I should have bought a bike ages ago! I bought this little folding bike from Halfords a few months ago, thinking that it will be a way to get myself outside a bit more. I’m still taking my time here because it’s kind of hilly where I live, and there are some really bike-unfriendly roads. But the little trips out that I’ve made so far have been awesome. I’ve also had a lot of fun buying bits and bobs for the bike and I thought I would share.

Halfords do a couple of versions of this folding bike and at the time, this one was about £85 cheaper than the others. This one has disc brakes, the others have rim brakes but also have mudguards and a rear rack. Honestly, I like the colour of the other one better too. But hey, 85 quid. And the bright red is kind of growing on me!

My little red folding bike, leaning on its kickstand. The black spokes on the wheels have white spoke reflectors attached. My helmet is dangling from its strap on the saddle. There’s a small bag attached to the ‘inside’ of the handlebars and a rear rack bag that’s loaded up

Mudguards

It turns out that Halfords don’t sell mudguards or a rack to fit this bike so I got these from Amazon. They were about £10 and they’re actually meant for kid’s bikes (with 16" or 20" wheels) but they fit on here absolutely fine. They are a bit plasticky and don’t look as nice as the ones on the other version of this bike but I mean, they’re just mudguards. They’re also really light and I’m not the strongest person in the world so I think that’s good too when you consider I still want a bike that I can fold and lift.

They were the first thing I added to the bike. It was easy to do but I think the screw hole for the rear one on my bike must be 90 degrees to where it is on other bikes? I had to bend the bracket almost totally back on itself to fit it. Still only took a few minutes and I was proud of my first bit of customisation

Lights

Just from Decathlon and not very expensive, they came in a set with both the front and back lights. Both are brighter than I was expecting them to be. They attach and detach quickly. The front one came with a little bracket that just finger-tightens on the handlebars and the light itself just slides in to the bracket. The rear light has a rubber strap that fastens around the seat post. They charge by micro-USB, and I think that’s the only bad thing I can really say about them. I don’t plan to be riding around in the dark anyway so these aren’t going to be hammered with use

Rear rack

The other thing I was missing a bit when I got this version. I’m nowhere near brave enough to be riding this to work yet, or really for any distance where I might need to bring stuff with me but I mean, having a place to put stuff on the back is only going to come in handy isn’t it? Again, Halfords don’t sell racks for folding bikes but Decathlon do. I think they do two versions, and the one that I probably should have got for this bike was out of stock.

My bike has the attachment points for the type of rack that has those two little arms that fit kind of horizontally. But I got the kind that fits to that same spot as the mudguard instead. Again, this hole seems to be oriented differently to what’s expected, and so I had a bit of trouble bending the bar to get it to fit. You can see I’ve not done the best job when you look closely but actually that metal bar is really strong so I’m happy with it. This was a little more involved to fit than the mudguards and I actually managed to get everything nice and sturdy, and it’s fairly level too. Having this on actually makes the bike a lot easier to lift, which is a nice bonus.

I had to move the rear reflector from its original place on the frame as the rack would block it, and it’s mildly annoying that it’s off-centre but it doesn’t matter. The maximum weight that this rack is supposed to be able to take is 10kg, and considering I bent that bar it might actually be a bit less. I doubt my puny legs would be able to haul much weight anyway so again, this is fine for me. The rack itself is nice and light too so again I haven’t made the bike much heavier for myself here.

This rack has a spot for attaching a little flashy light that Decathlon sells (as does the helmet that I bought at the same time) and when I have the reflector fitted here I can’t use that, but again as I’m not planning on going out at night I don’t think this will be a big deal

Reflectors

I fell off my bike on one of my first rides out, and I think this is when I lost of one of the spoke reflectors. I saw these ones on Temu though and I actually really like them. They’re very reflective - more so than the ones that it came with. I quite like the contrast between the white reflectors and the black spokes.

Bags

I have one small bag attached to the handlebars. Decathlon calls it a water bottle holder but it comes in handy for putting my phone and things like that in. It’s nice and tall though so it does make a really good bottle holder.

A view of the handlebars. The bars themselves are black, as are the accessories that are attached. From left to right: there’s a bell nearest the left grip, then a front reflector screwed on near the middle. A small water bottle bag is velcro’d to the middle of the bars and the post. To the right of this is a bracket for attaching the front light, then the gear shifter is nearest to the right grip

I bought the rear rack bag from Temu and like everything from Temu I wasn’t expecting much but it seems to be alright. It fixes on with two velcro straps so it’s not exactly quick to take on and off but I don’t think that will matter. I stayed overnight at my sister’s house (which is only about a mile away, and I was coming home first thing in the morning) and I had room for PJs etc in the bag itself, and used the elastic ties to fasten a light hoodie on top. I was lovely to not need a backpack!

A close up of the rear rack and rack bag. The bag is mostly black with a small silver reflective strip. It looks quite full. On top, a light grey hoodie is fastened by elastic straps. There’s a small water bottle pocket on the back, containing an empty blue water bottle