We’ve been working with the remarkably energetic and inspiring Andrew Denham recently. Andrew is the organiser of the legendary Cobble Wobble – The bike race up a cobbled hill that became Frome Event of the Year 2010 (and probably set to be Event of the Year in 2011). Never content to sit still and rest on his laurels, Andrew has been developing a really exciting and very interesting project; The Bicycle Academy.
The purpose of the Project is to build useful bicycles for people who really need them by creating learning opportunities for others.
- The people who will receive the bikes are in the 3rd world.
- The bikes will be designed specifically for these people, as tools.
- The frame will be made, and bike assembled, by paying students and volunteers in the UK.
The intention is to create a working bicycle that is as useful as can be, taking into account everything from frame design to maintenance of components through out its life.
Rather than raising money to make these bikes in a factory the project will engage with local riding communities in the UK to offer affordable group learning opportunities (such as frame building and bike mechanics) to build the bikes from scratch and fund the purchase of their constituent parts.
By developing a single utility bicycle design and standardising its components the Project will be able to address many of the problems associated with suitability, maintenance and sustainability that other bicycle distribution charities encounter.
We’ve been developing the website at breakneck speed in time for the launch today, including a late night, five-hour tweak session during which we invented the concept of ‘cuss-jenga’ and the phrase “Lush in your face”.*
We’re all pleased with the result – Andrew is very particular about how things appear and aesthetics in general, so David and Andrew spent a long time in the design stage:
Then Nicola did the vast majority of the styling and coding, pulling it all together, and a final concerted effort by the whole team got it running in accordance with Andrew’s vision. The resulting site is simple but graphically strong, with a limited yet striking palette. Andrew designed the logo to look like a cross between a classic bicycle headbadge and a school shield. Using an Open Source content management system such as WordPress means Andrew has no continuing licensing fees, and the software will be easy to update and add to.
The project itself is debuting on the 10th, 11th and 12th of June at Bespoke Bristol, a show for handbuilt bicycles. Good luck Andrew!
Minter!
* That’s a good thing. As in, “All our websites are lush in your face”.
