Award-winning bicycle maker Brompton had a tough journey to market, but thanks to founder Andrew Ritchie's determination and the vision of managing director Will Butler-Adams, the firm is now the largest manufacturer of bicycles in the UK

While many other bicycle companies have moved manufacturing to the Far East, or other cheaper parts of the world, Brompton, manufacturer of the iconic British folding bicycle has stayed put. The factory in west London, a hub of intense activity, has no assembly line. Instead each bicycle is individually assembled while every single part is engraved with the initials of the person responsible for its manufacture.

The winner of two Queens’ Awards, for innovation and international trade, quality is the watchword at Brompton. “At the heart of the company is making a bloody good bike,” says managing director Will Butler-Adams. Butler-Adams has worked with Brompton since 2002, as MD since 2008. Under his leadership the business has reached a different level, having seen 25 per cent year-on-year growth for the last six years.

In 2010, production increased to 28,000 bikes, 75 per cent of which were exported. Turnover is projected to hit £14m. “We have grown so much and gone through a number of cultural changes over the last five to 10 years. It is quite a challenge to manage as a small business,” he says. When Butler-Adams joined in 2002 there were 25 staff. Today there are 110.

But behind the sharp growth lies a story of determination and bloody-mindedness. It was not easy for founder Andrew Ritchie to get the company off the ground—a long journey to production that started in 1975 finally came to fruition in 1987. “I always saw two wheels as the obvious way to get around in London,” says Ritchie, “and it had crossed my mind how handy it would be to have a spare pair of wheels in my pocket.”

Ritchie was inspired by Harry Bickerton and his aluminium folding bike, which he says was “flimsy, wobbly and very awkward to fold”. Nonetheless it was a genuine folding bike and it got Ritchie started. “One evening, when I had nothing better to do, I started making some drawings and thinking about how it might work,” he recalls.

The Brompton bike is very simple. “There are four things sticking out: handlebars, seat, front wheel and rear wheel. You bring them all to the middle and, hey presto. That is what the Brompton is—nothing more than dragging the four bits and bringing them together in the middle.”

His first attempt was in 1975, but Ritchie says he had no intention of going into production. A “nice idea” would instead spawn a prototype, which he could then sell to the industry, he says, admitting he was not cut out for business, even calling himself “hopeless”. “I am not a natural entrepreneur and I wouldn’t have been the right person to sell this to venture capitalists,” he says.

He says there was a great deal of interest in the first model, but no partners emerged. Ritchie then tried to raise the money, intending to build the bike himself, but no investors came forward. “Years went by and I just got more frustrated,” he says.

Doing any old job to pay the rent, Ritchie’s folding bicycle had become an obsession. So determined was Ritchie to finish that when he couldn’t find the equipment to make the bike the way he wanted, he started designing the tools himself. “I was convinced it had a future. So many people had said ‘Andrew, this is great, I really like it.’ If they had all said ‘this is useless’ I would have realised my folly.”

In 1980, five years after he started, Ritchie achieved a breakthrough of sorts. “I persuaded friends, and friends of friends, to pre-order the bike. I saw it as a seed to get into production because I couldn’t see any other route. My board thought I was completely crazy because they knew that I didn’t know anything about manufacturing,” he says. “I had an engineering degree, but it doesn’t prepare you for the business of manufacturing and organising staff.”

Nonetheless, with a little help from the bank, he managed to fulfil his first orders, before progress was again halted, this time by a supplier who decided to stop production of key parts. But Ritchie had what he needed: “proof that it could be done”.

Other hurdles along the way included an abandoned deal with an East Midlands engineering firm, leaving Ritchie without a frame manufacturer. This, he says, proved a blessing in disguise. “If they had made the frames I know they wouldn’t have had the knowledge to find what I eventually found the frames needed and we could have had all sorts of trouble,” he says. Twelve years after starting out, Brompton was a reality and by late 1988 the bike was listed by 40 retailers.

Butler-Adams joined as a development engineer in 2002, charged with generating new projects. “It wasn’t long before he wanted to push the old man out of his cave,” jokes Richie. Butler-Adams could see Brompton’s potential and felt he could do more to drive the business forward. He persuaded a group of friends to club together and buy out half the founder shares, including half of Ritchie’s. “I said to him ‘if you screw up, at least I will have enough to live on’.”

The pair have struck up a solid working relationship. “I hit it off with Will straight away and I realised he had a different way of doing things,” says Ritchie. “Bit by bit I gave him a long lead in different departments and in the meantime he was working out how best to get involved with running the business.”

He acknowledges that the differences between them have improved the company. While Ritchie is a careful planner, “Will is very different, doing a lot more leaping before he looks, or rather a lot less looking than I would do.”

Butler-Adams is convinced of the advantages of being privately held, not least because it allows Brompton to take the time to develop and perfect new ideas. “We are developing products that we have been playing around with for three or four years and in a private business you really can take that time. If it is right for the business we will do it and if it takes five years then it takes five years. We have a long-term view and that is so healthy for an engineering business where there is a lot of investment in R&D,” he says.

Having single-handedly driven the company for more than 20 years, today Ritchie’s involvement is scaled down. “I spend my time unloading what is in my brain into the management team and on to the shop floor,” he explains. “I need to make sure the tricks are passed on, working out how to get it all working between the finance department, marketing, design, design and engineering, production and stock control,” he says.

While the partnership works well, it appears that perfectionist Ritchie is finding it somewhat difficult to let go of his baby. “Yes, of course it is difficult, but I am getting there. In some ways I could be an incumbent to Will—the old man who knows better, breathing down his neck,” he says. “But I think we have built the transition fairly well and I would like to see some of these systems I am working on bedded down.” But quality will always trump quantity: “doing things in a rush to make more bikes”, he says, is not an option.

Today Brompton is the largest bike manufacturer in the UK and the most popular bicycle brand in London. But Ritchie is far from finished perfecting the model, expressing his irritation that the bike sometimes doesn’t fit perfectly under a train seat and weighing up the pros and cons of reducing its size.

Butler-Adams too can see room for improvement, but more in the processes than in design. “We are nowhere near good enough, we are getting better but we are miles away. It is not about the quality of the bike, but about being efficient and about communicating better with our staff. The bike is great from a quality point of view, but we do know we can make it better.” Production capacity in west London is 50,000. “But there is a limit technically to how fast you can go. If you just shove something into a bike and hope for the best, it may break in three years. We have to be patient.”