Time Machine #1: Velo Culture x O Editorial (2014)
Words: Miguel Barbot. Photogrqphy: Alice Bernardo. Video: Sidney Dore
"As with everything, there are bicycles more appealing than others, and for this special edition, O Editorial collaborated with a like-minded company championing both craftsmanship and aesthetics. Porto-based Velo Culture was a pioneer in Portugal when it comes to presenting the most elegant classic and urban bicycle brands, making them the perfect partner in creating this beautiful bicycle."
Another Something (2014)
I confess I sometimes miss the constant surge of creative energy from the early years at Velo Culture (which we opened in the first days of 2012). We were driven by the notion that we were perhaps slightly ahead of time, slightly in the wrong place. Still, nevertheless the difficulties of running a business catering to design savvy urban cyclists, almost non-existent at the time, we were one of the stepping stones in the complex path of creating a cycling community in Porto, which is not known to be a cycling friendly city.
In those early days, we were inspired by our travels and what we were seeing in cities such as London, Berlin, Barcelona and even Paris. We visited bike shops, bespoke bicycle shows and devoured films, magazines and books.
Last week, 12 years later, a chef friend who runs a small niche restaurant in Porto told me that, after spending a few days in London, he wasn't impressed by what he saw, despite visiting many famous and overhyped restaurants and bakeries: "I now know that I'm better than most of them", he said. After just a few years at Velo Culture, we were thinking the same way. The mix of lower rent and little competition could have stifled creativity, but it was the opposite: we had the freedom to experiment and improve according to our own rules.
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 in 2014 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.
This bicycle, made available in two colours, bright yellow and gunmetal grey, was designed entirely in-house and built using modern parts from British heritage brands such as Sturmey Archer (gear and brake hubs, drivetrain) and Brooks England (C17 Cambium saddle).
Miralago, the Portuguese owner of the Orbita brand, built the sturdy steel frames. We bought a dozen of them from our friend Henrique Pinho, leftover stock from his brand DryDrill. The super high-quality paint job was done by a chap called Carlos at a local auto-paint workshop.
The brilliant mechanical work, which included fitting the complexity of gear and brake hubs into a compact track frame, was done by my co-founders at the Velo Culture workshop.
Last but not least, Alice Bernardo, my partner in life and business, took the excellent photos. Sidney Dore, a Brazilian friend and by then studying film-making in Porto, offered us a short clip from the launch party we held at our shop in Matosinhos.
This project was quite inspiring for the team, and set the tone for the creative direction of future projects, including the opening of a new shop in central Porto and the introduction of brands in the shop's portfolio, such as Brompton and Pelago. It also marked the start of a more sophisticated way of communicating with our committed community, with better photography, and video, a podcast and a popular newsletter.
Twelve years after the launch, we can say that the Editorial bicycle stood the test of time. It remains a quintessentially European bicycle, sleek and modern, yet retaining the vintage je ne sais quoi that only true craftsmanship and handmade bicycles have.
You can read a 2014 post and an interview with Alvaro from O Editorial here.
