Comments on: E-bikes, co-creation, and Disraeli Gears http://bicycledesign.net/2011/09/e-bikes-co-creation-and-disraeli-gears/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=e-bikes-co-creation-and-disraeli-gears The blog about industrial design in the bike industry Sat, 18 May 2013 07:48:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Ghost Rider http://bicycledesign.net/2011/09/e-bikes-co-creation-and-disraeli-gears/comment-page-1/#comment-24839 Ghost Rider Mon, 26 Sep 2011 04:13:01 +0000 http://bicycledesign.net/?p=2561#comment-24839 Ah, Disraeli Gears — the photographs and history are spectacular, but the real draw is the writing. Good stuff, James!

]]> By: Nick F http://bicycledesign.net/2011/09/e-bikes-co-creation-and-disraeli-gears/comment-page-1/#comment-24834 Nick F Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:29:51 +0000 http://bicycledesign.net/?p=2561#comment-24834 As someone who participated in the Quirky event (I was there as a framebuilder, though I don’t usually work for Quirky) and is also neck-deep in the bicycle industry, I shared a lot of Yannig’s thoughts about whether or not it was really a “reinvention” of the bicycle. Certainly there have been some concept bikes that look similar, and others that function in many of the same ways. (Non-concept bikes, too – the Air Friday came to mind.) Ultimately though, I think the question of whether or not this concept was was a true “reinvention” of the bicycle is somewhat moot.

In reality, bicycles are reinvented practically everyday…. by people of vastly disparate credentials: students, designers, corporations, random folks in their garages. A reinvention isn’t tremendously substantive though until it moves beyond the concept phase. As the many unproduced-yet-great designs that fill this blog illustrate… the crux of a new idea is probably not it’s relative merit, but whether or not it can be produced at a price point where people will buy it. Bikes are a tough sell, and distilling a game-changing feature down to the point where someone will pay for it is where the real reinventions can happen.

I’m not saying they should have had smaller goals because without question the entire event was about entertaining and engaging the public, and I feel it was a success in that regard. Whether or not they reinvented the bicycle remains to be seen.

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