Porterlight Bicycles X Deliveroo - Custom London Cargo Bike

Great to see London cargo bike manufacturer Porterlight Bicycles has been working with takeaway food company Deliveroo  to produce a high capacity cargo bike suited to the UK's roads... and weather!

Porterlight Bicycles X Deliveroo - Custom London cargo bike

With cargo cycling in London taking off in a big way, it's wonderful to see local companies collaborating to build solutions to the city's traffic and congestion problems. The ability for Deliveroo to get hot takeaway orders to their customers quickly is paramount, so it's not surprising that this disruptive start-up is keen to seek out the tools that make it all possible.

The Deliveroo cargo bike features an 8 speed Shimano Alfine, Avid BB5 disc brakes, a giant cargo deck, and a custom rear rack for that trademark Deliveroo rear pannier box.

Porterlight Bicycles X Deliveroo - custom London cargo bike with rear rack

All in all, it's a great looking cargo bike solution for the UK and even better it's coming from a London based cargo bike builder, Porterlight. More details about the bike here and the normal Bringley cargo bike model here.

Porterlight Bicycles X Deliveroo - Custom London cargo bike

How cargo bikes are taking off in London and the UK

London is a city in the middle of a cycling revolution. At the beginning of 2013 the mayor pledged over £900 million to be spent on new infrastructure and campaigns aimed at getting more of the city's residents and visitors on their bikes.

Since then, new Cycle Superhighways, shared bike schemes, and traffic calming measures across the city have led to a massive increase in the number of people making journeys by bike. One effect this has had, is that more people are using cargo bicycles as a way of completing trips when they need to move larger cargo.

London is becoming a cargo cycling city.

Just like many European cities, London is getting switched on to the world of cargo bicycles, and the result is that innovative manufacturers are designing cargo bikes aimed at the UK market specifically.

Enter Bringley, by Porterlight Bicycles. At only 40cm longer than a normal bicycle, Bringley was designed by UK bike builder Lawrence Brand as a way of making cargo bikes accessible for people who live in apartments, or don't have space to store a large traditional cargo bicycle. The compact length means that the bike can fit in a normal domestic lift when on it's back wheel.

Bringley, a cargo bike built in London and designed for the UK market

Each Bringley bike is built by hand in London on a custom order basis. This makes it ideal for parents looking to move children around by bicycle, and especially companies who need a custom branded delivery, or marketing cargo bike. Porterlight offers a complete branding service for their bikes which means customer can receive a cargo bike designed especially for them.

A custom cargo bike in London by Porterlight Bicycles for East London Liquor Company

One such customer is East London Liquor Company who now deliver their premium spirits to customers and bars around their London distillery by cargo bike.

Porterlight Bicycle's custom Bringley cargo bike now works delivering spirits in East London

As well as company bikes, Porterlight also produces family bikes equipped with two ultra-safe BoBike Dutch child seats on the deck. These mean parents can safely and easily cycle around London with their children on the school run, to the local park, or for a countryside outing.

Porterlight Bicycles produces a custom family cargo bike designed for safely and easily carrying children

Recently Porterlight has gained recognition of their design work at an eight month cycling exhibition curated by The Design Museum. The Cycle Revolution exhibition features Porterlight founder Lawrence Brand, and the story of his 5,000km test ride for the prototype cargo bike from Romania to Kazakhstan.

Porterlight Bicycle's prototype cargo bike on display at London's Design Museum for the Cycle Revolution exhibition

As more and more Londoners, and people across the UK, look to cycling as a way of completing more and more journeys, cargo bicycles look set to become a common sight on our streets. From companies doing deliveries, to families on the school run, or people getting the weekly shop home, cargo bikes like Bringley offer a great way to get around London's parks, cycle lanes, and winding streets.

Bringley the compact cargo bike by Porterlight Bicycles

Changing the pace from the normal posts here, I thought I'd share one of my new projects with one of my oldest. I started Bicycle Safari as a way of sharing my interest in cool and unusual bicycles I spotted so I wouldn't have to bore the people I was with at the time by going on about them.

