Last chance to win a Cannondale bike

If you have been considering entering the commuter bike design competition, now is the time. The deadline for entries is just a week and a half away. I have received a handful of entries so far, but your chances are still pretty good. Read the details again here and get to work on your best ideas. Get those entries to me by the end of next week, and you could be the winner of the Bad Boy bike.

I probably won't get a chance to post again this week, so I want to wish all of my U.S. readers a very happy Thanksgiving. Make sure that you are thankful that you are able to ride a bike and follow up with a good ride after the big meal. As you know, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the day that many people get up early to fight the crowds and start their Christmas shopping. If you would rather sleep in on Friday and are planning to shop for bike related stuff anyway, then check out all the special deals from the supporters of this blog in the third column. I hear about special deals from the affiliate advertisers all the time and I can't pass them all along, but I will mention a few that recently caught my attention. If you are looking for an entry level road bike for someone, Jenson has a great special on a 2007 Schwinn Fastback Sport. The offer is only good though December 5th, so act fast. At the other end of the road bike spectrum, the closeout on Look 555 Origin frames caught my attention (I wouldn't mind having one of those myself). There are many other great specials, so keep an eye on the Jenson weekly deals banner in the top right corner of this site. While you are there, be sure to check the Closeout and Hot Deal sections of the site for more great deals. Another affiliate, Eastern Mountain Sports, is having a Black Friday sale and will have everything on the site 20 to 50 percent off though the end of November. Check them out for cycling products and other outdoor gear.

But enough about the sponsors on my site, I want to mention something that another blogger is doing. UltraRob is donating 10 percent of his site earnings from now until Christmas to World Bicycle Relief. He points out that an anonymous donor is matching donations dollar for dollar through the end of the year, so the money will go twice as far. I know that UltraRob has done generous things like this in the past and I think it is a great idea, so I encourage you to take a look at the items in his gear store. Of course, I couldn't really tell you about this in good conscious without committing to do the same, so I want to follow UltraRob's lead on this one. I will donate 10 percent of this site's earnings for the rest of the year as well to WBR. Take a look at the website if you are not already familiar with the organization. It really is a great cause.

The Stealth, e2, and the mess in Detroit

A couple of months ago, I posted about the Cannondale Stealth concept bike, which was displayed at Eurobike in September. Today, I noticed a Bike Hugger post that pointed to a Design Llama post about the bike. Several of the commenters to the Bike Hugger post didn't seem to like the design, which I personally think looks pretty nice. I don't really understand the Magic Motorcycle reference either. I guess the person who made that comment was referring to the hard edge styling on this frame, but it seems like a stretch to me. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that this concept bike was influenced more by automotive design and by other consumer products than it was by an older bike design. As I have said before, I think it is important to look outside the industry for inspiration and my guess is that is what Erik and Torgny did in this case.

I first read about the e2 transport series episode called “Paris: Vélo Liberté” on Bike Snob NYC of all places. For those of you who are not familiar with e2 (actually it is e-squared, but I can't get the 2 to appear as a superscript in the post), it is “a critically acclaimed PBS series about the innovators and pioneers who envision a better quality of life on earth, socially, culturally, economically and ecologically.” e2 is sponsored by Autodesk, and as you might assume it focuses on innovative technologies and design ideas that can help solve the world’s environmental and social problems. That sounds like a series that would really be of interest to me, so I was disappointed when I checked my local listings and learned that it is not playing on my local PBS station. Here is the good news though; all of the shows in the e2 transport series will debut online staring this Monday, November 24th. The episode about the Vélib bike-sharing program in Paris starts on December 1st and will be streamed online for one week from the debut date. Check out the site and click the webcast tab for more information. I can’t wait to watch it; in fact, I am looking forward to all six e2 transport episodes.

On the subject of transport, I can’t help but mention the whole GM/Ford bailout idea. Not to oversimplify the management problems in Detroit, but if the two companies had been focused on designing and producing viable products several years ago, they wouldn't be in the current situation. Instead, the bigwigs at both companies were focused on short-term profits, while completely ignoring the foreseeable future. I say let them fail and put that federal money into bicycle infrastructure instead. A New Deal like program of bike lane and path building could create new jobs right here in the U.S, right? While we are at it, why not create a federal program to build, in addition to the transit oriented cycling projects, more velodromes and mountain bike trails all across the country. Those projects could create even more jobs here in America. OK, I admit, I am not completely serious about that idea (not the second part at least) but I do think that giving federal dollars to businesses that are failing due to gross mismanagement is a really, really bad idea. For a slightly less biased perspective on the GM/Ford situation though, read this MSN Money post. Here is the quote from the article that jumped out at me:

“They also need to realize that consumers are looking for ways to conserve energy and reduce the costs associated with the upkeep of their car. The fact that Ford re-opened their F-150 plant as soon as gas prices came down is reason enough to send management their walking papers.”

