The subject of this first Time Machine, a series of posts honouring past projects of Barbot Bernardo's founders,  is one of my dearest: the collab we proposed to our dear friend Álvaro Tavares Ramos, which consisted in a limited edition bicycle.

We wanted to create a bicycle beautiful and timeless, with a design interpreting the values and aesthetics of O Editorial, a curatorial project (and now communication agency) founded by Álvaro.

Our "Independents" are the best placemakers a city could wish for and should be cherished by all. Since 2014, we have been working with dozens of small food, retail, and creative businesses in Porto. When we look at the city map, we will find a particular area where our spotlight has been beaming more intensely: Bombarda, Porto's Art District, which makes sense. Our "thing" as strategists and designers is culture and creativity in its broader sense.

Velo Culture, a business closely linked to Barbot Bernardo and Ofício, was created in October 2011 by people united by the love of bicycles and a more "calm" way of living in the city. They decided to open a store in Matosinhos's then-degraded Matosinhos Municipal Market.

After almost ten years, it is a national reference in everything that respects cycling as a means of transport and a more contemplative way of cycling on road and travel cycling.

Velo Culture is very concerned with more conscious consumption, and its customers are people who buy less but buy better.

Ofício recently finished a commission to Velo Culture, the illustration "Bicicletas Bonitas", which means Beautifull Bicycles in Portuguese, designed by Miguel Moreira. It will be a decade this year since I founded Velo Culture with two friends. The first Velo Culture bicycle shop opened in the early days of 2012 in Matosinhos, in the Fish Market. A few years later, we opened a second shop in Central Porto, which is now shared with the Ofício Studio.