A carbon fiber Biomega

Over the weekend, Jens Martin Skibsted of Biomega sent me a few pictures of the company’s booth at the recent Taipei Cycle show. The most notable picture that I want to pass along is this carbon fiber version of the Mark Newson designed bike, which they just previewed at the show. I have mentioned before that I think there is a market for comfort or commuter oriented designs made from high-end materials like carbon fiber. I don’t know what the cost will be for this carbon MN bike when it comes out, but I doubt it will come cheap. It certainly isn’t for everyone (and I assume the release will be limited and exclusive), but I expect this bike to get a lot of attention when it hits the market.

Several of the show pictures that Jens Martin sent me indicate that the Biomega booth was pretty crowed during the show. In the picture below, you can see a group of show attendees taking a look at the Ross Lovegrove designed bamboo bike. In addition to the Newson carbon bike, I am told that the Lovegrove bike had a big following in Taipei.

NYC CityRacks Competition

I mentioned a couple of Cool Hunting links in my last post, so I will go ahead and throw out one more. Recently, they posted “Five better bike racks”. Some of the racks in that post are interesting, but out of the five, I like the Horseshoe Rack from Creative Pipe the best. Why? Because it is a variation on the tried and true inverted-U design, which is, in my opinion, the most functional design around. I like some of the artistic, sculptural bike racks that I have seen and I think they have their place, but really many of them function more a public art than as efficient bicycle parking solutions. To efficiently park the most bikes in a limited amount of outdoor space, nothing on the market beats the simple Inverted-U design.

Of course, saying that the classic design is the best so far doesn’t necessarily mean that it is impossible to create something better. Any of you who think you can do so should enter the NYC CityRacks Design Competition. What is in it for you? Well, the City of New York will use the winning design as the model for the next generation of City bicycle racks. Also, Google may install the rack in its New York City headquarters. The cash prizes might entice you as well; $10,000 for the outdoor winner and $5,000 for the best indoor solution. Registration for the contest is already open and ends on April 30th, so register at the site and get to work. Before you start, make sure to check out the design guidelines for the competition here.

If any of you are thinking of entering a concept, I should warn you that PCM at the Astoria Bike blog thinks he already has this contest in the bag with his submission, the standard NYC parking meter. Though I must admit that the parking meter photo on his post did get my attention, I still believe that there may be a better way to park bikes. I do, however, agree with his point that racks designed to hold fewer bikes tend to work better than those designed to hold many. I guess that is why I dislike those ribbon racks so much. Have I ever mentioned that before?

My privacy policy and a couple of links

I had an idea for a different post today, but I just don’t have the time to write it. I also have quite a few emails from readers that I haven’t been able to read and respond to yet. This is turning out to be a busy week during a consistently busy time of year, so please bear with me. Before I get on with this post though, I want throw out a couple of links. Ron at Cozy Beehive posted recently about a frame design video from Georgena Terry; pretty interesting stuff. Also, I noticed more bike related content on Cool Hunting in the past few days. Late last week, they pointed out six bike baskets and five “urban commuter” helmets. Some of the baskets are pretty nice, but to be honest, I am not so sure about the helmets. I understand that many urban commuters do not want sleek, race inspired helmet designs. Still, to me, these designs look like the minimalist helmets that you see Harley guys wearing when they are forced to do so by state helmet laws. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but it seems like commuter oriented bicycle helmets should have a different aesthetic. I know that there some nice commuter oriented helmet designs out there, but these five just don’t do it for me.

OK, I am starting to ramble, so on with what was supposed to be a short post. I just want to point you all to the new privacy policy that can be found in my sidebar. I first learned that Google now requires a written privacy policy for users of Google Adsense when I read about it on Cyclelicious. I think the privacy policy is a good idea, but it is something that I never really thought about before. Anyway, I borrowed some ideas and text for my privacy policy from the one Fritz has on his site. I also looked at several other sites to come up with a policy for Bicycle Design that I thought made sense. I found this post, which is specific to Blogger blogs, to be helpful and I borrowed from his policy as well (and his policy was based on this one). I think that what I have so far is pretty accurate, but I don’t claim to be an expert. I am certainly open to suggestions from those of you who do consider yourselves to be experts on this type of thing. Take a look and if anything obvious seems to be missing or is unclear, please let me know about it.

Track bike or fixie?

