Scots invention comes full cycle in global deal

IT WAS invented in Scotland and spawned an industry that once saw its most famous brand – The Flying Scot – exported around the world.

Now a Glasgow entrepreneur is to start a new two-wheeled revolution and sell a 21st-century version of the bicycle across the globe.

In a move that will bring cycle manufacturing back to Scotland, Neil MacMartin has landed a contract to supply up to 100 electric bicycles to car-free Masdar, a new eco-city currently under construction on the coast of Abu Dhabi.

The lightweight bikes will cost at least 1,500 each and are designed to provide a "green" transport system to allow Masdar citizens and visitors to travel around the city for free.

MacMartin plans to start production in October, with the first deliveries in November. He is currently finalising a site for a new factory in Glasgow and plans to recruit engineers who formerly worked in the Clydeside shipbuilding industry.

He hopes that his order book will swell after he pitches the bike to world leaders, including US president Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, who are gathering for a world energy summit in the oil-rich Arab state early next year.

"They are the greenest electric bikes on the market and I was looking for the greenest city in the world to trial them in," said MacMartin.

"My hope is that the world leaders will try them out at the summit and from there they will spread across the world."

• Chain reaction

MacMartin, 26, comes from a Glasgow family with a long history in bicycle retailing. His new electric bicycle has been designed alongside engineers from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology.

What marks it out from competitors is that it is about a third lighter than most models currently on the market.

The bikes cost between 1,500 and 4,000 each. The price is dependent on battery power, with the most expensive version able to travel 100 miles between charges.

The plan is for Masdar residents, or visitors, to be able to pick up and deposit the bikes for free at charging "stations" as they make their way around the city.

The initial order for MacMartin's company, Freeflow Bikes, includes the bikes themselves plus battery charging stations and locks, which will meet 12 per cent of the city's public transport needs at present.

However, Masdar is a city in its infancy and is expected to have a population of 1.8 million by 2030.

Masdar is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, it will rely entirely on solar and other renewable energy sources.

Costing $22 billion (13.4bn) to build, it will host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency and will take eight years to complete.

It will be home to around 50,000 people initially and 1,500 businesses, specialising in environmentally friendly products with more than 60,000 workers expected to commute to the city daily. However, cars will be banned.

The ambitious project will be introduced to the world in January during the World Future Energy Summit to be attended by leaders of the G20 group of companies. Freeflow is planning to have its bike on show and plans to start manufacturing in October.

The company is on the verge of clinching a 5 million investment deal to get it up and running and will employ 300 people initially.

"The manufacturing plant will have the capacity to build 100,000 units," MacMartin said. "We have plans for very significant growth and hope to be building one million plus units by 2015."

One benefit of Freeflow's location is the potential to use skills that have been made redundant by the decline of Glasgow's manufacturing industry. "I think it's a bit disgraceful that we used to compete for 2,000 ships and get 200, and we now compete for 200 and get two," he said.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, from Dumfries, is credited with inventing the first pedal-propelled bicycle in the 1830s while David Rattray's lightweight The Scot and The Flying Scots models were manufactured and exported from the west coast until the early 1980s.

MacMartin said he was proud that he was bringing the tradition back to Scotland. "But this time I want to make sure it never leaves," he added.