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.
Listeners write in with recollections of their favourite ride of 2011 and most exciting plans for riding in 2012. Plus clothing designer Amy Fleuriot tells of her new Cyclodelic boutique on Columbia Road and shows a few of the her new lines. Jack, Jen and Amy offer a few of their own style pointers for cycling fashionistas thinking about what to wear in 2012.
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.
Jen meets Tim Jacques, one of the film-makers at this year’s Bicycle Film Festival, whose film “Peace and Lovely Tailoring” combines Rastafari, cycling and tweed clothing – a surefire winner here at The Bike Show. And we hear from Patrick Morgan, a Kiwi over in Europe on a fact-finding mission about cycle training and campaigning. In a podcast extra this week, Jack chats with Brendt Barbur, founder of the Bicycle Film Festival, about cycling in London and New York and why 2012 will be all about women in cycling.
The summer season kicks of with an entertaining and borderline nerdy discussion of the past, present and future of the cycling jersey. From Bianchi’s 1950s classic celeste blue to Mapei pushed the dye sublimation process to its limits and divided fans in equal measure. We take the story as far as today’s trend for any colour as long as its black, and look to the sci-fi future of interactive jersey materials.
Richard Mitchelson's homage to the Tour de France, by Milltag
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.
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) hub gears, it made up for in cycle sport celebrities. Mario Cipolini was looking every inch the David of the cycling world, towering well over six feet tall, tanned, in skin tight jeans and a bucket of hair gel keeping each and every one of his golden locks in place. Eddy Merckx was doing sterling duty signing autographs on his company’s stand.
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