I always enjoy hearing from readers, so I don’t make a habit of picking on any of you for leaving comments that I don’t agree with. In fact, differing opinions make the blog interesting. In this case though, I do feel compelled to take issue with a statement that was recently left in response to an old post:

Anonymous said... Top tube pad or not, riding a track bike on the street is dumb

While I don’t really agree that riding a track bike on the street is dumb, that is not what initially bothered me about the comment. I guess it is just a pet peave of mine, but I get irritated when people refer to any bike with a fixed gear as a track bike. To be fair, maybe the commenter was not referring specifically to the bike in the picture as a track bike (it definitely isn’t one). I think a better statement to convey his or her sentiment would have been “riding a fixed gear without brakes on the road is dumb.” Maybe I am wrong in that assumption though. Maybe he or she meant that bikes specifically made for track racing should never be on the road, with or without brakes, and that road bikes converted to fixies are perfectly OK for road riding, brakeless or not. Who knows? If we are lucky, maybe the anonymous commenter can come forward and clarify the statement.

Since I brought this track bike/fixed gear labeling issue up, I’ll use two of my bikes as examples. Above is my track bike, a mid eighties Pinarello with a short wheelbase and tight geometry. As you can see, the bike has no brakes or braze-ons. The front fork is not drilled for a brake and the round profile fork legs (compared to oval profiles) weren’t really designed to withstand the forces of braking. In the past, I had a different fork on the bike so that I could run a front brake for road riding but I just recently put the original fork back on. As it is configured now, I occasionally take it out on the road, but never really in traffic. Yeah, I can stop it quickly if I need to, but it is so much easier to gently pull a lever than it is to lock up the drivetrain with my legs.

The bike pictured below is a cheap fixed gear road bike that I built up for commuting. The bike has track style fork ends that face the rear, but I still wouldn’t call it a track bike. It was made for riding on the road, which is why I have it set up with brakes front and rear. I think the gearing on this bike is 46-16 compared to 50-15 on the Pinarello. Since velodromes don’t have hills (OK, they are banked, but you get the point), it is fine to have a high gear on a track bike. When I am riding a loaded bike on the rolling hills of my route to work though, it is nice to have an easier gear.

Maybe I am making a big deal out of nothing (it wouldn’t be the first time). Perhaps the whole track vs. fixed gear distinction is just a point of semantics. Despite the tone of this rant, it doesn’t really matter to me if you use the terms interchangeably. Some of you may define the two terms differently than I do anyway. I guess my real point is that riding a track bike or a fixed gear road bike on the road is fine if that is what you really want to do. I have been riding my old Pinarello on the road for nearly 20 years, so I am as big a fixed gear proponent as anyone. Still, I think that it makes no sense to ride a track bike on the road just because it is the trendy thing to do these days. Now that I think about it, that is probably what the anonymous commenter really meant. It is time to wrap this post up, so I will just leave it at this. If you enjoy riding a track bike on the road and you are sure you can do so safely, then great; I say go for it. On the other hand, if you choose to ride a brakeless track bike on the road just because everyone else is doing it, then yeah, I agree that is kind of dumb. There are many different bicycle types out there, so regardless of what you call them, it is always best to ride what works for you.

Taipei Cycle 2008

The 2008 Taipei International Cycle Show just wrapped up in Taiwan. According to a press release, attendance was up 91 percent from 2007 with 86,000 visitors compared to 45,000 last year. I haven’t yet been able to see everything from the show, but I did download and take a glance at the show daily pdf files that are available on the website. In addition, David Reid has a great set of show pictures on Flickr that I enjoyed looking through. Tim Jackson, aka Masiguy, was also at the show, so I look forward to seeing his pictures soon when he gets a chance to post them.

Of course the results of the 12th International Bicycle Design Competition were the main thing that I wanted to see. There is no doubt that this competition always produces some rather strange designs, but I always enjoy checking them out. Even if I don’t always like the forms, I think some interesting ideas are usually presented. This year there were two winners chosen, one by Giant and one by Merida. The Giant prize went to Larry Chen for the Sunny Day solar electric bike (pictured above). Merida picked Combike (below) designed by Li-Ru Lai and Fen-Ju Lin. The Combike design allows two of the same bicycles to be ridden separately or joined to create a tandem. You can see all of this year’s entries by downloading the March 13th Show Daily or by clicking the Special Issue on the 2008 IBDC event link at the competition website.

Many of you know that Taiwanese bike maker Merida is part owner of Specialized Bikes. Since Merida was involved in the International Bicycle Design Competition, Specialized Founder Mike Sinyard was on hand to speak at the International Bicycle Trend Forum. It sounds like his talk was directly related to design, so I am very curious what he had to say. If any of you attended the forum and heard what Mr. Sinyard said, please let me know.

ON is on!

