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 [...]
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Bart Kyzar: Man on a Mission
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 [...]
Season opener: Knutsford Great Race and all the fun of the Cycle Show 2010
Window shopping at the Cycle Show 2010 taking in the latest offerings from Brooks (saddles), Bisignals (lights), Bike Dock (storage), Carradice (bags), Schmidt Maschinenbau (dynamo lights) and the Moulton Bicycle Company. Matt Sparkes reports from the once-a-decade Knutsford Great Race, where upwards of 80 competitors raced their ‘ordinaries’ (penny farthings or high-wheelers) in a deadly [...]
Cycle Show 2010: the pick of the crop
It was to Earls Court on Thursday for the trade and press day of the annual Cycle Show. It seemed there were fewer exhibitors than in past years, with Sunrace Sturmey Archer perhaps the most noticeable and from my point of view, regrettable, absentee. What the Cycle Show 2010 lacked in venerable British (now Taiwanese) [...]
Could U be the most beautiful bike in the world?
When Prince sings about the most beautiful girl in the world, we know he’s not telling us she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, rather that she’s the most beautiful girl in the world to him. In 1994 or thereabouts, when I moved back to London after university, I bought a bike from a [...]
Ron Cooper on Ron Cooper
Ron Cooper is a legend in frame-building. He started as a fifteen-year-old apprentice with A.S. Gillott, and his frames have come to define the very best of the British lightweight style. He talks about the early days learning from master frame-builders like Jim Collier and Bill Philbrook, his own racing career and his commercial success [...]
Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away
More than a few people have raised objections to the way the Mayor of London has, for the relatively modest sum of £5 million a year for 5 years, given Barclays bank the right to paint large swathes of London’s public highway in its corporate shade of blue, have its name emblazoned on street signs [...]
