VUF Bikes offers a whole range of tricycles for professionals.
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VUF Bikes
Bordeaux will soon have nearly 200 cycling entrepreneurs.
Major brands are also adopting the scooter or cargo bike for last mile delivery in the hypercentre, where traffic and parking become impossible.
To cope with the constraints of the various sectors of activity, several manufacturers offer equipment on demand.
Exploding meters.
Last December, forty professionals were accompanied during the training session of Ma Boîte à Vélo, an association promoting cycling entrepreneurship, in Bordeaux Métropole alone.
A record.
“And we receive messages every day from entrepreneurs who want to either retrain or create a cycling activity,” assures Wiame Benyachou, co-founder of bicycle boxes in New Aquitaine.
Florists, repairers, delivery people… These forty new bike-entrepreneurs will be pedaling towards their activities in the coming weeks.
"The trend was already on the rise in recent years, but the Covid-19 crisis has accelerated things" continues Wiame Benyachou, who is also director of Atelier Remue-Ménage in Bordeaux, a solidarity company specializing in moving to bike.
“We have in particular a lot of restaurateurs who are starting out, with a big phenomenon of
food bike
which is going up in a lot of cities, and also nurses and liberal doctors, professions in aesthetics, and organic grocers itinerants.
"
"The cities lend themselves more and more to our activities"
These newcomers will join the 150 entrepreneurs who have already chosen the little queen for their activity in the Bordeaux conurbation.
Plumbers, electricians, landscapers ... Either they have dropped their van because of traffic and parking which are becoming impossible in town, or they have chosen to create their activity by starting from the bicycle, out of conviction, particularly environmental.
In Bordeaux, Alice Bailleul is one of the pioneers of cycling entrepreneurship, since she launched Beauty Bike, her home beauty care activity, in… 2012. “I remember that at the time, people looked at me oddly, but I was joined very quickly by other activities, and clearly a turn has been taken in the last three to four years.
Today, Beauty Bike has three beauticians who operate in Bordeaux and Mérignac.
And Alice Bailleul aims to develop her activity in the form of franchises.
Alice Bailleul, founder of Beauty Bike - Beauty Bike
Pierre-Armand Douillard, for his part, launched Bicycl'Eau, his small bicycle plumbing activity in Bordeaux and Le Bouscat, in 2017, as part of a professional retraining.
More and more craftsmen refusing to carry out construction sites in the city center, due to parking constraints, he quickly understood that the bicycle would prove to be the good alternative.
And the phenomenon will accelerate, he anticipates.
“The city becomes so restrictive to circulate, that the bicycle becomes the obvious answer.
Especially with the crisis, which made it possible to develop cycle paths.
The cities lend themselves more and more to our activities.
"
Pierre-Armand Douillard, founder of Bicycl'Eau, the first bicycle plumber in Bordeaux.
- M.Bosredon / 20Minutes
"Indispensable for a real sector to be established"
The issue of rolling stock therefore becomes crucial.
Between her massage table and her bags, Alice Bailleul sometimes has to carry up to 50 kg in her crate with her electric scooter, and Pierre-Armand Douillard takes more than 30 kg with him daily.
"Knowing that there is also the whole problem of bicycle logistics with the issue of last mile delivery, it is essential that a real sector is set up, with a virtuous chain that is local" analyzes Wiame Benyachou.
This is why the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region supports several manufacturers of French bicycles, so that they settle in the territory.
Manufacturers who each provide different answers, to stick to constraints that may vary from one business to another.
VUF Bikes (French Utility Bike) thus offers “three-wheel electric-assisted bicycles, two of which are at the rear, on which we fit boxes adapted to the needs and the load,” explains Thomas Chenut, one of the co-founders of the company.
We are aimed at all professionals who work in the city center, whether they transport cold, hot, dry, waste, up to 150 kg and 1.3 m3.
"
VUF Bikes professional tricycles are now assembled in a warehouse in Bègles, near Bordeaux - VUF Bikes
VUF Bikes launched just a month ago its assembly workshop in Bègles, in the suburbs of Bordeaux.
The manufacturing of the components is done by an aeronautical industrialist, Lopitz in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Several customers "leave the motorized vehicle in the garage, to switch to the cargo bike"
VUF Bikes produces a little less than 1,000 bicycles per year, for customers who are logistics professionals, collectivities for waste collection or entrepreneurs.
“With the crisis which has amplified home delivery, we also have companies that have started delivering meal trays… We have a very different panel of customers who, little by little, are leaving the motorized vehicle at home. garage, to switch to the cargo bike.
"Its three-wheel machine," equipped with a pendulum system that prevents the load from tipping the bikes over in bends ", is supposed to provide comfort and stability to the cyclist.
Prices start at 4,500 euros and go up to 10,000 euros for complete products with trailer.
Based in La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime), Huppe Bikes has chosen a bike with a central box, the centriporteur.
"We are the designer and manufacturer of our bikes, for an almost 100% French manufacture," insists the founder Victorien Saint-Dizier.
This architecture is unique and allows for better weight distribution than a front or rear load.
We also have a second model with front loading, but we wanted to be as compact as possible since it is less than two meters.
The first model is offered at 3,600 euros in electric and the second model at 4,400 euros.
The only vehicle that can meet the challenges of city delivery "is the bicycle"
Founded in 2016, K'Ryole, a Parisian start-up, also manufactures 100% French electric trailers (apart from the electric motor) for transporting loads by bicycle or by hand.
It has just announced the installation of its new manufacturing plant in Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne), where activity will start in May.
In a 4,500 m2 warehouse, it plans to eventually release 5,000 machines per year.
“Six years ago, there was an explosion in logistics flows over the last kilometer, particularly due to the massive arrival of e-commerce, explained last Wednesday during a meeting with the New Aquitaine region, one of the co-founders of the start-up, Nicolas Duvaut.
And faced with economic and ecological challenges, the only vehicle that can answer is the bicycle.
"K'Ryole trailers, which attach to bicycles," allow loads of up to 250 kg to be transported effortlessly.
"
"There is now an economic reality behind this trend"
Several big names in construction and delivery have adopted K'Ryole machines.
"The Building Platform now makes all its deliveries of less than 250 kg in intramural Paris in K'Ryole, and will extend its system to Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg", announces Nicolas Duvaut, which also includes Bricorama , Kiloutou or even Monoprix among its clients.
To meet growing demand, K'Ryole plans to hire some 60 people at its Tonneins site by 2022.
“Behind the craze, there is an economy which is real, assures Wiame Benyachou, we do not represent the uberized economy, our artisans love their profession, the companies we support create wealth and jobs. , and are projected in time ”.
It is true that the phenomenon seems set to last.
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