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8:09 AM 19th September 2019
business

Techbuyer Is Pedalling Reuse With Bike Made Out Of It Parts To Celebrate The UCI

 
A Harrogate company has created a bike made from redundant IT equipment to celebrate the UCI Road World Cycling Championships 2019.

Techbuyer has created a life-size bike sculpture from used IT parts including servers, CPUs, memory and heatsinks to celebrate the arrival of the UCI Road World Cycling Championships in the company’s home town.

The project also highlights the value in redundant IT hardware, a hot topic at the moment given the meteoric rise of e-waste worldwide.

The bike took local metal sculpturist, Steve Blaylock, 100 hours to create and required almost 1000 IT parts. Weighing around 60 kg, it includes five HPE servers for the base, 20 server rails which have been moulded to make the frame and hundreds of memory modules and processors. Heatsinks make up the seat and peddles, the copper has been stripped from cables to wrap around the handle bars, whilst a server fan brings the bike to life by adding loveable green eyes on the front.

“Every year around 50 million tonnes of e-waste are produced worldwide,” explains Astrid Wynne, Sustainability Manager at Techbuyer. “Most of this will not be recycled. We refurbish IT equipment so that more hardware is reused rather than unnecessarily sent to landfill. The bike is a really creative way to show the value of reuse, which is what Techbuyer is all about.”

Techbuyer employees have been eager to name the bike, with the team finally settling on Victoria Pedalton as the favourite. Victoria Pedalton quickly drew a crowd when Techbuyer employees took the sculpture along the race route, stopping off at some of Yorkshire’s finest locations for a photoshoot including Fountains Abbey and Ripon Cathedral.

Over the past decade, Techbuyer has expanded operations with sites in the USA, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, but it will always remain a proud Yorkshire company.

“We are really proud to be a global company founded in Harrogate with over 80% of our employees having a Harrogate postcode. We are looking forward to welcoming millions of spectators to the UCI World Championships next week and to celebrate the event with the local community,” said Kevin Towers, CEO.