Several other blogs including Treehugger, Wired, and Cyclelicious recently picked up on a Cannondale Community blog post which said:

“Due to the overwhelming positive response from the cycling community and beyond, Cannondale has committed to bringing the ON concept bike into production in the near future.”

Great! I am glad to hear it. I first posted the student-designed Cannondale Jackknife concept bike back in January of 2006. At the time, I didn’t expect the concept to actually evolve into something that would eventually make it into the Cannondale line. Even when I saw the ON concept bike that was unveiled at Eurobike, I didn’t really expect it to progress any further than the show bike stage. Well, it appears that the concept really is moving closer to a spot in the Cannondale product line. I expect to see some design changes before the ON becomes a real production bike, but I am glad to hear that the idea is moving forward. I will be anxious to see the final iteration of this design soon and yeah; I’ll add my name to the growing list of people who want to give it a test ride.

Photo: Torgny Fjeldskaar, Cannondale’s Global Design Director, pictured with the ON concept at Eurobike

Stating the obvious- Commuter bike sales on the rise

Though I generally take what they say with a grain of salt, I subscribe to a few email newsletters that point out design and cultural “trends”. Many of the trend spotters are focused on the home décor and fashion industries, but as you can probably imagine, bicycle content is becoming more and more prevalent all the time. Sometimes I snicker at the occasional claims that urban bikes are poised to be the next big thing. Though I may laugh, deep down I am always happy to see bicycles mentioned in that context.

I received the Iconowatch newsletter a couple days ago and it had a short feature titled Get wheel: Pedaling through a recession? The article basically just points out that the bicycle industry is doing well during this downturn/recession/whatever you want to call it. One of the statistics that they point out, based on a Bicycle Product Suppliers Association annual report released in January 2008, is that overall revenues from bicycle sales were up 4% in 2007. In that same time period, they state that:

“high-end mountain bikes were popular, but even more surprising was the healthy sales of "hybrid" bikes — regular two-wheelers for commuting, recreation and just getting around. Those bikes saw an increase of 6% in sales for '07.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it surprising at all that commuter-oriented bikes are increasing in sales faster than road or mountain bikes. I expect to see that segment of the market continue to experience growth as fuel prices rise. Certain urban bikes may be a bit trendy now, but I don’t think that the rapid increase in popularity of transportation oriented bike in the U.S. market is just a fad. I hope that, along with rising fuel prices, a growing number of utilitarian bikes on the market is something that we will continue to see as more Americans slowly realize that bicycles can be used for more than just recreation.

While I am on the subject of utilitarian designs, I’ll mention a couple bikes that I saw on Treehugger this week. The Skeppshult V is a small-wheeled bike that was designed to accept modular front and rear racks and carrying attachments for urban transport. The Skeppshult website has pictures of the bike set up in several different configurations. Riding with a laptop seems a bit dangerous to me, but I am pretty sure that viewing Bicycle Design on the go is what the designers had in mind when they staged this shot. I have noticed a lot of hits from Sweden in the stats lately, but I didn’t know that you were all reading the blog while cruising down the road. Yikes. Seriously though, the V is an interesting design and seems to be a bit of a departure from the rest of the Skeppshult line.

Also posted on Treehugger this was the Giant Twist Freedom DX. It is a nice looking electric bike and the small motor in the front wheel is barely noticeable. I don’t really understand the people who left the negative comments at the Treehugger post. Like one of the commenters, I would personally rather get a workout by riding a regular bike for transportation, but I am always glad to see more electric assist designs that give other people options. Products like this do not replace standard bikes; basically, they just widen the market for pedal powered transportation. Who has a problem with that?

A 7-pound road bike

I have posted about lightweight bikes in the past, most notably a sub 7 pound Crumpton fixed gear. A 7-pound fixie is one thing, but a 7-pound complete road bike is just unbelievable. German cyclist Gunter Mai built just such a bike (3195 grams to be exact) and claims to ride it up to 1,000 kilometers a week. Read more about Gunter’s bike including the component specs at this VeloNews tech article.

Gunter’s bike may be custom all the way, but like me most of you probably ride stock bikes. If you own a bike from one of the big manufacturers and you are wondering where it was made, check out this site. Not all bike manufacturers are included, but it is a pretty comprehensive list and it is quite interesting to read. I should note that by posting this I am not implying that any bikes or brands are inferior just because they are made in Asia. Giant makes some great bikes under their own brand and for other brands in their Taiwanese and Chinese factories. I am certainly not bothered by the fact that my own Specialized S-Works road bike was made in Taiwan out of Italian tubing. As long as the frame is well designed and well made, the country of origin doesn't matter that much to me. Still, it is better to know ahead of time than to find out after your purchase that your beloved Spanish or Italian racing bike actually was born in Asia. It is always better for manufacturers to be forthcoming.

Photo credit: Nils Wiedemann for VeloNews

Cleaning up

I have mentioned previously that my bike room is starting to get out of hand. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to own a few different bicycles, but there is no point in keeping stuff that I don’t use. I don’t plan to get rid of too many of my bikes; complete bikes aren’t really the problem. In addition to eight bikes, I have four framesets, several wheelsets, and countless boxes of parts lying around that are just taking up space. It is nice to have an ample supply of spare parts for project bikes, but I know that I will never use a lot of this stuff again. Recently, I boxed up some of my really old components to give away (I wish we had a bike co-op here in Greenville… maybe I could start one with some of this stuff). Last night, I sorted though my parts bins and started picking out the rest of the old, outdated stuff… um, wait, scratch that… I meant to say classic or vintage stuff. Whatever you call it, I am ready to get rid of some of the frames, wheels, and parts that I will never use again so I just listed a few items on eBay. I have a lot more stuff to list later, but I am just doing a few at a time. I guess it is just a matter of finding time to take pictures and write a description. Both are easy for me to put off.

The old Trek 400 pictured here is a bike that I used to ride to work. Road bikes like this one from the mid eighties may not be as sought after as track frames, but they do make nice, comfortable fixed gear conversions due to the lax geometry, long wheelbases, and horizontal dropouts. This one is particularly good because it doesn’t have shifter bosses, so the downtube looks nice and clean. It should make a nice, inexpensive fixed gear commuter for someone out there. Of course the big risk I run selling this bike on eBay is that I may see it featured on BSNYC one day with an aerospoke front wheel, riser bars, spoke cards, and a shiny new top tube pad. For anyone who is thinking about buying it and making those upgrades, I want to point out that nothing on this bike is NJS certified, so you would be fighting a losing battle from the start.

Since this post has already proven to be nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to point you toward my current eBay listings, I will go ahead and point out one more. I think you will all agree that the copy in my listing for an old Silca track pump is quite possibly the worst sales pitch ever. It will be interesting to see how much this pump actually sells for considering the description. Actually, this pump works pretty well by Silca standards, but I just don’t want to misrepresent it to someone who has never experienced the joy of using a temperamental old Silca track pump. In any case, I think it is probably best for me to stick with my design job, because I doubt that I have a very bright future in sales.

GSUS bike and a few links

I have a pretty busy week scheduled with a couple of all day meetings, so posting may be light for a while. Today though, I want to quickly pass along a picture and a few links that were sent to me recently by readers.

First, I want to mention the bike pictured here, which was sent to me by Angelo who designed it in 2005. Like the G-Star Raw Cannondale that I posted about not long ago, this bike was designed for another Dutch fashion brand, GSUS. Angelo explained that their idea with the design “was to create a basic bike which you can fine tune with accessories (light, lock, carrier, child seats, wind screens, bags, etc.).” I am just assuming that the integrated mittens you see here were one such accessory. Unlike the G-Star bike, it sounds like this project never made it past the initial stage, but it does appear that GSUS did release another bike design.

Updated 8/4/08: There has been some confusion about the bike pictured above in this post. It is a 5-year-old design that is no longer available. Please note that the new GSUS bike (pictured left) was designed in cooperation between GSUS and Urban Bike Concepts by Roel van Heur (Design Academy in Eindhoven). Read more about it right here on the GSUS website. Also note that the new design is for sale here at Beixo.

Frank sent me a link to his site, which includes a few renderings of his laid back, comfort-oriented bike designs. When he originally sent the link, the renderings could be viewed clearly, but it appears that they have been faded out a bit at this point. It must have something to do with the fact that patents are pending on several of these designs. The renderings may be harder to see now, but you can still check out his site to see the chrome lady on a bike that he rendered.

Updated 3:30pm: Oops. Apparently, I just missed the navigation arrows on Frank’s website. If you click them, you can see multiple renderings of each design including close-up views of some of the details.

David pointed out a couple of tall bikes that were featured on Gizmodo last week. I had seen the one on the left in the Atomic Zombie book and elsewhere, but the one on the right is new to me. As much as I like bikes, I am not sure how much I would really like to ride either of these.

Finally, Carlton sent me a message agreeing with several commenters that the bike rack design I mentioned in a recent post was not a good one. He pointed out that it “looks lethal to passers by” and that it goes against the advice on locking a bike that can seen here.