No, Mr Bond, I expect you to cycle...

The new Aston Martin bicycle, a collaboration with manufacturer J.Laverack, leaves Paul Henderson stirred rather than shaken

- Paul Henderson

WHERE'S my Bentley?' James Bond famously asked Q in 1964's Goldfinger. 'Oh, it's had its day, I'm afraid,' replied MI6's quartermaster. 'You'll be using this Aston Martin DB5, with modifications.' The rest, as film fans will know, is history.

Now, some 60 years on, there is a new Aston Martin, again with modifications, which might be almost as exciting and iconic as the original DB5. The big difference, however, is that this one has two wheels rather than four and Bond would probably require bicycle clips to ensure that his suit trousers didn't catch in the carbon crank and chainset. Produced in partnership with titanium bicycle-maker J.Laverack, this is the .1R—the most bespoke, advanced and meticulously engineered road bicycle ever made.

The brains behind the .1R are J.Laverack co-owners Oli Laverack and Dave Clow. The two bike-obsessed friends launched their brand a decade ago in Rutland with the intention of creating high-end titanium-framed bicycles featuring designs that blend the classic and the modern. Working out of a smart, but small workshop on a scruffy industrial estate in the countryside, they named their company after Mr Laverack's Yorkshire-born grandfather, himself a keen cyclist.

From the start, the pair's creations earned rave reviews: impeccably finished, utterly refined and reassuringly expensive, they are for cyclists who are deadly serious about riding. They have a few well-known customers, including former Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, but it was a man called Garry Barker who changed things for J. Laverack.