MICROMOBILITY And he has an example dear to his heart: “People
believe that if they own a car, they have a right to park it in the public realm. But that space is quite valuable. It’s valuable for children, for people just sitting outside their home, playing, having a drink, bars, enjoying life. And the interesting thing is, even where it’s free, that’s completely preposterous. If you own a vehicle, you need to store it on your own land. “There is no way anyone, certainly in a congested
environment, should be able to just park their vehicle. Zero. Not allowed. Gone. We, as citizens, the majority of whom do not use cars on a daily basis, need that space for living. And we wanted to do a campaign [that was] nothing to do with cycling to remind people cycling isn’t what it’s about. I’m not in the cycling industry. I’m in the industry of living. Our mission at Brompton is to create urban freedom and bring a little bit of happiness. We happen to do that with a bicycle. But we get too caught up in ‘The Bicycle’. “It’s not the bicycle, it’s what the bicycle does for you. And we need to spend more time communicating that,
and the positive impact of this wonderful tool, rather than focusing on the Shimano XYZ drive and the hardtail/softail rubbish! It’s the simple joy of this tool. And not only that, it’s so efficient!”
Time to nut up or shut up Butler-Adams’ heartfelt mission is to grow and promote sustainable urban transport with the intention of improving city dwellers’ lives everywhere – so much so that he has even written a book about it: The Brompton, Engineering for Change. “I now feel I have experienced enough and seen enough, and I’m getting old enough not to care, and I say what I see,” he said.
So what does the 48-year-old chartered mechanical
engineer, with an OBE for services to industry, want to see change? “We’re only asking the industry to say the truth,” he said. “We haven’t even managed to do that. We don’t even need to exaggerate it, because it’s so stunning. “All we’ve been doing is worrying about new tyres,
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