I went to see one of Britain's more unlikely bike brands the other day at their base – a slightly shambolic, box-filled former Chinese restaurant in east London, complete with intact "Royal Wok" signage.

The duo behind No Logo are a similarly odd couple: Chinese ex-restaurateur Sam Gu, who happily admits he is not a particularly keen cyclist, and Alex Lewis, a young advertising copywriter and self-professed bike nut.

After coming to the UK nine years ago to study and then setting out, somewhat unsuccessfully, in the restaurant trade, Gu ended up selling bikes made in his family's factory in Tianjin, an industrial powerhouse city near Beijing. The Teman-branded models – good value if unexceptional alloy road bikes – sold moderately well for a few years, both wholesale and via his makeshift shop near Bethnal Green, just east of the City.

Then, 18 months ago, Lewis came to the store, initially as a customer. He had an idea: why not set the Gu family factory to produce a more fashionable model, a cheap, no frills but colourful single-speed machine of the sort pioneered by couriers and since adopted by thousands of mainly young, urban riders?

After several prototypes and occasional confusion from the factory – "They thought it was a bit weird having tyres and wheels in these funny colours," says Sam – the No Logo bikes were born.

There is only one model, a £270 alloy-framed bike with flat handlebars and a "flip flop" single-speed rear wheel, the sort you can turn around for either fixed-gear pedalling or a freewheel hub.

The clever bit is the choice of eight vibrant colour schemes on the frames, wheels, tyres, saddles and chains, and, as the name suggests, a near-total lack of visible branding, a conscious mimicking of the fixed gear pioneers who dragged aged track frames out of cellars or skips and refitted them with a functional but unflashy array of scavenged or salvaged parts.

The bikes went on sale only three months ago and the response has been extremely positive, with more than 1,000 shifted already, both to direct buyers and to other independent cycle shops.

"We're selling them about as fast as the factory can make them," said Lewis. "The customers are mainly young Londoners, although I did get a call recently from a dad in Hampshire. He claimed he wanted it for his son but I think it was for him.

"We're not pretending these are bikes with snob value. If you turned up at an LFGSS [London Fixed-gear and Single-speed, the sometimes ferociously snooty online forum for such bikes] meeting on one of them you'd probably be turned away. But they're simple, well made, and ideal for urban riding."

My overriding feeling at the explosion in single-speed/fixed-gear bikes in London and other urban areas is pretty straightforward: anything that gets people riding, particularly young people, is wonderful. Few sights make me happier than seeing the railings and lampposts around a pub festooned in bikes on a Friday night.

Admittedly, I'm a bit baffled by some fixie crazes, like those absurdly tiny upturned handlebars that look like they've been pinched from a six-year-old's bike. I also have the ex-courier's instinctive mistrust of "fakengers", with their suspiciously pristine track frames, Sidi shoes and Chrome messenger bags, along with well-paid office jobs and no real insight into a notoriously exploitative and often poorly paid industry.

But I really like the No Logo bikes. They're self-confessedly derivative but great fun to ride, solidly built, nimbly responsive and, at a claimed 10.5kg, not absurdly heavy. In the wider scheme of things they're also pretty cheap.

Intriguingly, the company is now trying to market the bikes back to their home country, exhibiting them at trade shows in Tianjin and Shanghai. Now that really would be a success: making cycling fashionable in a country which only just ditched the bike for the car.