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British Cycling has renewed its partnership with two famed engineering firms to deliver Olympic bikes for 2024.
The governing body for cycling in Britain has extended its relationship with Lotus Engineering and engineering company Renishaw, which both collaboratively worked with British Cycling (BC) to design the bikes used in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Lotus Engineering, best known for its work in sports cars and motor racing, has previous experience of working in cycling, having designed the Lotus Type 108 bike ridden by Chris Boardman to Olympic gold in Barcelona in 1992.
Great Britain Cycling Team performance director, Stephen Park CBE, said: “Over the last Olympic cycle, we have developed fantastic relationships with Renishaw and Lotus, working collaboratively to bring together world-leading expertise from their teams into our programme. This, combined with our in-house team who are constantly working to find the most innovative solutions, such as optimising rider race positions in our newly opened wind tunnel, gives our riders the best possible chance when they get to the start line.
“Having brought back seven track medals from Tokyo, we are excited to see what we can go on to achieve together as we work towards further refining our bike, which is just one part of the world-class support we are able to offer our riders as we set our sights on Paris 2024.”
Team GB had another successful Olympic Games in Tokyo on the Lotus-Renishaw designed bike, topping the cycling medal table with seven medals across the track disciplines.
British Cycling said the bike will be designed in agreement with UCI regulations through 2023 to make it competition-ready, for the summer Olympics in Paris next year.
Matt Windle, Group Vice-President and Managing Director, Lotus Cars, said: “We are thrilled to be continuing this unique and successful partnership with British Cycling. Being involved in the development of such a high-performance machine, and having riders win so many medals riding it on a global elite sporting stage like the Olympics, is fantastic.”
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Ben Collins, senior applications engineer for Renishaw’s additive manufacturing group, said: “We’re really delighted to be working once again with the British Cycling team after the success in Tokyo. Creating a bike light enough for Olympic competition that also stayed within the UCI guidelines was a challenge, but it also gave us the chance to showcase how beneficial additive manufacturing can be across all industries.
“It was great to see how well the bike performed, and now that we’ve renewed the partnership, it will be really exciting to see how we can help improve the bike’s performance for Paris.”
