Made in London: Lovely cycling mackintosh from Water Offa Duck's Back
Jack goes down to the London Bike Show, an annual fair of bicycles and cycling paraphernalia. He eschews the latest electronic gear systems in search of novel products made by interesting people.
The following products are featured on the show:
Georgia in Dublin: Stylish and waterproof clothing for women and men.
Respro: High viz gear for cyclists including the ubiquitous hump and the evergreen elasticated ankle bands.
Bill’s Bike Tools: Makers of the Pedal Aid, an ingenious tool for assisting the removal of difficult bike pedals.
Hornit: The world’s loudest bicycle horn at 140 decibels.
Water Offa Duck’s Back: Classically styled cycling macs with ingenious reflective properties.
Jack travels over the Yorkshire moors to Nelson, Lancashire to visit one of the oldest and most venerable companies in British cycling. Cotton mill worker Wilf Carradice began producing his indestructible canvas saddlebags in the 1930s and in 2011 sales are booming. Owner and MD David Chadwick tells the story of a family business and we get a tour of the factory. For more history of Carradice, there is a good article over at Classic Lightweights.
On Midsummer’s Night Dixe Wills, travel writer and author of a new book on Britain’s tiny campsites, guides us on a ride from central London up the Lea Valley to a wild camping spot. Various pitfalls ensure that little goes to plan.
The new Bike Show jersey is unveiled and – in a podcast only bonus – Andrew Neather of the Evening Standard explains why the newspaper came out for London’s cyclists.
Community bike workshops are a beautiful idea. A place where anyone can learn the basics of bicycle repair by doing it for themselves with the help of volunteer mechanics – and have access to specialist bicycle tools. A stone’s throw from the Elephant and Castle, the venerable 56a food coop and radical infoshop has its own ‘do it together’ Bike Room, open 16 hours a week. Over in France, the Pignon Sur Rue association in Lyon runs a rather larger and more ambitious community workshop project, with 1200 members and support from the local city government.
If a shiny new bike is what you’re after, we hear from Chris Boardman on the recent advances in bicycle technology and the thinking behind his new range of Boardman bikes. Chris takes the view that while Italian consumers are most interested in style, US consumers most interested in good quality service, the British consumer is most interested in low prices. And his bikes certainly offer a lot of bicycle for the money, not least because they have cut out a stage in the retail chain by selling exclusively through Halfords, a combined distributor/dealer.
Cyclist, journalist and author Rob Penn travelled the world to put together his perfect bicycle. We talk about how his journey of discovery sheds light on the history of the bicycle and the contribution of bicycle technology to modern life. Rob is speaking at the Hay Literary Festival on 3rd June and is organising a ride there from Cardigan Bay on the west coast of Wales. All are welcome to join.
You can buy his book, It’s All About The Bike from Amazon on the link, below. Any purchases made after following this link will contribute a few pennies to Resonance FM, London’s non-profit community arts radio station.
The messenger bag is one of the defining elements of the “new urban bike culture” and Bart Kyzar has been making bombproof bags for bicyclists since the mid-1990s, first with Chrome and now with Mission Workshop, based in San Francisco.
Last summer Mission Workshop opened a new store at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane. While riding through the sunny streets of London, Bart tells how he and a couple of friends started making messenger bags while living in a warehouse in Boulder, Colorado, how rising osteopathy bills led to a fundamental rethink of traditional messenger bag design and why Mission Workshop is proud of its tiny niche in the US military industrial complex.
via iTunes
via email
