The Saintly Soapbox

The moment you decide to buy a Moulton you are aware that being a non-orthodox bicycle it will challenge what people accept about bicycle design. Many of these accepted design specifications the average rider, or let’s be honest keen rider, has never thought about at all. So when you arrive on a Moulton they immediately feel challenged or think you are a fool for buying such an “odd” bike.

My Moulton TSR 30 on my afternoon commute.

1. Gee that must be hard work?

This question often has variants, “Those small wheels are hard work” or the best set of dialogue yet:

Roadie: Gee I hope you don’t have far to go!
Me: Why?
R: Well, you know, the wheels are small.
Me: But the gearing compensates for that.
R: Really?

I mean the lack of understanding about gearing is amazing. My Moulton TSR 30 is slightly lower geared than my Jamis Quest road bike, but this only becomes apparent downhill above 45 km/h. Not the place best average speeds are set. Is my Moulton hard work cause it has small wheels? No of course not. But like any variant in design what one hand giveth the other taketh away.

Small wheels means the following advantages:

• Quicker acceleration due to lower moment of inertia
• Quicker handling due to a smaller flywheel effect
• Less aerodynamic drag from the wheels
• Stronger and lighter wheels

But they deliver some negatives:

• Less angular momentum means they feel a little flat initially on a climb
• The quicker handling may appear twitchy to new Moulton riders
• Small wheels deliver a rougher ride
• Possibly slightly higher rolling resistance, mind you this is minimised by good quality high pressure tyres.

2. That must be a rough ride?

Many fail to recognise the subtle road suspension that a Moulton has. Not the gauche landing gear fitted to mountain bikes, but a simpler suspension setup that removes the harshness that small high pressure tyres deliver. On my Moulton the use of coil springing via leading links absorbs road shock but more importantly keeps the wheel in contact with the road which improves road holding. This truly is the benefit of suspension, improved road holding, that is its main purpose. A normal road bike bounces over bumps, the Moulton rides over them. This is most beneficial when cornering which is where the Moulton has a supreme handling advantage.

The rear suspension is a swing arm with a rubber spring, self damping and simple unlike many of the complex MTB arrangements, but again this is not landing gear, but road suspension, you will feel the bump but it doesn’t bounce the bike or deviate the bike’s course. The rear swing arm is a unified rear triangle design which means the bottom bracket is on the swing arm, minimising chain tension compressing the spring.

3. I think you’d go faster with bigger wheels!

Well this is a variant on the first but certainly relates to speed. Most people I meet out riding are on road bikes, and as such they move a long at a decent clip. My Jamis road bike is the only fair comparison to my Moulton, because I am the engine in both cases. It is about 1 kg lighter and a very nice ride. But there is very little difference between the Moulton and the Jamis across the routes I regularly ride. Little differences here, but to be fair the Jamis has ben ridden over these routes for years, while the Moulton has only had a 3 months of comparison. There are also wind effects that muddy the waters. There are a few climbs where the Jamis is ahead but not by a huge amount. In reality there is little difference between the two bikes.

4. So does it fold?

Most people recognise that small wheels means kids bike or a folding bike. So the Moulton with its seat height, must be a folding bike; it isn’t. My Moulton is separable into two parts, the front part is one-third, the back section makes up two thirds. The separability is a bonus of the frame design, but it is not a folder like a Brompton or a Birdy. The next question is normally a puzzled face or a verbalised “Why?”. “Why what?” “Why doesn’t it fold?” “Well,” I reply. “Because it isn’t a folding bicycle.” “So what’s the point?” they ask. To which I invariably comment on the Moulton being different approach to bicycle design, why do we always have to approach bicycles with a standard template, etc. You see with bikes we are so drilled with the orthodox that any variant mustn’t be as good or they’d all be like that.

5. What’s with all the tubes?

Well this is a “spaceframe” design. It uses a mix of tubes and thin rods to create a rigid structure that is stiff vertically and laterally. Unlike most bikes which laterally have movement this bike doesn’t, and the suspension provides the give that a frame otherwise has to deliver. The cost is increased weight, but it is separable which is a handy feature. It is made of Reynolds 525 chromium-molybdenum alloy steel, hardly cutting edge but lighter than older Moultons that used high tensile steel. Top end Moultons used silver brazed stainless tubes but then we are talking big $$$$. A TSR can be made to around 10 kg with careful component selection, but mine as a tourer is around 12 kg. Sure a fancy carbon bike is lighter, but then you look like every other MAMIL on their “plastic fantastics”.

