About Velorution

Velorution started life in the late 1990s as Andrea Casalotti's cargo bike blog, run under the banner "Velo Revolution" — a side project alongside the zero-emissions courier service he ran in London. In 2004 he registered velorution.com and turned the idea into a shop.

The first store opened on Great Titchfield Street in 2005, selling cargo trikes and commuter bikes to people who just wanted to get around the city without a car. It grew from there — Bike Republic bought the business in 2012, a concession opened inside Selfridges in 2015, and by the mid-2010s Velorution had shops across London and the kind of loyal following that would pop in for a saddle and leave an hour later, mid-conversation.

Then, in August 2023, two separate vehicles crashed into two separate Velorution shops within the space of a month — including a bus into the Chelsea store. The business went into administration. By September, all the physical shops had closed.

I'd admired Velorution since 2012 — it's the name I wish I'd thought of for my own cycling site, Discerning Cyclist. So in December 2023 I bought the brand, the website and the social channels out of administration.

I'm not reopening the shops. Instead I'm rebuilding Velorution around the same instinct that made people linger in them in the first place — good stories, honest recommendations, a sense of humour about it all — through three things:

• The Journal — a free weekly newsletter about urban cycling, and the honest, warts-and-all story of rebuilding this business from scratch.
• The Velorution Post — a monthly print subscription: a real letter, a trading card, business numbers I'd normally keep private, and a bit of paper ephemera through your door.
• The Velorution Collective — a small, curated shop of gear from independent makers I'd actually recommend to a friend.

Eventually I'd like there to be a physical space again — somewhere to pop in for a saddle and leave an hour later, mid-conversation, same as before. For now I'm taking the scenic route: letter by letter, story by story, rebuilding it properly rather than rushing back to where it was.