BEST OF BRITISH

If you won the lottery and decided to start a mountain bike company, where in the country would you choose to base it? There’s a lot to consider, but a location with great riding and an active and varied scene seems an obvious place to start. Somewhere with terrain that really tested your products, and incredible views for your Instagram feed would be ideal. Being a mountain bike brand, maybe somewhere with, you know, actual mountains? More often than not though, bike brands aren’t based near the mountains. Many still have great riding on their doorstep, and will take bikes to be tested at altitude, but very few can truly call the mountains home.

Identiti Bikes is one of several well-known brands owned by Cambridgeshire-based Ison Distribution. One of Cambridgeshire’s claims to fame is having the UK’s lowest point — at 2.5m below sea level, Holme Fen effectively makes the county concave. While the sub-flatlands of East Anglia might seem an odd place to base a mountain bike brand, there’s more to the business of making and selling bikes than proximity to a natural test lab — good transport links and access to a wide