I have a Brompton M6R (actually an M6L with a rear rack installed) but opted not to get the EZ wheels, since they were about $50 a set, and I needed two since I have two Bromptons.

I ended up purchasing eight 76mm 80A inline skate wheels, 16 wheel bearings thingies (608), 8 spacers, and four M6x1.0 in 30mm length.  I reused the rear rack wheel screws since I didn’t purchase screws in size M5 but I’ll do that tomorrow.  The standard ones will work, but they aren’t long enough to keep the bungie cords attached.  The install was super easy, but here are the pictures to help motivate you to do the same.

Original configuration:

Most of the parts:

Close up of the replacement screws:

The screw length was barely long enough to work, so I may try getting screws with a length of 35mm, but Lowe’s only had lengths 30mm and 40mm, and 40mm was way too long.

Picture of one of the skate wheels I purchased:

Brompton cone wheel and skate wheel side by side:

The wheels don’t seem any wider than the standard Brompton wheels, but they are definitely larger in diameter.

Wheel bearings:

Step 1: Pop the bearings into the wheel along with the spacer. The spacer is just a metal sleeve that separates the wheel bearings. Supposedly they help extend the life of the bearings, but for the Brompton, it’s probably overkill.

Step 2: Screw them in! This part was super easy. Just reuse the washer.

The rear wheels (if a rack is installed) is the same, except, depending on the length of screws, you may or may not be able to keep the bungie attached. I was unable to keep the bungie attached with the original screws. I kept the original screw, three washers, and the nut for each wheel.

That’s all it takes! These are the pictures showing the resulting wheels installed on one of the Bromptons. I still have to get longer screws for the rear wheels and I have to buy the rubber bung for the seatpost or retro fit something standard; without a rubber stop in the seat post, the bike rolls too easily now!

It looks pretty small next to my other bikes, but it actually rides like a regular bike.  The steering is a little twitchy and will probably be something that I’ll have to get used to.  I replaced the saddle that came with the bike, since it was oh so manly (it had a leopard stripe down the center), with the seatpost and saddle that came with my Cannondale Synapse road bike.  The seatpost diameter used by the Tikit and my road bike are identical; the Tikit uses a shim to work with 27.2mm seatposts.  The bike was a demo at the bike shop and the leopard striped saddle was whatever it had on it when I purchased it.  This past weekend, my dad came to help my brother move and to test ride folding bikes at some local bike shops.  He tested two models of Dahon folding bikes with 20″ wheels and seemed to like them, but he was more interested in bikes with 16″ wheels and non of the stores seemed to have any.  He liked my bike the best of the bikes he test rode.  

One of these days, I’ll get up early enough to attempt my 20 mile commute to work on one of my bikes.  Thursday would be the perfect day to attempt it (high of 20 C).  I’m entertaining the idea of taking the Marc train from Jessup to Greenbelt and just biking to and from the Marc stations.  I have a folding bike, so I can take the bike on the train now.

Since I want to do my part to stimulate the economy, I won a bunch of bids on ebay for random parts that I can use to upgrade the components on the Tikit.  Eventually, when everything is done, I’ll have: a new bottom bracket and crankset (SRAM Rival), a different saddle (Specialized Toupe Gel), a new seatpost (Thomson Masterpiece), a new rear derailleur (SRAM X.9), new shifters (SRAM X.9 for now), a new cassette (11-32t 9spd) and a new rear wheel (SRAM Dual Drive hub).  It was pretty fun bidding for stuff on ebay.  The only real way to win those stupid auctions is to bid at the last minute, or bid reasonably high for something.  I don’t even know why they have auctions that last for a week.  Hopefully I can figure out how to install all this stuff; my only fear is the bottom bracket stuff (removing the sealed bearings bottom bracket and installing the external bearings bottom bracket), but honestly, it can’t be that hard.  Maybe the new parts will lighten the bike by a considerable amount.  I’ll weigh it before and after the replacements.