It started with the idea of contrasting cycling’s negative relationship with drugs, against other cultural movement’s relationships with drugs.

The opportunity to continue the reproduction of romantic odes to cycling or aristocratic statements through the custom built machine - in this case a Hesson Labs ORRB - didn’t interest me. I’m not what I’d consider to be very masculine and seeing as I graduated just over a year ago, hardly very aristocratic either. My Hesson Labs couldn’t resemble the weary clean cut aesthetic of a boring corportate suit, maybe with a pinstripe and paired with a vaguely interesting-to-look-at tie. This had to be a bright pink suit. With frills. A pin stripe that says “fuck you” and exclusively worn with cowboy boots.

Professional cycling has historically had a very scandalous relationship with drugs, but in contrast, some of the most iconic cultural movements of the past century have been catalysed by music and the use of drugs.

Through polarising the undisputed ‘bad’ of drugs (doping) in sport with their seemingly positive use in club cultures, this creates an eluding, but non-proclaiming statement about professional cycling being a sport that has a relationship with drugs. This embodies a dutiful awareness of cycling’s past and present that is not deluded or nostalgic, but should not be mistaken as sympathising with doping in sport.

Disco and Rave - the main influences of the art works I provided to Ian and Paul at Quintessential Custom’s - are the anti-thesis to professional cycling. As a result of social-media there is an increasing awareness of the disproportionate opportunities, rewards and penalties shown towards genders and ethnicity’s excluding cis-white-men. Accounts such as: @Cyclista_zine, @Highimpactcyclingmemes, @hiheyhellomagazine, @pedaltothepeople, @ride4unity, @friends.on.bikes, @abattycakes and @ZetlandCycles to name but a few, spread this awareness regularly. Socially in contrast, club cultures such as: rave and disco are rooted in ethnically diverse LGBTQ+ communities that fostered safe spaces that celebrate gender and race without discrimination - a quality that professoinal cycling lacks. Through the convergence of an object that embodies a traditionally strong and toxic ego with cultures that have fostered open mindedness, diversity and acceptance, this Hesson Labs (005) should make clear the ideas and events that haunt cycling, but that do not define its future.

Full credit is given to Tom of Hesson Labs for building the frame and Ian & Paul of Quintessential Customs Workshop for their amazing interpretation of my slightly-mad idea. Below are the artwork’s I produced for them to design with.

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