Top view of the Moulton spaceframe.

The Moulton is a delightful approach to bicycle design. It is indeed unorthodox and as such challenges what many think are essentials in bicycle design. It is annoying but at the same time funny watching people try to rationalise a decision they wouldn’t have made.

Well a few years back I wrote a blog post totally bagging Moulton bicycles, saying that while I loved them, they were essentially a play tool for the rich, and not the preserve for a sensible cyclist.

Well let me eat those words with some Worcestershire sauce, with a serving of humble pie afterwards. Because I just bought a Moulton TSR30, a burgundy coloured one actually from my local dealer, Clarence St Cyclery.

Why? Cause they are damn cool, sure they are heavier than one of those ubiquitous carbon framed wonder bikes, but they are a dime a dozen now. The Moulton is something different. Suspension, small wheels, and the lovely spaceframe construction. My beloved Jamis Quest with its supple Reynolds 631 frame remains, but the Moulton is a different take on a road bike.

So I apologise to the Moulton world that I lost my faith, but the evangelist is back!

Well back in 1998 I decided that my expanding girth could be addressed by cycling. I used to cycle a lot at school and it was one physical/sporting practice I was actually good at. So off I went with a new connection to the Internet and started searching. I found Moulton bicycles. Being totally enamoured with the Alex Moulton designed Hydrolastic suspension on my beloved Austin 1800 I decided this was a good place to start. It didn’t take long to discover that the really cool stainless steel Moulton bikes (such as the AM GT or NS) were going to cost me in excess of $10,000. Well not for me. So I searched and came across a Moulton APB14 Shimano Plus, this was an entry level Moulton bike made under licence by Pashley in the UK. A nice bike with mountain bike style gears and bars. It was $2,000 and was about 15 kg as equipped. No lightweight and quite pricey. Well I rode that bike for quite a while but found cycling to be a little uncomfortable. No matter what saddle I tried, be it a classic Brooks leather saddle, or a fancy gel saddle, comfort eluded me.

I altered the bike extensively to get drop bars with nice Shimano bar-end shifters, and all in all the bike was as I would specify it if I had built it. But the lack of comfort really puzzled me, so I decided it was time to investigate the recumbent world and so began my great Recumbent Folly.

But before I finish my story of Moulton bikes, let me say I love the idea of the Moulton, as an engineering teacher it makes sense to me. They are a work of beauty, particularly the NS Moulton with nearly 100 silver brazed joints on a 304 stainless steel frame. The use of small wheels with suspension, is terribly clever, and Moulton pioneered this for road bikes long before landing gear style suspension was thought of for off-road bikes. But the great failure of the Moulton concept, is they are a bicycles for the elite. Not elite cyclists, but the elite as in the wealthy. The NS Moulton costs around £4,500, now that is around AU$ 10,000 (depending on exchange rates). That makes a new carbon fibre road racer look cheap. And that is where my love affair with the Moulton turns sour. Alex Moulton has turned the humble bike into a work of art only the wealthy can truly afford. The only other way is to give up your car and then justify spending a similar amount on a bicycle. This is a tragedy because I had the pleasure of riding an NS Moulton and it is a revelation, light, fast, responsive and smooth like no other bike I have ridden. But this brilliant engineering will remain a mystery to most due to the high cost of joining the club.

It wasn’t always this way, back in the 1960’s Moulton managed to take on the established cycling world with his small wheel F-frame bicycles, complete with small wheels and suspension. But they failed to displace the established diamond frame/safety bicycle design and by the 1970s they were gone. When the new and advanced space frame Moultons came on the scene in 1983 Alex Moulton deliberately made them expensive high end machines and sentenced the average cyclist to the world of conformity. Sadly most will never get to ride the best Moultons, and never realise how good they are.

Ultimately my gripe with Alex Moulton is he has developed an improved bicycle, and it is only available to the wealthy, who else can justify a $10,000 bike, that can’t even be used in competitive races (banned by the UCI for a drafting advantage). Moulton bikes are truly lovely pieces of engineering but here in Australia, sadly the cost is just prohibitive, to the point of being ridiculous.