Question: Have you always been interested in helping the environment through biking and other rather than driving, or is it something you discovered after you started working with bikes? If it has been always, is this a large reason why you started to design bikes?

Eleanor Sherwen answered on 10 Mar 2016:

I’ve always been interested in helping the environment, it is something I try to be active in within my spare time (eg. supporting better environmental protection, more renewable energy) and I decided at University that I could make whatever products I worked on easier to recycle & separate and that would be my contribution.

My interest in the environment is the main reason I started cycling, I have always commuted by bike, and then I began going on cycling holidays and doing long rides for fun. It’s also how I got my first Brompton; I lived in one city and had a job in another, so I used to take my bike on the train instead of drive and I decided I had to get a folding one. I got recruited by Brompton after I attended an engineering talk by them, interested in how my bike was made – I realised I would be really motivated to work for them because I would get to make a difference to the environment. I had a good job at Renishaw at the time, but Brompton was too good to miss!

In one sense, I was very very lucky because everything came together for me. In another actually there is an engineer behind pretty much every item you touch. So there’s lots of opportunities to work on something you love!