Cyclehoop designer could scoop £20,000

Anthony Lau, a design student at the University of Westminster, created his Cyclehoop street furniture fitting in 2006. It appeared in the Reinventing the Bike Shed exhibition in 2006, will soon go on trial in London and could bag Lau the top prize in the new, Government-backed HSBC Unipreneurs Awards.

His Cyclehoops have the potential to sell like hotcakes. They bolt on to existing street posts, require no concreting-in and they force the cyclist to lock his or her bike down by the bottom bracket rather than the top-tube. This is right place to lock a bike, as evidenced in this bike security article.

Lau told Quickrelease.tv: “I’m drawing up a list of tips on locking techniques. These will be displayed graphically on the Cyclehoop as a sticker.”

The HSBC Unipreneurs Awards are presented in association with the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship.

The overall winner will be decided at a gala evening at BAFTA on 23rd April, when five finalists will be quizzed live on-stage by a panel of experts about their business and why they deserve to be crowned HSBC Unipreneur 2008. Afterwards, a specially invited audience of 200 guests, drawn from the worlds of business, government and the media, will vote for the candidate who has impressed the most and decide who will walk away with the top title.



Whether Lau wins the award or not, his Cyclehoop design is simple and cheap to install. Local authorities with budgets for installing secure cycle racking will be impressed by Cyclehoops. Designer certainly was.

Hemingway was one of the judges at Reinventing the Bike Shed. I was at his home yesterday, interviewing him for Cycling Plus magazine. When I asked him about cycle security, he launched into a paean of praise for the Cyclehoop.