Revealed: the bike that will never win the UCIs (but will cause a stir anyway)

A Harrogate company has created a bike made from redundant IT equipment to celebrate the arrival of the UCI Road World Cycling Championships in the town.
The bike, named Victoria Pedalton, is made from nearly 1,000 old computer parts and took 100 hours to make. (S)The bike, named Victoria Pedalton, is made from nearly 1,000 old computer parts and took 100 hours to make. (S)
The bike, named Victoria Pedalton, is made from nearly 1,000 old computer parts and took 100 hours to make. (S)

Techbuyer, which recycles and refurbishes old technology for resale, has created the life-size sculpture from old servers, CPUs, memory and heatsinks, and hopes the project will also highlight the value in redundant IT hardware.

The 60kg bike took local metal sculptor Steve Blaylock 100 hours to create and required almost 1,000 IT parts.

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Astrid Wynne, sustainability manager at Techbuyer, said: “Every year around 50 million tonnes of e-waste are produced worldwide. Most of this will not be recycled. We refurbish IT equipment so that more hardware is reused rather than unnecessarily sent to landfill. The bike is a really creative way to show the value of reuse, which is what Techbuyer is all about.”

Techbuyer employees have named the bike Victoria Pedalton.

Over the past decade, Techbuyer has expanded operations with sites in the USA, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, but it will always remain a proud Yorkshire company.

“We are really proud to be a global company founded in Harrogate with over 80 per cent of our employees having a Harrogate postcode,” said founder and CEO Kevin Towers.

“We are looking forward to welcoming millions of spectators to the UCI World Championships next week and to celebrate the event with the local community.”

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