About five years ago, Nick from trailer company Carry Freedom came to me with a rough sketch for a bike for the Post Office. After lots of designing and redesigning, building prototypes and jumping on them to see where they would break, we ended up with the Paper Bicycle.

The Paper Bicycle started off as a simple idea - make a bike that you don’t need to worry about. Bikes are great, for lots of different things, but they do sometimes need a bit more attention than a car - we wanted to develop a bike that you could just jump on and ride, and not worry about maintenance or delicate mechanisms or things like that. Plus, it also had to be very good to ride, otherwise you wouldn’t want to!

The frame design is deceptively simple - two loops form the rear frame, with one acting as the chaincase as well. Unlike every other chaincase, this one isn’t flimsy plastic - it’s got a very strong steel loop around the outside, and very rigid side panels (normally in thick ABS, but other materials can be used) - so it really will withstand impacts and won’t rattle or fall off. The loop on the other side mirrors the chaincase, and also gives you a useful handle right at the centre-of-gravity for lifting the bike up stairs or onto a rack.

The rest of the frame is also steel, chosen for strength, fatigue resistance, and easy repairability. Cables run completely enclosed inside the main frame tube, so there’s nothing to snag and it keeps the clean frame lines as well. There’s only one frame size, suitable for people with inside leg lengths of 70cm to 95cm - that’s 95% of the population ;-)

There are four frame colours as standard, Ivory White, Oxide Red, Olive Grey and Matte Black, with black side panels - custom colours possible: