Bargain-bagging at the BabyLDN bike jumble

Bargain-bagging at the BabyLDN bike jumble

Events

Bargain-bagging with BabyLDN

The life and soul of London cycling

By Joergen Trepp
When Marlon Plein from BabyLDN invited Brooks to support his latest bike jumble, it wasn’t a difficult decision. A whole range of bicycles and components of varying vintages, displayed in a good old British jumble sale format – and pored over by a broad swathe of London’s rich and varied cycling scene? Just try and keep us away.
From a personal perspective, it’s also an easy ‘yes’ because Marlon is dope, and my background is in cycling non-profits. I grew up in the cycling world through places like BabyLDN: bike kitchens, co-ops, and collectives. These places have given me so much, it’s a no-brainer to give back when I can. I have colleagues here at Brooks who share a similar background, so it’s not inaccurate to say that the ‘team’ has a natural affinity with enterprises like BabyLDN. If I were to put on my marketing hat for a moment, from a Brooks perspective cycling communities have always made up a big part of our DNA. They form a kind of breeding ground for fresh style and new trends. Just take a look at the photos in this piece and you’ll see that rings especially true of BabyLDN.
Some of our crew bought personal items from home. Brooks’ events maestro, Stef, is a fifteen-year veteran of the bike world and he brought crates of cycling schwag along; all sorts of bike-camping supplies, cycling literature – an impressive amount to me, but according to Stef it didn’t even “touch the sides” of his collection. It’s funny what people gravitate to at an event like this. Everyone tried to buy the vintage West Brom pennants we brought, even though these were brought strictly for decorative purposes and not for sale.
A quick lap of the jumble between manning our pitch told me London cycling is alive and well. And also that ‘90s MTBs are as good as hard currency. Maybe better. Marlon has tapped a live wire in the London scene, a scene which remains as stylish as ever… I brought away a lot of personal style inspiration; taking photos of fashionable folk, so I can better up my closet’s game! It’s true that cycling contains multitudes. Some people do it for the sport, the freedom, and sometimes just for the ‘look’. Bikes are sometimes a lifestyle piece, and you can see people in London buying and building bikes, calling up Marlon for missing pieces, all in the pursuit of a functional object that better connects their surroundings to their values.
I can’t overstate how important projects like BabyLDN are. Community bike shops act as central hubs for the cycling culture within a city. They can define the character of a local scene, or they can serve a social purpose by lowering the barriers to entry for people new to cycling. I think if them as a vital rung in the ladder of cycling culture in a big city. Marlon blends the traditional community bike shop or “bike kitchen” concept into something broader: a space that not only provides access to tools, repair stands, and those hard-to-find spare parts that keep an old bike rolling, but also welcomes a community that sees the bicycle as the ultimate lifestyle accessory.

Joergen Trepp is Brooks England's marketing communications manager. Photographs kindly supplied by Marlon Plein / BabyLDN.