Ging es Mikel anfangs lediglich um eine Einzelanfertigung für sich selbst, fand er schnell Gefallen an der Idee eines eigenen Produkts und dem Aufbau einer Marke, war es doch genau das, wonach er schon so lange gesucht hatte: Kreativ arbeiten, etwas zum Anfassen schaffen, ein Produkt, das zu ihm passt. Die Zusammenarbeit mit Kalle intensivierte sich, die Konstruktionszeichnungen wurden konkret, die Marke GRACE wurde ins Leben gerufen, und kurz darauf begann der Bau des ersten Prototypen. Anfangs hatten Mikel und Kalle trotz 3-D Zeichnungen keine echte Vorstellung davon, wie das fertige Bike wirken würde: Wird es plump wie ein Elefant da stehen oder als sportliches Fahrrad akzeptiert werden? Auch als sie den mächtig dimensionierten ersten Rahmen in den Händen hielten, war dieser Punkt noch ungewiss, aber als sich das GRACE langsam komplettiere, lösten sich die Bedenken auf. Sportlich elegant, aggressiv und kraftvoll stand es da. Das Design drückte genau das aus, was es sollte. Fahrleistung, Handling und Performance waren entsprechend. Seine erfolgreiche Premiere feierte das GRACE am 12. November 2009 auf der Präsentation in der Berliner Galerie Koal. Dass dieser Tag zugleich der 80. Geburtstag von Grace Kelly war, stellte sich erst im Nachhinein heraus. - Ein erstaunlicher Zufall. Text: Falco Mille Foto: Nikolaus Karlinský, Dominik Brand, Grace Mikel Hecken loves the 60s, an era characterised by an unshakeable belief in progress: the first manned space flight, the moon landings, technological rivalry between the superpowers, and Grace Kelly, the style icon of the period. Like many of his generation, he first got into bikes in the late 70s, when the BMX craze hit Europe. Mikel can still remember his first BMX well, and he can also remember that, even as a child, he loved to tinker around with it and fix it up himself. When he inherited an old barn in Remagen, Germany from his Granfather, he converted it into a private workshop and soon filled it with various projects. His first car, a VW 1303 Cabriolet bought for 1000 German marks [ 600 US Dollars], was lovingly restored over the course of four years. Later, Mikel gave an old 911 a second lease of life under the barn’s neon lights, and right now, a NATO army shelter is waiting to get hitched onto a rally truck chassis. Originally, Mikel had wanted to follow his creative and manual impulses and study industrial design, but his father talked him into doing a business degree. After studying in London, he successfully developed and planned CMS systems for 10 years. But for all those years, his original wish to create something tangible was bubbling away under the surface. One day, Mikel went on a long bike ride from Bernau to Biesenthal. Over the course of the trip, the idea of easing the tiring pedaling with an electric drive ripened in his head. The first electric bicycles, which were just coming onto the market at the time, were out of the question as far as Mikel was concerned. They lacked design, quality and performance. After taking the time to think about the electric bike project at greater length, Mikel reached the conclusion that building one from scratch would be beyond his technical abilities. On the lookout for a partner, he finally came across a company called Nicolai. When he first made inquiries about a custom-built frame, he deliberately left out the fact that it was for an electric bike, just to be on the safe side; he was worried about being branded a nut and not taken seriously. A meeting was arranged and Mikel tentatively let Kalle in on his plan. Kalle had long been aware of the future potential of electric bikes and was enthusiastic about Mikel’s idea. But after some initial designs and a rough calculations, it was soon obvious that an individual construction would involve enormous costs, though these costs would become manageable in a small batch series. Although Mikel had initially planned just a one-off piece for himself, he soon took to the idea of creating his own product and building up a brand. After all, it was exactly what he had been looking for all this time: working creatively, producing something tangible, and a product that was right for him. The working relationship with Kalle stepped up a gear, the blueprints were finalized, the GRACE brand was born and shortly afterwards, construction of the first prototypes began. At the start, Mikel and Kalle had no real idea what the finished bike would look like, despite the 3-D drawings: was it going to sit there like a clumsy elephant or pass muster as a sporty bike? Even when they had the first, generously proportioned frame in their hands, this issue was still unclear. But as the GRACE slowly took shape, their doubts vanished. There it was: elegant and sporty, aggressive and powerful. The design expressed exactly what it was supposed to. The road performance, handling and running all matched. GRACE was successfully unveiled on November 12, 2009, at a ceremony in the Gallery Koal, Berlin. It wasn’t until later that someone noticed it would also have been Grace Kelly’s 80th birthday - an astonishing coincidence.