BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Father and son Ian and Trevor Hughes have today pulled back the curtain on their new road bike brand, Vielo. It will be available via a select number of UK bike shops – twelve have signed up so far.
Via their company Vielo Sports the pair were formerly the UK brand builders for Storck, but their distribution contract was terminated in February 2017. Prior to setting up Vielo Sports the industry veterans had operated through Storck Raddar UK, winner of the 2015 Bike Biz Award for best specialist distributor.
The brand’s first bike – a “road plus”/gravel model – has been styled in Italy, engineered in Germany, manufactured in Asia and then assembled in Vielo Sports’ Gateshead HQ.
Hughes Snr, who started in the industry with Marin in the 1990s, said: “Many bike brands are compromised on design and detail for the UK market. They don’t really take into consideration the inadequately maintained tarmac and the state that British roads have fallen into over the years.”
The Vielo V+1 is based on an 890g UD carbon frame, and is made for SRAM’s 1x group sets. The frame, which features passive rear suspension, is capable of taking 42mm or 650B x 2.1mm tyres. There’s UK-specific internal cable routing, and discreet mudguard-mounts.
Optional upgrades include Lightweight Wegweiser wheels (Vielo Sports is the German brand’s UK distributor) and a RockShox Reverb dropper seatpost that operates with the left-hand shift paddle rather than with a separate remote.
Pricing for the V+1 – which arrives in stores in February – starts at £2,999 for the frameset, with complete bikes starting from £5,299. Road-only models are currently in development and will be available in July.
Vielo Sports is exhibiting at the Core Bike trade show in January.
There’s a 45-minute interview with Ian and Trevor Hughes on the Spokesmen industry podcast. They discuss the launch of Vielo, and go into greater detail on how they created their own bike brand.