Bicycles have always been a big part of my life, and have been a primary means of transport for most of my time as an adult. They've taken me to the shops, to bars, to university, and they've also taken me around a good chunk of the world. My total touring distance now stands at 12,000km with an almost unbroken line of cycling from Bath, UK, to the eastern most border of Kazakhstan.

The prototype Bringley out on the Kazakh Steppe

My most recent touring trip, a 5,000km three month epic from Romania to that Chinese border, was extra special for me though as for the first time, I was riding my own bicycle. I don't mean I'd ridden my other tours on a borrowed bike, but for this trip I had physically made my first frame and bike.

Let me introduce you to Bringley, well, first the prototype.

Resting the bicycle by the Black Sea in Turkey

Despite carrying all my camping and touring gear for three months, the prototype cargo bike held up perfectly. Starting out on the smooth tarmac on Turkey's Black Sea coast, and ending up bouncing along unsurfaced back roads in rural Kyrgyzstan. My confidence in the frame grew as the kilometers went by, but I also learned a lot about how a cargo bicycle should work and perform.

Having completed my trip, I flew back to London and started revising my design for this custom cargo bike further. Strengthening some pieces, smoothing out bumps, adding brackets, and getting those angles just right.

After a year in my London workshop, out from a pile of 4130 chromoly tubes emerged.... Porterlight Bicycles and from the new company... Bringley.

Bringley - a custom cargo bike made in London

A compact cargo bike designed for modern urban living. It's short enough to fit in a domestic lift, and be stored in an apartment, but it's long enough to carry your day-to-day belongings. It can take children to school, the dog to the park, and your weekly food shop home again.

A cargo bike in London makes so much sense. London is a compact city, meaning that the idea of storing your cargo bike outside just doesn't work for most people. By fitting into a lift, and only weighing 18.8kg, Bringley is able to get up to people's flats and is happy living in the hallway, or tucked behind a sofa. Each bike is custom made, so you can use the online bicycle configurator to build your design and make it fit your life.

Porterlight Bicycles - Bringley the cargo bike

It's been a long journey, also to Kazakhstan, but mostly since I started the Bicycle Safari to share my love of bikes. Five years later I find myself in London, and sharing my love of bicycles in a totally new way. I hope you like it just the same.

The Viscount is head of the badges.

So after an epic break in posting, here's a little something to keep the gears spinning, the pedals turning and all moving parts well greased. I only keep this blog for fun and to share the cool stuff, so when my work load goes crazy, I don't want it to become another chore.

But here's a Viscount head badge!

Neat neat neat! Normal posting will resume soon, with the usual mix of retro, vintage and weird bikes, as well as three new bike builds and details of an exciting pan-European bike trip!

Ride old bikes forever!

Peugeot Nouveau Folding Shopper Bike

Another bike from the bike sale on the green today. This one's a little 20 inch wheeled folding shopper bike from Peugeot... the Nouveau!

One of the nicest old Peugeot logos I've seen for a while.

Some 'Nouveau' touches!

Old Peugeot bike lettering.

And a neat little lamp.

A sensible vintage Peugeot folder!

Hercules carries on commuting

A good old fashioned bike logo for you today, from Hercules bike co. One of the local second hand bike shops brought their stock onto the Nottingham campus the other day, and this old 'commuter' stood out as the oldest... and most interesting!

Tatty but rad logo on the headtube.

Declaring its commuter intentions.

A nice old piece of steel. That should serve someone well for many a year yet.

Dave Quinn fixed gear retro dose

A crazy work schedule is keeping me away from the Bicycle Safari at the moment, but here's a little retro fixed gear treat for you. I've posted an awesome looking Harry Quinn bike before, but this is a Dave Quinn frame, and I don't fully understand the relationship between the two. Maybe someone will chip in on the comments!

Really nice lettering, just like on the Harry Quinn frame.

Yep!

A nice little touch on the seat stays.

A neat classic looking modern bike!

Peugeot Raider, classic day-glo mountain bike

This is not the first time I've seen a super crazy pink Peugeot bike sitting around Nottingham! Strangely.

