AC Atto

Price £2,250, austincycles.cc

Frame carbon

Weight 7.8kg

Gears single speed or 11-speed Shimano Alfine

Tyres Schwalbe

Folding bikes with small wheels are big business. The best-known brand by a country mile is Brompton. It’s so successful and dominates the market so comprehensively that its name is on the verge of becoming a generic – like Kleenex, Hoover or Durex. These days, someone telling you they ride a Brompton increasingly just means their bike is a collapse-and-carry. Brompton is on the brink of having the great cultural honour of becoming lower case! Small-wheeled or otherwise, Brompton is the biggest bike-builder in Britain, shifting more than 50,000 frames a year and with expectations of doubling that in the next five years after the successful unveiling of its electric model. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement and a swarm of zippy and nippy new bikes are snapping at its heels.

One of these is the Atto from Austin Cycles. The brand is named after its founder Wayland Austin. I’ve always felt a pang of jealousy for anyone able to ride a bike with their own name on it. After all, you are following in the famous pedal strokes of everyone from Ernesto Colnago and Giovanni Pinarello right up to the modern era and the likes of Chris Hoy, Chris Boardman and Victoria Pendleton. Maybe I should change my name to Martin Raleigh and be done with it…

Wayland is a City man and, like many financially successful people, wanted to put his time, energy and money into something more life-affirming – like cycling, which is where the Atto comes in. Wayland has been riding seriously for more than three decades. He started out racing mountain bikes before moving on to endurance events in the UK and Europe. He (once) finished fifth in the National 24-hour and second in the National 12-hour MTB races. He knows a lot about performance bikes and a lot about what it’s like to sit on a bike and pedal fast across rough ground for a long time. In short, he knows what makes a bike comfortable. But he also wanted a bike that would fit into the lives of busy people. The Atto is designed to be compact and light for weekday commuters, while handling like a full-size performance ride at the weekend. Weighing 7.8kg, the Atto is one of the lightest folding bikes available. It’s been tested on stages of the Tour de France, ridden by Team GB members and excelled in high-speed, high-thrill nocturne events in city centres across Europe.

It’s made using high-grade Toray carbon fibre to make it light and yet durable enough for everyday living. This isn’t a bike you have to treat with kid gloves. It can cope with the bumps and knocks of city life. It has an oil-free carbon belt drive, which makes it whisper-quiet. The belt is extremely strong and won’t need to be changed for at least 60,000km. The Atto comes in just two colours (black or white) and two versions: a single-speed or an 11-speed that uses Shimano’s award-winning Alfine hub gear. Wayland says the bike can be folded in 10 seconds. My favourite detail is the hidden magnet that keeps the two halves of the frame together once it’s folded – and the RAF roundel on its hip.

It’s more expensive than a Brompton, but if it saves you the price of buying a road racer too, it starts to feel like a bargain (almost).

Cool kit

Hit the hills with this easy to use guide to Britain’s most gloriously remote multi-day bike trails. MTB Adventures by Tony Wraff and Hugh Stewart, £13.95, mountainbikingadventuresuk

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@MartinLove166