Better by bike

As cyclists, we’ve a fair right to claim we’re naturally saving our planet from the imploding parcours it’s currently on, especially when your four-wheeled suffocating commute’s replaced by a two-wheeled breath of fresh air. The stats support our self-righteousness, too, with figures from The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy revealing that carbon dioxide released by cars comes in at 271g for every kilometre driven. For cyclists, it’s 16g. So all good…? Not quite.

Your Specialized Roubaix or Giant TCR weren’t forged by local people from local reusable materials and delivered in person by Caroline Lucas. The bike-manufacturing industry ships product all over the world, leaving a trail of environmentally damaging detritus behind, from emissions churned from forging steel to synthetic repercussions of your bar-end plugs. Then there’s your bike’s life cycle and how ecologically sound its graveyard is. It begs the question: just how sustainable is this most sustainable of activities?

Eco-friendly start ups

Before we meet the movers and agitators, how important is a brand’s eco-friendly credentials to you? It’s a question Pinkbike.com put to its audience in November 2017 with 6879 of the 13,600 responses highlighting mistrust, such as: “I care about eco-friendliness, but it’s difficult to make informed buying decisions based on verifiable truth.” That’s understandable, especially in a world where there are now more than six PR pros for every journalist. Thankfully, there are believable brands such as Bjorn Bikes…

The Canadian start-up is probably new to you – it was to us, aside from a rumour of its impending launch doing the rounds at last year’s Taipei Cycle Show – but the success of its so far one and only model suggests there’ll be more to come. Bjorn’s gravel bike is constructed from