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Graeme Obree has spoken out on his ambitions to a launch a British-built bike range to the Guardian bike blog.
The Scottish cycling star, nicknamed the ‘Flying Scotsman’, said he’d had the possibility of following in Chris Boardman’s footsteps in building a bike brand, but his wish to build the bikes in Britain had frustrated such a possibility.
Obree went on to praise the skills of British manufacturers and added that his designs would also likely be hampered by conventional groupset offerings.
“I had the possibility of doing the same thing [as Boardman] but I thought – do I want bikes built in China and shipped over here with my name on them? I’m not saying what Boardman has done is a bad thing, it’s just me. I’d want to build bikes which say ‘hand-crafted in Britain’.
“There’s a British tubing industry and there’s a lot of skill in this country, there’s a lot of young people looking for employment, so why would you get more money pumped out of the country?
“Also, I’ve got designs I’d like to use but they don’t fit in with what you can buy as a groupset, with the components. The components would need to change, everything would be innovative. As soon as you start deviating from the mainstream, what’s on the market as a complete package for a bike, the cost goes up because it’s then a bespoke product.”
