Menswear fashion story for issue 03, May 2007

There are a clutch of bike companies - the Nordic Nippon alliance - quietly tinkering away in their workshops and producing the highest quality two-wheelers in the world. Here we profile five of the finest.

Monocle's favourite ad campaigns aimed at promoting the health and spiritual benefits of cycling are both pithy - but from polar opposite price points:

Giant is the world's largest bicycle firm, and continues to push prices for specialist models ever higher.

The small Dutch city of Groningen is now seen as a living manifesto for how to get people in the saddle.