It has taken some time, but I can finally announce that Torkel Dohmers’ “ThisWay” concept has been chosen as the winning entry in the Bicycle Design “commuter bike for the masses” design competition. Congratulations to Torkel, who will receive a Cannondale Bad Boy 700 for his efforts. Since I already published Torkel’s description of his entry, I won’t post it again, but you can read it in the finalists post if you are interested.
Some of you may be wondering why it took so long to announce the finalists and then to announce the competition winner. Well, it wasn’t an easy decision. As you know, a jury of designers, and one journalist, with varied backgrounds made the selection, so you can probably imagine that we had different opinions about the various entries. Those differences led to some really great discussions as we worked to reach a decision, so I want to share a little bit of that with you.
First, let me back up a bit. In order to decide on the finalists, each juror made a list of their top ten picks in order of preference. From those lists, I assigned points to each pick (10 points for first, down to 1 point for tenth). I compiled the points for each entry that we chose, and the six finalists were decided based on those numbers. As we made those initial lists, we each wrote a short comment about each of our picks. Here are a few of those initial comments about Torkel’s “ThisWay” concept.
“This semi-enclosed design is different and attractive to be a clean, mould-breaking alternative to non-cyclists. The frame is light (and potentially low cost in volume) due to tall frame (high 2nd moment of area), and offers more protection from other road users, weather and can be seen. My only hesitation is the semi-recumbent riding position, which may put off previously infrequent riders.”
“Fresh concept, well executed design, weather + crash protectionmake it appealing to non-cyclists. By far the best proposal in myopinion. I’d move the seat up a bit higher for improved safety in heavytraffic though.”
“This one is my favorite concept by a long shot. I have seen attempts at a bicycle frame with a partial roof before, but they all look clumsy and top heavy. In this case though, the overall form looks integrated and visually works well. The semi-recumbent riding position is not all that different than the position of a driver in a car, so it may appeal to non-cyclists. I think the seat could be a bit higher to allow a ride similar to a Townie or one of the other popular “foot forward” upright bikes that are popular today. The presentation board could have done a better job explaining the modular cargo attachment on the rear of the frame, but overall I think this concept address the car replacement issue best of all.”
“Personally I’ve never tried a recumbent – I’m very comfortable on a regular bike, but a recumbent makes me think I would have to learn to bike all over again, (would love to try one though!). I can imagine that they are fairly stable as your c.o.g. is lower, but since you are sitting low you are not visible in the traffic. I’m imagining a recumbent could be a bigger obstacle for a non-biker to overcome than to get on a regular bike, especially when thinking about different age groups – it’s an issue with familiarity and perception. What I do like though is that it has the playful outline / x-section of a car indicating that it is a step closer to a car than a regular bike. Overall a very nice design. Like that it has a roof – but I guess it never rains sideways where he lives…”
So based on the numbers, “ThisWay” easily made the list of finalists, but that was just step one. We still had to agree on a winner, and that is when the real jury discussion started. As you can see from the comments above, a few of the jurors liked the concept, but had some reservations about the recumbent riding position right off the bat. As we discussed the six finalists, a couple of jurors still had reservations about Torkel’s concept:
“My main concern is that a recumbent would be a bigger obstacle for a non-biker to overcome than to get on a regular bike, especially when thinking about different age groups – it’s an issue with familiarity and perception. I think a regular person would feel that they would have to learn to bike all over again – therefore they would stick to what they are familiar with, their car.
To me this would appeal to a bike-enthusiast for which there are plenty of bikes already on the market – so it is not inclusive. A non-biker is, for example, a mom with a busy schedule and several kids, an high-up executive with status issues and a really expensive car he / she loves to show off, a person with back and neck-problems, an older person afraid of falling, an obese person who considers walking their main form for exercise, etc etc.
A non-biker, who is new to recumbents, would probably not feel safe in heavy traffic as you will sit considerably lower than on a regular bike.”
A few responses to the rider position concerns were:
“To recommend a higher riding position, ie ‘foot forward’ rather than recumbent, not a sporty position but nearer classic urban Dutchbikes, than it is now.”
“A (slight) foot forward geometry is amazingly comfortable, for most people. It also feels efficient (except for maybe ‘racers’).”
“I don’t think a feet first semi-recumbent position is necessarily bad, but the seat could move up a bit. Maybe it could fall somewhere between what is shown in the rendering and something like and Electra Townie.”
Another concern about this concept was the potential cost/ commercial viability, to which one juror responded:
“I think with decent production engineering (possibly using frame making techniques from Toy, Boat, or sport equipment makers rather than bike frame makers) …. it could be made to sell under $1000 to start and under $500 if volume took off.”
“From an engineering point of view the ‘frame’ can potentially be pretty light for its size. This is because the materials are basically in the right places to maximize stiffness, without being a fully enclosed ‘eggshell’ (it has a large 2nd moment of area). I could imagine this being molded in glass fiber, around hollow tubes, or even blow or roto-molded ! So cost and weight need not be ‘show stoppers’.
In addition to questions about rider position, the jury pointed out other issues that could be addressed with future development; shielding from road water spray, transmission routing, the possibility of electric assist, etc. Most of those points are minor details though. Overall, out of all the entries, “ThisWay” was the concept that most of us on the jury felt was “different enough to be a ‘paradigm shift’ from, and an alternative to, existing bikes.”
