BORIS Bikes are set to get a makeover from a famous Stratford bicycle manufacturer.
Pashley Cycles will build 500 new bikes from August 2017 for London’s Cycle Hire Scheme as part of an £80million five year contract between Transport for London (TfL) and Serco.
The firm, founded in 1926, will work in partnership with TfL and Serco, who will be responsible for distributing and maintaining the bikes.
Steven Bell, Pashley Cycles General Manager said: “We are delighted to be working on such a prestigious and important scheme.
“We were approached by Serco in early 2015 and became their official bike partner. We have been helping them develop a new product for London since then.”
The bikes were first introduction in 2010, allowing residents and tourists the chance to borrow a bike for a short journey around the capital. They have proved popular – there are currently 11,500 in use – but have also been quite clunky and incredibly heavy.
The new-look bikes, which will be manufactured at Pashley’s Masons Road factory, will be lighter than then current model, with smaller wheels and a lower frame designed to give a more manoeuvrable and comfortable ride.
Mr Bell added it was still early days in terms of production.
“Although we are still in the product development stage, our research and development team’s design has been selected by TfL as one that meets its requirements.
“We now need to turn that design into a production ready bike.”
The company said it was unsure whether there would be any new jobs created and the order was well within their production capacity.
