Velo Culture: Beautiful Bicycles (Bicicletas Bonitas)

Text Miguel Barbot
Photographs: Miguel Barbot e Alice Bernardo

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.

By then, we had different motivations to open an urban, design-driven bicycle shop. We were at the beginning of a shift in how people live and use our cities. In addition, there was rising concern about consumerism's impact on the environment and health.

A small film directed by Sidney Dore and audio by João Bento Soares explains the motivations of Velo Culture. We launched it at the time of the store opening in the centre of Porto.

Meanwhile, water has passed under the Leixoes cantilevered bridge. Velo Culture has a different team, but the offering and mentality are the same, which is remarkable. In Velo Culture's manifesto, written in 2017 but still up-to-date, you can read as follows:

“To make a difference in these two areas - environment and mobility - we, on the one hand, sell and create products that fit the purpose and last on a small scale. Moreover, we prefer European suppliers who comply with strong ethical standards. But, on the other hand, we keep the bicycles we sell in the right working conditions by not charging the maintenance service in a lifetime offer.

Since we founded the company in 2011, we have been obsessed with selling only the most durable bicycles at their price range. Anyone visiting our shops knows we don't try to sell something because it is the most expensive. Instead, we want to sell something that will fit the function and be a lifetime companion to its owner. We don't want to sell more; we want to sell better.”

Above the Velo Culture team, below the perspective of the stores and workshop.

With this attitude, a small business like Velo Culture is more a marathon than a sprint race, fuelled by customer loyalty, word-of-mouth, consistency, and a network of friends supporting the slow but sustainable growth of the brand.

Video and audio made by João Bento Soares. It celebrates our neighbourhood and the collaboration with OSOB that resulted in the construction of a cargo bike.

Collaboration is, from the beginning, in the Velo Culture genes. We have worked collaboratively over the years, launching new products, organizing events or creating unique designs that allow the brand to evolve. Like this one from Miguel Moreira (Ofício), where we created a new graphic language with a pattern made of bicycle parts representing the letter of the word "Bicicletas Bonitas", the brand's motto. This work resulted in a poster, postcards and stickers. 

Some of the collaborations: O Editorial, Bodyspace, Feelflows surfboards, Saber Fazer, OSOB, Titan (Valdemiro), Titan (Valdemiro), Vasco Mourão (Velo Culture + Manifesto). You can know each of them in detail on this page.

The illustration "Bicicletas Bonitas" is the concretization of something we started in 2012. The logo designed by Zé Peneda (who also designed the Titan logo and headbadge)  is an essential brand asset. So many things changed and evolved over the years, but this logo is something we still enjoy as we did the first time we saw it.

You can find the illustration at Velo Culture shops.