Luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton is now selling a range of urban bikes, priced between £20,200 and £22,900. There are “nods to Louis Vuitton’s heritage” throughout with a leather saddle and luggage rack, branded canvas wrapping most of the frame’s triangle and… wooden mudguards.
> 14 of the world’s most expensive road bikes
While there are plenty of examples of luxury car companies lending their names to bikes such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin, it’s rarer for high fashion brands to muscle in. One of the more notable examples is a bike made over 120 years ago adorning the logos of the luxury jeweller Tiffany, featuring ivory handlebars and a Tiffany monogram etched on. It sold for $57,000 in 2008.
There is a loose connection between Louis Vuitton and the cycling industry, as its owner LVMH – Europe’s most valuable company – is part of the huge private equity firm L Catterton that acquired Pinarello in 2016.
Back to the bike – there are various colours available, all with those curious back-to-front handlebars and with either crossbar or step-through style frames. Very little details are given about the spec, other than the disc brakes are mechanical and the gearing is courtesy of a “2-speed crank”. The rims and mudguards are made of tinted wood, you get lights and there’s a GPS tracking chip underneath the saddle, so you can send your servants to retrieve the bike should it be stolen by bandits on the streets of Paris.
“A symbol of Parisian chic, the Louis Vuitton Bike is perfect for a two-wheel city adventure or a countryside exploration, inviting each curious cyclist, beginner or experienced, to explore horizons, comfortably meandering any landscape,” boasts Louis Vuitton.
If you’re worried about the lack of details on how your bike will ride, Louis Vuitton do reassure us that each bike is “meticulously handcrafted and assembled at the Maison Tamboite studio in the Bastille district of Paris.”
Maison Tamboite have been expertly producing steel frames for a century, so you can probably expect the same level of craftsmanship on the LV-branded bikes if the price tags are anything to go by.
If you have 20 grand to burn or just really want one of the bikes, you can shop the range here. To celebrate the launch, Louis Vuitton has also stuck a gloriously French video on its YouTube channel. Va-va-voom…
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
18 thoughts on “Louis Vuitton launches range of £20,000 town bikes”
Quote:
Are the two speeds ‘stopped’ and ‘moving’?
It also has a hidden 3rd
It also has a hidden 3rd speed, ‘walking’ as demonstrated in the product video
Perhaps the lettering on the
Perhaps the lettering on the seat stay bridge could be reversed.
Now can rich school kids that
Now can rich school kids that wear a uniform at least distinguish themselves from one another by means of their luxury bicycle.
Wooden rims? For real?
Wooden rims? For real?
Well, it is disc brakes (of a
Well, it is disc brakes (of a fashion) !
Old bikes had them, saw a guy
Old bikes had them, saw a guy building a wooden rim on the programme about brooklands motor museum.
Wooden rims were used for the
Wooden rims were used for the first three decades of Tour history: the first aluminium rims (made by Mavic) didn’t appear until 1934. Steel-rimmed wheels were of course commonplace for “ordinaries” but far too heavy to race.
Tim Moore used a wooden-rimmed bike for “Gironimo”, his recreation of the 1921 Giro.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I tried building a bike out of wood once.
I used wooden rims, wooden spokes, wooden frame, wooden bearings and wooden handlebars. I finally got the wooden chain fitted and then I found that it wooden go.
I has a crutch and bell what
It has a crutch and bell what ever that is.
How difficult is it to swap out the saddle and leave the chip behind ?
Is it available under the bike ot work scheme ?
It will be a garage ornament
It will be a garage ornament for those who don’t need to ask how much it costs. But hopefully we will see Kan(Ye) riding around on one soon enough.
‘…all with those curious
‘…all with those curious back-to-front handlebars’
This is poor from a supposed cycle journalist. There is nothing unusual about the handlebars. In fact they’re quite common on old French bikes. See Ergotec Toulouse or VO Bellville for modern versions.
Luis V is, after all, a French brand.
That being said it’s an odd mix of parts.
Gotta remember though it’s not a bike for cyclists. It’s a bike for people who think a t-shirt is worth 100 times its value if it has a certain logo on it.
They are still an odd
They are still an odd configuration, time-honoured or not, and so the journalist is very much within their rights to call them “curious”, because they are.
I probably could have
I probably could have expanded further there to add that this style of bar was common back in’t day (see this edition of Bike at Bedtime for an example from the US), but definitely not taking it back that they are curious on this bike. If it’s retro they’re going for then why disc brakes and a gps tracking device! A flat bar would have been far more ergonomic and wouldn’t have affected the look imo.
Absolutely. It’s a dog’s
Absolutely. It’s a dog’s dinner of parts.
It’s “Emporer’s new clothes”
It’s “Emporer’s new clothes” stuff
They all do it, Louis Vuitton, Parlee, Specialized, Tune, Rapha ….. (any brand here)…..
So much money, so little
So much money, so little taste.
Isn’t this just a bling
Isn’t this just a bling Pashley? The top tube is a little short for me…..and the price too high, fortunately.