On your bike

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 | By Angus Montgomery

Bikes designed by Ron Arad and singer Paloma Faith will be spinning around central London in a scheme from the W London hotel.

The hotel has tasked Arad and Paloma Faith, alongside illustrator Natasha Law, fashion designers Patrick Cox and Alice Temperley and artist Benedict Radcliffe to customise and individual bike each, as part of a scheme to support the Elton John Aids Foundation.

The bikes will be available to hire until 29 October and will then be auctioned, with proceeds going to the foundation.

With art direction by Radcliffe, each individual design takes a different path - so Paloma Faith’s bike features piano keys on the mudguard and a ’50s radio set in the handlebars and Arad’s (pictured) uses biomorphic steel shapes.

Cox describes his design - with a front-mounted box featuring a music system and a coffee machine - as ‘very disco and very Soho’, while Law’s, described as ‘a bar on a bike’ features a drinks rack and a cocktail bar.

As well as designing the bikes, each of the six has contributed their favourite London cycle route, so you can follow in the tyre tracks of Alice Temperley through Portobello Market, or Patrick Cox in Regent’s Park.

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