The new bike rack design for NYC

I mentioned the NYC CityRacks design competition earlier this year (and also in a recent post), so I probably should point out the winning design. The “Hoop” rack by Copenhagen based designers Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve will be the next standard bike rack design for New York City. Several other blogs have posted about the winning design and it seems like there is a common theme in the comments section of each post. Based on what I have read, it appears that most people think the design looks pretty nice. I would tend to agree that it is an aesthetically pleasing form. In fact, I thought it was the best looking choice out of the 10 finalists.

Of course, looks aren’t everything and quite a few of the negative comments about the design seem to be focused on a couple of issues. The single point of attachment to the sidewalk is one issue that many people have questioned. Is the small footprint going to be enough to keep the rack secured as it is used and bumped into over the years? Not to mention the fact that thieves will try to pry the entire rack loose from its minimalist mounting plate. Also, some have called the design an example of “form over function” and point out that the actual part, which connects the circle to the ground in the photographs, looks sloppy compared to the renderings (which conveniently ignore the connection). From what I have heard, the designers have a better idea for securing the rack than what we have seen in the pictures of the initial installation, so I will reserve judgment on that. I do, however, think the small, single point footprint could be an issue in NYC- an environment where these racks will see significant use (and abuse). I guess time will tell on that.

The second complaint that I have seen from several people is that the winning design accommodates only two bikes. Personally, that is something that I do not see as a problem. In fact, I strongly believe that a 2-bike rack is the best way to go. Designs which take a minimum of sidewalk space and can lock two bikes in a stable manor (think of the inverted U rack again) can be used in clusters to allow for the exact amount of parking that is required. Furthermore, many of the bike racks on the market that are supposedly designed for several bikes are often misused so that they end up parking only a fraction of the bikes that they were intended to accommodate. I think that the commonly used ribbon rack design is a great example of this. The designer may have intended for each loop in the ribbon to hold one bicycle, but in reality people often lock their bicycles parallel to the rack because that is the only stable way to do so. In effect, a 7-foot long ribbon rack that was designed to hold nine bicycles, often can park only two- exactly the same number as a 2-foot wide inverted U. I don’t mean to single out the ribbon rack again, but I do believe that the flexibility of a smaller 2-bike rack design is a benefit to architects and urban planners, who can specify them in appropriate groups as needed. With any of the 2-bike designs mentioned (the original inverted U rack, the new Bicycle Hitch 2, or the Hoop design), x number of racks will always park twice as many bikes, because there is no way for one bike locked to the rack to take up space that was intended for other bikes. In other words, with those designs you actually get the number of parking spaces that you want, and I think that is a pretty important consideration.

While I am posting, I will quickly mention a couple of other things. Mountain Biking by 198 is running a contest right now and the top prize is a Mountain Cycle Fury 5.5" travel frame. All you have to do to enter is talk about your favorite trail. There are other prizes too, so read about the details here. Of course, don’t forget about the design competition on this blog, which will close in about 2 1/2 weeks. Just think, enter both and you might end up with two really nice new bikes.

I previously mentioned the Trek District and the new belt drive Soho on the blog. Today, Cyclelicious points out a CNN article about chainless bicycles that features those two models. It is hard to beat the efficiency of a chain, but for commuter bikes where a clean, low maintenance drivetrain is desired, belt systems certainly are an attractive option. As I have mentioned before, the belt drive on the Strida that I tested worked flawlessly.

Images from Core77

Favorites revisited

Recently someone asked me a pretty tough question- what are my 5 favorite bicycle designs? I didn't know how to respond; that is almost an impossible for me to answer because of the great variety of bicycle types that interest me. The question immediately made me think of a post from years ago- March 2006 to be exact- in which I listed a few high-end road and mountain bikes that I really liked. I stand by that list and I can say that I still like the current top of the line recreational bike offerings from all those same companies. Does that make them my favorite designs? Well not really. If the question had been something like “if you could have any 5 bikes on the market, what would they be?’ I am pretty sure that I would pick a few really nice (and very expensive) road and mountain bikes. I might also pick a super high-end cyclocross bike and of course I would get a really nice time trial bike. Yeah, I like expensive racing bikes, but from purely a design standpoint I wouldn’t call any of those my favorites. As I have said before on the blog quite a few times, the bike designs that interest me the most are not necessarily the ones that I ride most of the time. I am interested in designs that are transportation focused and aim to introduce a wider audience to the joys of cycling.

Out of curiosity, I did a search here on Bicycle Design for the word “favorite”. It is interesting to see how many times over the course of three years I have used that word in various posts. At one point I called the Alta my favorite single speed commuter. The Mike Burrows designed Windcheetah was referred to as “one of my favorite tricycles with two wheels in the front and a very low rider profile” (I am not sure what my other favorites in that category would be). I also used the word favorite when talking about the old Boardman Lotus superbike, the new Ridley Dean TT bikes, my old Specialized Sub 6 helmet, my Giant carbon aero seatpost, and Archibald Sharp's 1896 book “Bicycles and Tricycles” just to name a few instances. OK, so I have thrown that word around a lot, but my five favorite designs are still something that I just can't pinpoint. I guess I don't really feel the need to. I will suffice to say that I like to see all kinds of different bicycle designs, which is why I am looking forward to reviewing all the entries in the commuter bike design competition. Remember, the deadline for entry is just three weeks away, so get to work if you have an idea.

People’s Design Award and some stuff you should buy

A recent post at Streetsblog mentioned that quite a few bike related products were nominated this year in the People’s Design Awards, an online competition sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Over 276 products were nominated and, as Streetsblog points out, “five were folding bicycles, and four others were related to cycling.”

In particular, I want to mention the Strida 5.0, which was the 8th most popular product based on online votes. The People’s Design Award website just lists the designer as “STRiDA”, but most readers of this blog are probably familiar with the name Mark Sanders. Mark is not only the designer of the Strida but he is responsible for many other very interesting bikes and consumer products. You may also remember that Mark happens to be one of the judges in the commuter bike competition that is currently running on my blog. Anyway, congratulations to Mark on this distinction and also to the other designers whose bike related products were nominated by visitors to the website.

Changing subjects a bit, Fat Cyclist is one of the bike blogs that I read on a regular basis. This morning, I noticed that Elden (aka Fatty) had posted something somewhat design related. Good post, but that is not the real reason why I want to link to his site today. Those of you who read his blog regularly know that his wife Susan is battling cancer and that her condition has deteriorated lately. After reading a recent post (one that I found to be very sad but also inspirational), I decided that I should help in a small way by placing a link to the Fat Cyclist store in my sidebar. If you haven’t noticed the link, it will take you to this page on the Twin Six site where you can buy Fat Cyclist jerseys and other merchandise. Even though the new designs just came out last week, many of the jersey sizes are already sold out. Still, some jersey sizes are available, so take a look. There are also other items like t-shirts, socks, shorts, bottles etc. that you can still pick up to support the cause. You will notice on the Fat Cyclist gear page that 100% percent of the proceeds from certain items go directly to the family to help with medical expenses. On top of that, as Fatty himself pointed out, last week Twin Six donated half the purchase price of ANY Men’s XL-and-larger and Women’s L-and-larger jersey directly to Elden and Susan. Pretty amazing.

On top of the fact that they are obviously very generous, the guys at Twin Six design some really nice looking jerseys. I encourage you all to support them as they are supporting a member of the bike blogging community. Personally, I am as impressed with their graphic design skills as I am with their generosity, so I can assure you that I will be placing my own order very soon.

Friday links

It has been an extremely busy week and I still am still pressed for time. I do, however have a good collection of links to share, so I will pass as many as I can along in this quick post to close out the week.

Tout Terrain has some really nice touring and commuter bikes in their line (like the Boulevard model pictured here). I especially like the way the steel rear racks are welded on as an integrated part of the frame. I spent some time looking at their website earlier this week after spotting an ad for the bikes in VeloVision.

I received the latest issue of ID Magazine this week- the 2008 New and Notable issue. Four bikes were recognized in the “Move” category; the Taga hybrid trike/stroller, the Plus Bike by Fabio Bortolani and Ermanno Righi, the Freeman Transport fixie with S and S couplings, and the Schwinn Tailwind electric. I wasn’t so sure about the form of the Plus Bike; it just doesn’t appeal to me. Still, I am always glad to see different bikes and cycling products in design magazines. More style variety in the market means that the product category has potential to appeal to a greater audience, right?

Treehugger posted a couple of bike related designs recently, a cable lock with an exploding dye pack inside and a seatpost mounted generator that harnesses its power from bumps in the road. While I am mentioning Treehugger posts, I should add that they also had a good post not too long ago about small wheeled folding bikes. Finally, I will mention that Treehugger recently posted about a bike design competition that you are probably already familiar with (yeah that last link is blatant self promotion, but I couldn’t help it).

