Once at the heart of West Midlands industry, bicycle manufacturing is one of many sectors that has fallen foul of the rise in cheap foreign labour.
But now one Birmingham firm is bidding to return to the glory days by applying its bicycle expertise to products as diverse as golf club shafts and spy planes.
Reynolds Cycle Technology - based in Hall Green - has manufactured bicycle tubing in Birmingham since 1898.
Since a management buyout from parent firm TI Group in 2000, the firm has ploughed up to ten per cent of its annual turnover into developing the latest, lightest and strongest metal alloys.
The result is the Reynolds 953 Mar-aging Stainless Steel - a steel alloy that the firm says is stronger and lighter than any other on the market.
Managing director Keith Noronha said: "Reynolds 953 is such an advanced material, not even the aircraft industry has started working with it yet.
"We realised that we could use that to our advantage and that it would appeal to industries outside of our traditional market of high-performance bicycle tubing.
"It's been very exciting and we've had interest from areas such as motorsport, aviation - particularly for unmanned planes - and we're already using it for small-scale projects such as lightweight sports wheelchairs.
"The firm's come full circle; we were once part of a big corporation supplying diverse markets such as motorsport. Then our parent company went bust and we went back to specialising in bicycles, now we're diversifying again."
The firm can trace its origins back to 1841 when founder John Reynolds set up a company to manufacture nails.
As the firm started to expand, it added new products and in 1897 patented the process for making butted tubes.
These new tubes, which were thicker at the ends than in the middle, rose in popularity and allowed manufacturers to create stronger and lighter bicycle frames. In 1898, the Patent Butted Tube Company was born.
The firm went on to supply fighter plane tubing for Spitfires during the Second World War, and says that 27 Tour de France winners crossed the finishing line on bikes made from Reynolds tubing.
Now the firm supplies bicycle manufacturers across the world, with a major part of its business in the US.
Mr Noronha said bicycles made from the firm's Birmingham-made tubing retail at between £2,000 to £4,000.
But the firm also has a partnership with a Taiwanese manufacturer to supply clients - such as Raleigh - with mainstream components.
But, Mr Noronha said, it is the specialist tubing that has kept the firm of 12 employees alive.
He said: "If we had not undertaken research and development, we would be dead. It is risky, but it is our lifeblood. We can supply something new to the market and exploit that."
The firm currently turns over £1 million, but Mr Noronha said he hopes to see that rise as sales are generated from the Reynolds 953 material.
Reynolds enlisted the help of marketing specialists Rowan - the group behind the Best Business Innovation (BBI) awards 2007 - to help it identify the markets where Reynolds 953 had the most potential.
Rowan, based in Coventry, is offering £8,000-worth of free specialist advice to the BBI entrant with most innovative business product or service.
For Reynolds, Rowan found industries and markets that might benefit from Reynolds products. It also helped improve Reynolds' sales processes and systems and develop new marketing materials.
Chris Rattigan, managing director of Rowan, said: "This is an excellent example of what we can do for customers who are already successful but need to diversify into new markets.
"This is one of the things we do best - looking creatively at the potential of a company and helping it to grow its business."
