Sunday, 22 July 2012

Celebrate Bradley Wiggins's British Tour win with an Aston Martin - style on two wheels

After over 100 years of Tour de France history a British man has, at last, reached the Champs Elysée wearing the iconic maillot jaune. Unencumbered by his sideburns, Bradley Wiggins and his Sky team dominated most of the three week race. Cycling, already hot in the UK after Team GB's track successes at the last Olympics, is set to go viral. Suddenly, veteran cyclists like me find taxi drivers and white van man being polite and leaving us room as we thrash out the miles on our racing machines, or potter to work on our commuter bikes.

Coinciding with all the excitement, Aston Martin has seen the light and produced a real machine - a hi-tec bicycle called the One-77 (only 77 are being built). Essentially carbon fibre, the bike features hydraulic brakes and an electronic gear system. It comes with a fully integrated, multi-channel ergonometric data recording system that provides a record of athletic performance on the handlebars.

This lovely machine isn't going to make you go faster - only less beer, fewer chips and more miles in saddle will do that for you. With a price tag of £25,000 it's likely to be seen under the undeserving bums of big-bonus-spending bankers, but hopefully a few  real cyclists will be able to own a one-off technological cycling masterpiece carrying the Aston Martin name.


Aston Martin has been involved in bike design before. I remember Chas Roberts built a mountain bike for them about 18 years ago at about the time he built a bike for me. Here's a video from 1984.

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