Core 77 posted about a device for a bike that can trigger traffic light sensors. It is big and crude at this point, but seems like an interesting idea.

MocoLoco, the self-proclaimed modern & contemporary design blog, posted a couple of bike designs this week

Gizmodo thinks that Japanese scientists missed the point with this one.

Cyclelicious mentioned the “Light Up Your Ride” competition on Instructables.

Road Bike Action posted a tech feature about Lance Armstrong transforming his time trial position in the wind tunnel. It is a short feature on the web, but I enjoyed checking out the photos. You can see video of the same thing here. It must be nice to have Steve Hed around as an aerodynamics consultant.

Lastly, I will leave you with a link that is pretty much the opposite of that last one. The picnic table bike appears to be designed for comfort over speed. The integrated cooler and grill are a nice touch. No wonder those two guys seem to be having so much fun riding it around town. Thanks to Rrrick for the tip on that one.

A new bike rack design

I have mentioned the inverted-U bike rack design on the blog at least a couple of times before. In the NYC racks competition post I said:

[the inverted-U design is 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 as 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.

A few years ago I worked on a proposal for a bicycle parking plan to present to the City of Greenville, SC. It is probably no surprise to any of you that inverted U racks were the type that I recommended. Yeah, we have established that I like that design, so when I received a message recently from David Rulon, an architect who was the designer behind the original inverted U rack, I was interested to see his latest idea.

David points out that the new Bicycle Hitch 2 is an evolution of his original design. The new Bicycle Hitch 2 keeps the best ideas of the old one, while adding “major functional, aesthetic and "financial" improvements.” Rather than paraphrase, I will quote David on the features that he feels are advantages over his original design:

1. Bicycles are separated by enough space such that the pedals and handlebars do not interfere with each other

2. Bicycles can be secured in opposite or the same direction. The ends of the bicycles on each side of the hitching post align taking up less space and providing a neater appearance than the original Hitch-2.

3. The hitching post has separate and longer horizontal bars for each bicycle providing alternate locking locations and more space on which to rest the handlebars.

4. Optional high and low signs can be added in the space between the bikes providing a separation barrier. The lower sign could have the name, address etc of the sponsor of the bike rack (i.e. this person, business or group would pay for the rack and its installation in exchange for permanent advertising). The optional upper sign could be a mini-billboard which could be a source of revenue for the city. In some prominent locations this upper sign could be a back to back flat panel video screen possibly powered by a tubular photovoltaic collector integrated into the top frame of this sign. These video screens could be updated wirelessly.

5. This new hitching post is a more aesthetic and functional design with articulated joints and "feet". The hitching post with the signs has a somewhat anthropomorphic shape giving the appearance of a person walking holding sandwich board advertisements.

6. A street tree or flat cartoon-like cutouts of historic, famous or political figures could be located in the space between the bikes in lieu of the high and low signs.

7. Hitching posts can incorporate parking meters to reduce street clutter.

Below you can see additional images and variations of the new Bicycle Hitch-2 racks. To show them in context, David included “images that show mid-block bicycle parking in which a car parking space is converted to bicycle parking at the sidewalk level. This sidewalk extension would provide a mid-block green space that is in a sense a mini-park with bike parking, benches and possibly other amenities. These sidewalk extensions would be restful places and may also have a tendency to slow traffic down.”

Eric’s Lunatrike

Eric Whiting is an architect in Saratoga Springs, NY who designed and built this recumbent trike. I am certainly no expert on recumbents, but the trike looks nice and features a pretty slick carbon fiber seat/ fender. In addition to the renderings and prototype photos, Eric sent me a 19-page pdf document that included his research, concept sketches, and development renderings. It also chronicled the construction of the prototype and showed images of the finished trike in use. I wish I could share the entire pdf with you, because it is a great example of a well documented design process. Unfortunately I can’t do so on the blog, so I have picked out just a few images.

Eric has a few pictures of the completed trike on a geocities page. He says he plans to put more images of his trike project on the web in the near future. When he does, I will update this post to point to the new site.

While I am on the subject of recumbents, I should mention that the latest issue of VeloVision Magazine (Issue 31, Sept 2008) feature a short report from the Human Powered Vehicle World Championship, which was held in Suffolk UK in August. The report was written by Mike Burrows and Richard Ballantine- both guys that I have a lot of respect for, so it was the first article that I read when I received the issue. The same issue has some good Eurobike coverage as well. Unfortunately, the content is not available on line, but if you are interested in bike designs that are a little out of the ordinary, it is a magazine that I highly recommend.