Competitors take part in the Brompton folding bike world championships in Chichester. Brompton is the UK’s biggest manufacturer of cycles. Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images

Sales and production of British-built bikes leapt almost 70% last year, as the industry continues its revival on the back of a wider cycling boom. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, sales of UK-manufactured bicycles reached £60.2m in 2014, up from £35.6m in 2013. Demand for British-built bikes soared in the year when the first stage of the Tour de France was held in Yorkshire. There was a corresponding 70% year-on-year growth in the number of bikes being produced in Britain, the ONS said, with the numbers more than doubling to 120,000 in three years since 2011 – a period in which Britain’s cycling excellence was underlined at the London Olympics and at the Tour de France. The number of UK-built bikes sold is still only a fraction of the overall retail market – almost 70 bikes were sold in Britain for every one produced here in 2013. But the ONS numbers point to a continuing revival for quality bikes. Large-scale production collapsed when Raleigh plants closed at the beginning of the century.