Ben and John from Hiplok have donated a load of their very clever, wearable bike locks to The Bike Project this week. Here’s John from Hiplok with the story of how they came up with such a genius idea and, more importantly, how they made it happen.

“Hiplok was founded by myself and a uni friend, Ben Smith, back in 2011. We used to go mountain biking together and chat about random ideas we had for bikes (or other things). Our background is in product development (we studied industrial product design together at Coventry). Ben was working in the bike industry whist I worked for a product development agency in Windsor.

One day I cycled to a friend’s house, left my bike up the drive outside his house in a quiet suburban street only to return 15 mins later to find it had gone. I’d had bikes stolen before (you’d have thought I would have learned my lesson) but this was the catalyst which got me thinking about a better way to carry a bike lock.

Taking inspiration from the way many bike couriers carried their locks, I approached Ben with the idea and the concept of Hiplok was born. Ben was living in the US so we’d work on prototypes, send them back and forth, and talk on Skype most days for about a year before launch. Five years later the wearable lock idea has now grown into a wide range of bicycle security products and we now sell in over 20 countries worldwide.

I first heard about the Bike Project via a close family friend, Sarah Payne. Sarah is one of the trustees of the charity. She knew I was involved in the bike industry and said I should check them out.

Hiplok is donating a number of bicycle locks for The Bike Project. We will also be supporting the project in a number of other ways over the coming months, so keep an eye out.”