Two crowdfunding campaigns had built a brand faster than anyone was ready for, and the first years were bumpy. What we had was a following. What we didn't yet have was a reason for it.

So we wrote one. The bike wouldn't be transport. It would be an accessory for expression – colourful, cool, fun, and deliberately free of everything that made the rest of the category grey.

That decision set the next several years of work. Do things differently on purpose. Be emotional. Be colourful. Make biking fun. Deliver everyday magic to people. Every day.

It gave us direction for product, colour and livery, tone of voice, stores, partnerships. It gave us a platform to launch something genuinely distinctive into a category of sameness and spec sheets.

And it gave us a mission that explained the whole thing in three words.

Sixty per cent of all car journeys are under eight kilometres. That single number was the brief.

If most driving is short driving, the bike isn't competing with other bikes – it's competing with the car. So we took the mission of getting more people onto bikes and pointed it directly at the car industry.

The MATE SUV was the largest development investment in the company's history, built from the ground up to be a real alternative rather than a lifestyle statement. Cargo bikes already existed; this one was modular, so it could grow with a family, with integrated programmable lights, 4G connectivity, location tracking and anti-theft protection built in.

We launched on pre-order, and early birds got a hand in shaping the final bike.

And in taking back the streets.

In a first collaboration with Evian, the leading source of natural spring water, we built Enjoy Earth on Earth Day around the simplest combination there is – the best fuel for your body, exercise, and a bike outdoors.

Evian's ambassadors carried it. Dua Lipa, Maria Sharapova, Emma Raducanu and Cat Burns each received a personalised version of the collab bike, putting natural resources, health and a different way of getting around in front of a very large audience.

Water always finds a way through. So does a bike.