Cycling: a tour de force for British companies Many riders in the peloton, including Team Astana, will also be fuelled by drinks and gels manufactured in the British town of Nelson, Lancashire, by Science in Sport, a company founded on a kitchen table in 1992. Simon Mottram, who founded Rapha, says British cycling companies are also successfully selling their goods abroad. More than 70pc of Rapha's sales are to enthusiasts overseas. "I always thought there would be a boom because I could see enough people like me out there who were really into the sport but I didn't realise it would be quite as big as it has been," said Mottram. Rapha, whose headquarters are in Kentish Town, has seen turnover grow by more than 55pc to £26m over the past 12 months. The signs for Science in Sport (SiS) have been so encouraging that Aim-quoted Provexis plans to de-merge the business and list it on the public markets as a separate company. SiS, created by cycling enthusiast Tim Lawson and his family and bought by Provexis in 2011, posted like-for-like revenue growth of 11pc to £5.52m year in the year to March 31. Its products are stocked by mainstream retailers such as Tesco in the UK while it is also growing a steady export base. The boom is even benefiting the smallest of companies. Sunwise, a sunglasses company that employs just eight people in Oxford, sells to 30 countries. Britain waved goodbye to large-scale bike manufacturing in the last decade but enthusiasts say there are still reasons to be optimistic. Raleigh makes 100,000 wheels a year in Eastwood, Nottingham, while companies such as Brompton Bicycle are flourishing, selling to more than 40 export markets.