Launching the Red Dot: Best of the Best 2015 awardee at the EUROBIKE fair: VELLO bike, the high-performance compact bike, by designer Valentin Vodev.

Friedrichshafen, Germany, 24 August 2015: Do you remember the Roller Buggy, the baby carriage that transforms into a scooter? Or the Pullchair, a baby carriage that even fits into your laptop bag? Now he has taken up a new challenge: a bicycle that perfectly suits the needs of the busy every day city life – the VELLO bike.

The VELLO bike is a high-performance handmade bicycle designed especially for urban commuting. It uses top-quality components and combines intelligent technologies with a unique design. 

Its magnetic folding system enables the rear wheel to be brought forward with a rotary movement – within a second and without needing to bend. Folded to half of its size, the VELLO bike can be wheeled along, into small elevators or the public transportation system. A specially developed and patented foldable mudguard protects the clothing in all weather conditions. To prevent theft, the bike is branded with a personal codification system that is linked to the profile of the owner on the VELLO website.

Honoring these innovations, VELLO bike was awarded the Red Dot: Best of the Best 2015:    

“This folding bike fascinates with sophisticated functionality perfectly adapted to everyday use in urban areas. It captivates users with its well-balanced details and allows intuitive folding to a compact size. Equipped with multiple gears and specially designed magnetic shock absorbers, the bike delivers outstanding riding comfort. A beautiful bike that offers itself as an ideal companion for everyday use”, stated the jury.

The impetus for the design came from the every day challenges one encounters in highly populated cities, such as theft, the need to stow the bike into small spaces, or bringing the bike into crowded public transportation systems.“The bike includes a lot of innovations which I couldn’t find from the shelf, so I needed to develop them myself” explained the designer, “I hope they will set new standards in the bike industry“.

The designer created three VELLO bike models to accommodate the various needs of the city dweller. VELLO Urbano is the classical version with a comfortable saddle, 8 speeds and a moustache-handlebar with cushioned handgrips that allow for relaxed riding. For all-rounders, Vello Rocky smoothens the jolts of the city jungle: with its 10-speed and top-quality trekking bike components, even parks and rocky paths can be explored effortlessly. VELLO Speedster is made to race in the city: 10-speed high-performance racing bike components, narrow high-pressure tires and racing bike handlebars allow for an aerodynamic riding position and minimal rolling resistance.

What started as a contemporary and sophisticated reinterpretation of a folding bicycle, has evolved into an award winning design product that is now ready for the market. The three models of the VELLO bike are available at vellobike.myshopify.com or at selected retailers.

About Valentin Vodev:

Valentin Vodev is an Austrian product designer with Bulgarian roots who has been fascinated with mobility products ever since his childhood. He holds a Master’s degree from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and from the Royal College of Art in London. Many of Valentin’s mobility products have won internationally acclaimed design prices, such as the International Bicycle Design Award (three-time winner), the Incheon Design Price in the category “green design” and the Dyson Award (International finalist). For him, design is a cocktail of logic, aesthetics and art and converting ideas into products a metamorphosis from the common to the unexplored, a discovery through which he can define new functions and forms.

About the Red Dot ‘Best of the Best’ Award:

The Red Dot: Best of the Best is awarded for innovative design and is the highest individual award in the Red Dot Award: Product Design. Only the outstanding products in a category receive this award – in 2015, only 81 products from 31 categories were given the sought-after seal of quality.

Professor Dr Peter Zec, Founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award: “For 60 years, the most-respected design experts have been convening every year in Essen to seek out the best designs. This year we had a record number of almost 5,000 entries – a huge amount of work for our jury members, who assessed each individual product, and a special value of the distinction due to the high standard. The laureates of the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2015 have demonstrated exceptionally high achievements and have thus been deservedly successful in the world’s largest design competition.”