MICROMOBILITY
‘WE NEED TO USE FEWER RESOURCES, LESS CARBON. WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING TALKING ABOUT A 2,000KG ELECTRIC CAR? WE HAVE A BIKE THAT WEIGHS 15KG THAT CAN CARRY THE SAME 90KG HUMAN BEING’
new gear systems, the fact it weighs 200g less, when it’s actually just a bike that somebody sits on, so the weight is virtually irrelevant. As it happens, for our bike it’s quite important because you carry it. But for most bikes, it’s irrelevant to the average punter, unless you’re some amazing triathlete. “But it’s wellbeing, life, climate change... you get hit by
a bicycle, it might hurt, you break a bone. You get hit by a two-tonne car, it’s game over. That’s not a fake truth.” It’s difficult to argue, especially in the face of an
existential crisis or two. “We have a climate crisis,” said Butler-Adams. “We
need to use fewer resources, less carbon. What on earth are we doing talking about a 2,000kg electric car? We have a bike that weighs 15kg that can carry the same 90kg human being. 15kg versus 2,000? It’s fricking obvious! Never mind the space saving and everything else. So, I think the industry needs to be a bit more dynamic, take a bit more risk, upset a few people and just ring out a few home truths. “Because we’re running out of being polite. We need to shine a light on the truth and open up the realities.”
Shifting momentum There are also reasons to be positive. Butler-Adams points to the progress made in the past decade in London alone. “We’ve seen a fantastic transformation where cycling has gone from being some weird, oddball participation either for people who were sort of hardcore greens or hardcore MAMILS – it was like you were one or the other – to becoming normal, mainstream,” he said. “[Now it’s] not odd at all. In fact, stunningly sensible! ‘Why the hell didn’t we do this years ago?’ And that is a real team effort. Politically, we’ve seen Boris [Johnson], Andrew Gilligan, Will Norman [fighting cyclists’ cause]; we’ve got the London Cycling Campaign, we’ve got mayors in Manchester and Birmingham, people across the board. “But then you add to that momentum, two things: one, we’ve just been through a pretty horrific Covid experience. And like all tragedies there is a silver lining to the cloud, and the silver lining to that cloud is that citizens all over the world experienced what life could be like.” The second cause supporting the case for micromobility
momentum is global warming, but Butler-Adams identifies a third, in the cost of living crisis.
40 | April 2023 “I’m not expecting us in London to go from 5% cycling
to 15% in the next five years,” he said. “That’s a bit unrealistic. Or in the UK from 2%, or wherever we are, to 10%. But what I care about is progress. “I’ve been in business [a long time] and people always
exaggerate and say they’re going to change the world in two seconds flat. That doesn’t really matter. What matters is that in 12 months’ time, we’re in a better place. And 12 months after that, we’re in a better place. If all we’re doing is making progress and improving the situation, we’ve done our bit. What is not acceptable is to go backwards. We’ve got to keep going forwards! It might be a bit harder, and there might be some moments when we go faster and somewhere we get a few knockbacks.” Butler-Adams has been no stranger to knockbacks. The sort of dramas that he might have reasonably expected to be a ‘once-in-a-career event’ have kept on coming: Brexit, a global pandemic and now the pressure of rapidly rising inflation. Brompton has invested in its own data analytics in an effort to be better at forecasting because that, said its main man, is an important competitive advantage: “If you are a bike manufacturer or retailer and your
forecasting is wrong, you suddenly find that all your cash is tied up in the wrong product,” Butler-Adams explained, “and then you’re left vulnerable. “So as a business grows, it’s like Whac-A-Mole. Weird things come your way, like your finance capability, your R&D, or your manufacturing. But at the moment, it’s data, forecasting, analytics. Taking that data and turning it into more credible, more accurate forecasting for our industry as a whole, and certainly for us, is important. It’s not glamorous, it’s not all shiny, but you get that wrong and it’s a big lesson we’ve learned. The data is out there. And we’re investing to help ourselves.” Our time up, that broader idea of helping ourselves –
and everyone else – via the choices we make is what Butler- Adams brings it back to. “I just want to remind everybody that the consumer is
everything,” he said. “We, the humble voter, the humble consumer, have the power to determine our future. And if we want cities that are quieter, cleaner, calmer, healthier, happier places, then we need to choose that. Vocalise. Vote! Buy bikes. Animate – whatever it happens to be. But don’t just sit there and accept the status quo.” Not accepting the way things are is, after all, where engineering for change begins. ●
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