​

---

The idea for Velo Culture was born from the pile of punctured inner tubes that had been growing in the corner of the garage (hands up who has one?!), the unenvironmentally friendly bit of cycling that we wanted to do something about. In todays throwaway society many tubes are discarded after a single puncture and will end up in landfill! With cycling booming in the UK that’s a lot of discarded tubes and a big chunk of landfill.
In late 2013 redundancy gave the perfect opportunity to turn the idea into reality and take the plunge to become self employed. The goal was to build an ethical, sustainable business producing handmade innertube based products that were durable, long lasting and a great alternative to leather.
So, with nothing to lose and armed with a domestic sewing machine we set about trying to reduce landfill one tube at a time and made our first ever upcycled inner tube item, a little purse with wonky stitching that is still used by Bev today!

With our stitching straightened up our first product for sale was a minimalist wallet/ pouch that we christened the ‘Cake Stop Caddy’ after cyclists love for a mid ride coffee and cake. These little pouches have been featured on Road.cc and in T3 and are still one of our most popular items.
We now collect tubes from workshops and cyclists across the UK as the range has expanded to include The Rubber Dub Dub wash bag, The Flatty wallet and Less Waist belt amongst others. Wherever possible other materials used are also upcycled (like the charity shop bought t-shirts that line the Soft Cell phone case) or sourced new from other UK companies and manufacturers.