - as it had navigational features - I still liked the form factor of the 510.

A few week after Garmin's flagship Edge 1000 was released, the kind people at Garmin let me test it for a few weeks and although a big improvement over the 810 I didn't care about the extra screen size. Garmin released an update to the 510 in the form of the 520 and despite its looks and it diminutive size which I liked a great deal, the fact it could not give you turn by turn navigation meant I passed it by.

Zoom forward to July 2016 Garmin released the update to the 810, the 820 but instead of keeping things roughly the same size as the 810, it resembled the 520 more. Added to this it had turn by turn navigation.

I have been very lucky to have been given a Garmin EDGE 820 for a few weeks to review and having used it for a couple of weeks already I am in a position to write about what I like and don't like.

As already mentioned, I really like the size. It is lightweight and compact and the 2.3 inch screen is a much higher resolution than the 810. The screen is capacitive and Garmin say it works when wet or wearing gloves. I can say it definitely works when raining. It is summer so gloves aren't a requirement yet - even in a British summer - but I did put a pair on to try and the screen can indeed be operated using them.

There is nothing different about the quarter turn mount and the 820 comes with a Garmin out front mount and a couple of standard mounts and various O rings.

Also included is a tether and despite not using this on any other Garmin device I have owned, I decided to use it on the 820 while under review.

The 820 only has three buttons. Two on the bottom for start/stop and lap and one on the side for on/off.

As far a battery life goes it is quoted as 15 hours or 24 hours in what is called UltraTrac mode which is an energy saving feature. I have been on a a night ride with my phone connected by bluetooth, cadence and speed sensors connected, riding for a good nine hours with the ride being recorded and the battery registered 43%. It is of course waterproof and able to cope with wet weather.

The screen is bright and easy to view in all lighting conditions. There is an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen. This actually works pretty well and can be turned off if not required. One thing to say about my photos. They have been cropped and if viewed at full magnification it looks as if the screen is pixilated. It isn't and this is just the screen being magnified.

You can set up several profiles on the 820. I have three so far which takes care of all my bicycles. One thing to note is that the slightly cheaper Explore 820 does not allow multiple profiles and does not have the ambient light sensor.

As far as data screens go, like the 810 and 1000 you can set this up to your personal preferences. It is very easy to do and if you want to change a field you simply tap and hold and a menu comes up to change it for something else. The amount of customisation is vast and there is more than enough for the hardened geek, club rider or professional.

A new feature for the 820 over the 810 and 800 is the ability to connect to Garmin's IQ store. Essentially this is a little like an app store for your Gamrin. There is an ever growing library of free material that can be quickly downloaded to your device. At the moment this includes various data fields and graphics that are different from the stock layout.

Another new feature over the 810 and 800 is that you can swipe down to reveal some of the more important functions. For example from this you can turn bluetooth on and off. You can adjust the brightness or set it to the ambient sensor. You can connect external sensors such as speed, cadence, heart.

The 820, like the 1000 when contacted to your phone alerts you when you receive a text message or call. You cannot take a call or send a message via the 820 but you know someone has tried to contact you. This feature can be turned off but I have found it pretty useful.

Navigating is excellent on the 820 and for me more usable than the 810. It uses GPS and GLOSNASS satellites to locate your position and when turned on locks on a GPS signal very quickly, more so than the 810 which I believe only has GPS and not GLOSNASS.

My 810 had maps on a SD card which was an additional extra. The 820 has then built in. You can enter points of interest, stations, intersections and postcodes which then quickly provides a route for you follow with turn by turn directions.  The 810 has this but the 820 seems to be able to update more quickly with little in the way of delay from making the turn to what happens next. In addition the smaller screen didn't detract from me - yes me - being able to use the 820's turn by turn instructions to navigate. This might be in part due to the higher resolution of the screen.

One feature, which is for me at least, is nothing short of brilliant is the ability to get audio prompts while navigating. This works when paring your phone to the 820. Once paired the 820 sends audio prompts for navigation to your phones speaker. This really does work well. I have used it with just the phone in the chest pocket of a jersey and I could hear the prompts. Better still you can use one headphone bud or a small bluetooth speaker. I am normally hopeless at navigating but I have found that I have actually managed to get from  A to B using the 820. This has been a little bit of a revelation for me and quite liberating. As a result I have used it to cycle to a few locations I previously would have struggled to get to. A smartphone with google maps or a specific mapping app are of course better but I am really enjoying the 820 as far as navigation goes.

There is also a round trip feature. With this you can select a route of say10 miles. The 820 will then make a couple of routes for you to choose from that will be 10 miles and return you to your start location. You can select things to avoid like main roads, hills etc.., and having tested it out it is very good. I can see myself using this as a training aid if I got bored of my usual circuits around the block as it were.

GroupTrack is a new feature that I believe with come to the Edge 1000 in the future in a firmware update. With this once your 820 is connected to you phone you can keep an eye on friends - with and 820 or 1000 (when the firmware update allows) as they show up as markers on the map. I can see this being of great use on rides when riders thin out and are separated or when the front is seeing where the tail is. You can keep track of up to 50 other riders.

The LiveTrack feature on my 810 was a little bit hit an miss at times. This feature essentially allows people you have chosen to view realtime on a map your location. I have enabled LiveTrack on almost all the longer rides I have been on since getting hold of the 820 and I have to report that it worked 6 out of 7 times.

