Salt Lake: A one-stop shop for the classiest bicycles money can buy opened in Calcutta last Sunday, bringing marques such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Romet and Infinite under one roof.

For a city where cycling is illegal on several thoroughfares and unsafe on other roads, the craving for fancy bicycles that cost a bomb has surprisingly increased.

The new Bike Studio in Salt Lake, part of a countrywide franchise, pedals wheels with sticker prices ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 6 lakh.

Sales of mass-market bicycles like Hero, BSA and Avon are apparently diving, but international brands like Cannondale, Trek, Specialized and Giant are tapping a market filled with young buyers who treat cycling as a fitness and adventure activity rather than a means of transport.

"Bike Studio is an Indian company established in 2015," country head Nitin Ghai said. "We have opened exclusive stores in 13 cities, including Bangalore, Pune, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Surat. The one in Calcutta is our 15th store."

Bike Studio sources its bicycles from Thailand, China and Poland, while it holds licences to sell Ferrari and Lamborghini.

Entry-level X-Bicycles from China cost Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 and compete with BSA, Hero and Atlas. Infinite from Thailand has a price range of Rs 32,000 to Rs 6 lakh while LA-Sovereign, also a Thai product, makes bicycles that retail for Rs 8,000 to Rs 40,000.

Bike Studio sells seven models of Ferrari, including four mountain bikes with wide tyres, two folding models and a carbon frame. They cost between Rs 30,000 and Rs 6 lakh. The five models of Lamborghini at the store are priced Rs 32,000 to Rs 5 lakh.

The showroom also sells brakes, bushings and other serviceable parts of a bicycle, besides housing a service bay.

Bike Studio isn't the only store in town where you can find the big names. Starkenn Sports Pvt Ltd on Bentinck Street stocks the Starkenn, Giant and Liv brands with prices upwards of Rs 22,500 and topping out at Rs 11 lakh. "We do good business in Calcutta," said Pravin Patil of Starkenn from his headquarters in Pune. "We manage to sell 16 to 17 cycles priced upwards of Rs 1 lakh on an average every year."

Bike Studio has sold 15 bicycles, including a Ferrari folding model priced Rs 36,089, in one day.

Ashish Gupta of UP Cycle Stores on Bentinck Street, which has been in the business for three generations, confirmed that all the sales traction was in the upper range. "There is almost no movement in the sale of standard cycles. The drop has been about 200 per cent over the years. The store has survived because we stock all types of bicycles, from Hero to Firefox and Starkenn."