With over 3.5 million of us buying a bike each year, the BBC’s Inside the Factory this week looks at the design and engineering skills that go in to the making of a Brompton bicycle.
Brompton’s bicycle factory, Britain’s largest, produces 46,000 bikes a year to be retailed globally.
The programme challenges Greg Wallace to keep pace with Brompton’s 24 hour manual production line targets, while he learns how to put a folding bicycle together from 1200 parts.
A team of hundreds have both training and years of experience to ensure new, hand-built Bromptons continue coming off the production line every three and a half minutes; Wallace has just 24 hours to turn a ‘box of bits’ into a working bicycle – with a little bit of help.
Out on the road, fellow presenter Cherry Healey gets behind the wheel of an HGV to show cyclists the view of the road from a lorry driver’s point of view. While improved safety measures are being added to heavy goods vehicles, it’s a practical reminder of how sharing the road means such awareness of others’ blind spots can save a cyclist’s life.
As well as looking at the history of the bicycle, including the role of 70,000 ‘parabikes’ in getting soldiers away from World War II drop zones quickly, the programme also looks to the future.
Testing the latest ‘bikes of the future’, Healey takes to the streets of Cambridge to pitch various designs against each other. Eddie Kehoe of Electric Bike Sales introduces Healey and a number of willing passers-by to a Haibike, which then takes its chances in the test ride line up of the latest models, including the Halfbike and a £5000 recumbent.
Although evolving technology has caught the eye of the mainstream media in more recent times, e-bikes have been around for over a decade in the UK. Explaining how the trend has grown globally, Eddie Kehoe explained: “This trend started in Asia…and has in the last 10 years exploded in mainland Europe and the UK. In many ways the growth has been inverted from ‘adopter norms’, with their benefits being embraced by older people first rather than young – unusual for a high tech product. But the benefits are also there for young people, who are now also buying e-bikes in increasing numbers. As more people cycle for transport and leisure on e-bikes, they are reaping the financial and health benefits for doing so too.”
You can find out which bike won the popularity contest, as well as how Wallace gets on, at 8pm on BBC2 tonight and available on iPlayer for 30 days.