If you have a good ride stored on your 820 you can transfer it quite easily to a friends 820. This is done very quickly and a ride leader could transfer the official route to participants with an 820.

The 820 has a built in incident detection that sends out your location to an emergency contact if you are involved in an incident. It does seem like a good idea but I have not activated it so far.

The 820, like the 1000 has Wi-Fi. This means that when you step through the front door your ride data will be uploaded to Garmin Connect by the time you have put your bicycle away. This auto upload feature can be turned off but it is very useful.

I only have a few more days with the Garmin 820 before I have to send it back. I have really enjoyed using it and haven't even scratched the surface with all the more advanced feature packed into this small package. I suspect that Garmin will release an update to their 1000 at some point in the not too distant but for me, the size and compactness of the 820 would be very compelling.

The Edge 820 comes in three different packages. The Explore 820 is £279.99 but lacks Wi-Fi, ambient light sensor, live Strava segments and some of the other serious training data like VO2, Watts, lactate threshold.

The Edge 820 - which is the one I have here is £329.99 and a version with a heart rate monitor, cadence and speed sensor comes in at £389.99. If you shop around you can probably get each for a little less, but don't expect a huge reduction. Until recently only a few select retailers were first in line well the 820 but I think it is now widely available.

I like the 820 a great deal and will put serious thought to buying one myself. If you know you are not going to use the heart, speed and cadence sensors the Explore might be the way to go. I would probably use the speed and cadence sensors so the £329.99 unit is the one I'd go for - as I already have the sensors.

Is there anything I don't like? Well, not a huge amount. I have noticed that occasionally it cannot pick up WI-Fi when I am standing next to the router. Perhaps a firmware update can fix that? The only other ting is that I do think it should come with the rubber protective cover/jacket rather than having to pay possibly £10 extra. Apart from this, as stated not a huge amount.

When I return the 820 I go back to my 810. I will miss the 820 and do think that I will have to drop some hints for what I want this Christmas!

Phone and wallet solution when cycling

I am an all year round cyclist. The weather rarely stops me from going on my commute to work on my Brompton, going on long distance cycling adventures or travelling through the night in all seasons. If you take a backpack, saddle bag or when on a Brompton one of the many bags you can place on the front carrier block, you can of course put your phone, wallet and keys in there. However, what happens if you want to go minimalist and not carry everything and the kitchen sink?

Like many of you I have used plastic freezer bags to carry my phone/wallet when the wet stuff is about to fall and there is nothing wrong with that. I have also used those small plastic see-through wallets you sometimes get free in cycling magazines. I have been looking for something else.

A couple of solutions came my way in the post the other day. They are both by Lezyne and both offer protection from the elements for phone, wallet, money, keys etc. 

The first is the Lezyne Phone Wallet. This costs anything from £11 to £15 depending on where you shop and is a very basic single fold wallet that allows you to carry quite a lot.

Lezyne Phone Wallet

• Mobile phone in a a water resistant zipped pocket that has a seam weld and clear plastic panel   allowing you to use the phone
• Four slots for credit cards, notes or combinations of these
• Zipped pocket for coins, keys, notes
• Zip loop so that you can gain entry to the phone compartment easily even when wearing gloves
• Weight 120g
• Dimensions 145 x 100 x 25mm

The phone section allows me to fit my iPhone SE - which is the same size as any of the iPhone 5's but it does fit phones the size of the iPhone 6.

Holing my iPhone SE with ease

Card / note slots

The phone can happily be operated via the plastic screen and does not need to be taken out of  the case for turning on and off.

The wallet can be placed in any jersey pockets and once there is barely noticeable, even when full with all your bits and pieces. Incidentally, I was also able to fit a car key in the zipped compartment. 

Zipped compartment

Large zip puller

The phone compartment is the only part that is fully water resistant but the material of the the case does offer some water proofing.

Having started to use bib shorts more and generally trying to be more and more minimalist in what I carry with me when cycling, I do like the idea of having this wallet with phone, cards, notes etc.., all in one location. Using it on a few rides I barely registered that it was even there. For the moment at least I suspect I will definitely use this wallet a great deal in the autumn and winter when the weather can be unpredictable.

The next wallet from Lezyne is the Caddy Sack. This is a much simpler affair. This is a basic sack that can be sued to hold everything the above can hold. 

Lezyne Caddy Sack

There are two version, small and medium. I have the medium which weighs in at 50g with dimensions of 180 x 130mm. 

The Caddy Sack can hold all of the above and although a little larger when filled, can still be happily stowed in a jersey pocket, offering full water resistance - assuming the sack is closed properly. 

Roll closure

The Caddy Sack is £5 - £10 but if you shop around you can get it for less. 

I used the Caddy Sack on the Ride46 and liked it a great deal for its total simplicity and homage to the freezer bags I have normally used in the past. The Wallet I used at the Bikeathon and didn't notice it was there for the entire ride.

Which do I prefer? If it were a night ride to the coast or longer ride, I think I'd prefer the Caddy Sack. For general cycling in and around London the Wallet would be better for me. Of course I have both to choose from but if it had to be one of the other, I would go for the Wallet.