I could throw in many, many more quotes from the jury, but this post is already getting long. It is impossible to capture all the different thoughts, but I do hope that the short bits from our discussions help to give you an idea of the thought and back and forth discussion that went into the decision. I will close with one more quote from a jury member:
“I think we can all agree that convincing a non-biker to leave their car behind is a very complex and interesting problem to solve. There are so many levels to this that we probably haven’t even thought of, and it would take a lot of research / ethnographies to uncover all the different issues involved and to understand how to address them.”
I couldn’t agree more, so let’s keep the discussion going. After all, that is what this blog is all about.
Finally, before I close out this (long) post, I want to again thank the other jurors for the time and effort that they put into this competition. Thanks to:
Torgny Fjeldskaar- Director of Industrial Design & Advanced Products Division at Cannondale Bicycle Corporation
Mark Sanders- Principal of MAS Design Products Ltd and designer of the Strida and IF Bikes
Agnete Enga- Senior Industrial Designer, Smart Design/ Femme Den, NYC
Carlton Reid- Editor at BikeBiz, Quickrelease.tv, Bikeforall.net, and BiketoWorkBook.com
Dear James,
Tks a lot for your contest initiative and happy to see so many people follow your blog. You really deserve this blog to be succesfull!
As a former Shimano employee it brings my mind back to Shimano’s Bicycle Design Contests in the mid ’90′s. The first winner was a folding bike, called Tango.
Currently I have to pleasure to work with the guy who designed this bike.
What I want to say is that these guys bring in new fresh ideas and that finally the market decides if it (or parts out of the concept design) is acceptable or not.
But, most important, step by step they bring bike bizz additional value make our bizz more competitive without focussing on price.
James, really appreciate your blog!
In reply to 6:42 PM Anonymous
Ok, so a couple of bike models in the commuter categories of a handful of manufacturers have put lights on 2008 / 2009 models. I had to really have a good look on their websites to find them. There hardly standard spec! This in my opinion is bad, why has it taken so long for them to even get this far? You don’t buy a car or a motorcycle without lights, so why should you have to add lights to a commuter bike?
Hate to be a hater, but as I said somewhere else, this competition is an intellectual circle jerk. Garage innovation, as currently performed by cycling communities across the world, is producing much more functioncal and fun bicycle deisgns. Amazing how divorced designers seem to be from end users. These designers are like architects who build monuments to their own fantastic visions of a future world. I would love to see what kind of hiking shoes these folks would come up with. There’s a lot a back-patting with this competition. Design competitions will always produce inferior and absurd models compared to the products of evolutionary innovation. The incentives of personal victory result in an “arms race” where a bunch of useless crap gets addressed, in effect blinding the designers to the real constraints involved in bicyle commuting. Nice job!
TRUE DAT!!!
Good competition!
The quality of the work was good. However, the winner looks like those modern Tuk-tuk:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/10cd48/.
I don’t think it would be very good to bike in the street with. But great presentation.
Those red triangles are ugly.
Torkel’s design IS an evolution. I love that design. I want one!
Thanks for sponsoring the competition and seeing it through.
Design competitions have a long history of producing game-changing products/structures. Come talk to me about designers being divorced from end users after you study up on the iPod.
There are a few challenges to be addressed, but this was never meant to be THE bike for every situation. I’ve sold recumbents in a retail situation, and the non-standard saddle and seating position are not obstacles but invitations to potential consumers.
“There are a few challenges to be addressed, but this was never meant to be THE bike for every situation.”
jimmythefly, thanks for making that point. No one is suggesting a single solution for every person who doesn’t currently ride. The idea is just to to throw out some ideas to get people thinking about designs that might appeal to some of the 160 million Americans that don’t currently ride at all. Obviously, within that huge group of “potential cyclist” there is room for many, many different types of bikes or pedal powered machines. This competition was never intended to produce a “one size fits all” solution. The point was to encourage creative thinking about ways to reach that vast majority of people who are not currently interested in cycling.
The people who understand that realize that there are some great ideas in the winning design, the other finalists, and in the entries that I have yet to post. I just want to remind people that these are all just concepts, not developed products, no matter how slick the renderings look.
Rick Marland and Mark Huang, I really appreciate the comments from you guys congratulating Torkel. It was not easy to pick a winner because we really liked elements from both of your entries and all the finalists. Thanks to both of you and to everybody else who submitted an entry.
Excellent choice for a winner! I’m writing a post about the ThisWay bike for the environmental blog Super Eco, that will hopefully be posted soon.
My biggest hope is that the public can overcome the conspicuous look of the design and bring bikes like this into the mainstream.
Wow, this bike is so beautiful.
All that would need to happen now for my sustainable/elegant transportation dreams to be complete would be for this model to be converted into an ELECTRIC MOTOR ASSISTED BIKE!!
Is there any chance of this happening? Or, can the upgrade be done by the purchaser of the bike?
Also, is it available for purchase?
looks cool
All,
I have been struggling to understand WHY the industry is focusing so much attention on these types of designs, the investment of resources into 'cutting edge' design when no attention or resources are being focused on 30 million or so bicycles that ordinary people ride are, aesthetically anyway, really no different than they were 25 years ago?
Yes there is thicker tubing, different tread patterns different graphics, but where is the creativity? I understand that by %, the performance bike market is growing faster, but I am sure the reason is LACK OF ENTHUSIASM for the recreational products on the market. Think about cruisers for a second, people are riding around on the same bikes their grand grandparent did..
Kids are essentially riding the same bikes their parents did in the 1980s. The car industry couldn't get away with this, fashion certainly not to mention music. If there are any bike executives reading this, there are 19 million kids in 1 segment of your market that are uninspired…please help
how cool is this and it's in production
http://www.drymer.nl/