Bicycles of the Future

From Picasso to Ai Weiwei, from Iris Murdoch to HG Wells, cycling has long been the inspiration for artists and creative minds. Yet the fundamental design of a bicycle has remained unchanged for over a hundred years and the material of choice to build the frames is usually metal or carbon. Top endurance cyclist Lee Craigie travels to Denmark to meet cutting edge bicycle designers Paul Harder Cohen and Mette Walsted, who are taking a very different approach and crafting bikes from a material that’s been around for millions of years: wood. Paul and Mette take Lee through their creative process in their buzzing dockside studio workshop in Copenhagen, as they design and construct their bike frames from a combination of ash and walnut. Each bike takes over two months to make and each one is unique thanks to the organic nature of the wood they are crafted from. As well as getting involved in the creation of a new bicycle, Lee finds out about ways that form and function intersect, and hops into the saddle to reflect on how this design gives a highly distinctive feeling of interaction between rider and machine. (Photo: Bike designers Mette Walsted and Paul Harder Cohen, with kind permission)