This is the first vintage Peugeot mountain bike I've come across though, which makes a change from the usual Peugeot classic town or road bike.

A great old Peugeot bike logo on the head tube.

This one is the Peugeot Raider.

Again being built with the Peugeot direct brazing system, that I have seen before!

Neat neat neat. I feel like some of the day-glo-ness of the colour might have been lost with time, but you can feel it's something a bit bold!

Yeoman Envoy is diplomatic about its job

Continuing the never ending trawl through the world of obscure bicycle brands, today we have a Yeoman Envoy to take a look at!

Super clean design on the headbadge logo. Quite unlike most of the other much busier old bicycle logos of the 70s and 80s.

This particular one is a 20 inch wheeled, folding shopper bike. This were strangely popular back in the day in Britain, I guess because of their low cost and ability to tuck away in an awkward place.

Whoever owns this one certainly seems to want to hold on to it judging by the big lock on a small bike!

A neat little vintage bike!

Classic Triumph Racing Bike

Here's a nice slice of classic British racing bicycle for you today. It's an old Triumph, looking resplendent in red!

Awesome old fashioned head badge up front.

Some nicely ageing vintage lettering on the down tube.

A very nicely looked after bike!

With some graphics that look like they're spanning the gap between the classic striped graphics of the 60s and 70s and pushing into the more fluid abstraction of the 80s and 90s! Thanks to some recent good weather here in Nottingham, the bike racks are filling up with interesting steel, dragged from people's sheds. So expect some more good bikes soon!

Classic Condor, a lugged, hacked and loved? bike

Using an old bike as a daily commuter is very cool. It's sustainable, practical and sometimes classy. Especially when you've got a sweet lugged classic Condor frame like this!

The usual rad head badge logo!

Twice!

I say it's a nice Condor frame, because some of the great details like this hand painted seat stay end.

And old Condor logo text, don't seem to fit with what you see on the rest of the bike!

Sticking out from the cockpit like a branch off a tree, is this bar grip shifter! A strange addition to a classic road bike you might think.

But when you've added a modern internal hubbed gear on the back too, it makes a bit more sense! How great to keep an older bike going through the modernisation and upgrade of some select parts! Ride Old Bikes Forever!

A Human Powered Vision of the Future

Regulars here at the Bicycle Safari will notice the two new ad banners on the pages for Vision of the Future. But rather than this being some smart company buying in on the ground floor, it's my new project! I had the idea for making a shirt celebrating the choice of being human powered, whilst maybe staying a bit more stylish for the bicycle lane fashion parade, knocking around for a while, and it felt like the time to give it a try and see how it goes!

They're printed on sweat-shop labour free ringspun cotton t-shirts, and are screen printed by hand in the UK using only waterbased inks to avoid the toxic by products of chemical printing inks.

It's called Vision of the Future, and have a click over the new site, to see what you think!

How to find a puncture using a mudguard

Here's a little change of pace from the usual old bike logos that make up the bread and butter of The Bicycle Safari. It's a little trick I stumbled into when my Hateful Raleigh Beater bike took a puncture yesterday morning. Strangely I haven't heard of it as a tip before, and google isn't showing much, so maybe this will be new to you too!

Rear tire was completely flat when I went to take the bike out, so tried my usual tactic of re- inflating the tube and seeing if I could hear the air coming out from anywhere. Unfortunately, no luck, and I didn't fancy taking the wheel and tyre off to do a more thorough job of finding the hole. But then I had a little brain wave.

Being my everyday commuter, it's got proper mudguards (fenders, if you like) and the rear one is a decent tyre enclosing full length affair. So I fetched a glass of water, and with the bike upside down, filled the fender!

My fender runneth over!

With a quick spin of the wheel, a tell-tale stream of little bubbles appeared from a near imperceivable hole in the tyre, now submerged in my flooded fender!

So then I was able to lever off that one section, pull the tube out for a quick patching, then back together for a speedy repair! Pulling this trick off with the much shorter front mudguard would be a bit more challenging, but maybe one day this little hack will help you out!