Honestly, the U of O’s team brought more to the table than many of the professionally designed and built bikes at the Oregon Manifest.

Mick

This bike was designed more for the end user, my rider, than the actual competition itself. It just seemed to fit for the competition at the time. My rider owns Green Cycle Services in Eugene, Oregon and needed real solutions, not conceptual solutions, to address the specific needs of the real world in which he uses his bike everyday. Not to discount all those really well thought out solutions found on the other entries that may or may not prove out to be true as was mentioned by “aleix.” I figured that addressing the issues my rider faces everyday would be a good way to approach the competition.

Solution: look at the cargo deck I built. See that extra rail that skirts around the lower part of the deck. It gives the operator the ability to use any kind of tie down system he or she needs to secure any number of objects to be hauled. The deck also allows for several different types of cargo boxes to be mounted, open boxes, locking boxes, a dump box (dirt hauler), child hauler, a fat stereo box with big loud speakers, etc. The bike was actually built around the deck and the many different cargo hauling systems it can support.

Solution: the entire frame was built with cargo securing in mind. The steering is tucked in well above the lower frame tube in case a strap or rope needs to be wrapped all the way under the bike.

Solution: the steering rod was place on the left away from curb so it is harder to catch and damage.

None of these features were done by accident. The rider/owner has many years of experience in using this type of a bike for portage, and I implemented as much into this design from his wish list as I could. All the obscure little things he could never find on existing designs that make a real users life easier.

Solution: the drive system is just another Gates belt system and a Shimano Alfine gear hub. Yes exactly, but look again. The user of this bike bases his business, bike cargo hauling, in the south side of Eugene, Oregon. Need I say many hills, some very steep, long, and all Oregon sized ones. Unfortunately, the 24 tooth Alfine/Nexus CenterTrack cog offered by Gates really doesn’t cut it. I needed to give him lower gears so he could huff his loaded bike over Eugene’s 30th Ave hill. Since Gates doesn’t offer a 28 tooth cog for a CenterTrack belt system, I had to machine one, or roll my own so to speak. And since I was already at the mill and lathe I decided to create one with an offset to extend that narrow 42mm chainline everyone constantly complains about, which keeps one from using the belt and Alfine on a 29er. Look again and you will notice the 104bc 4 bold MTB crank with its 50mm chainline, and, yes, I can make it work on a 29er with big fat tire too. So the result was a cargo bike with a new CenterTrack system that has low enough gears to push a 400 pound load up and over a mountain yet slip it in to 11th gear and it will fly (like a Vimana). That was two solutions in one.

The length, the gearing, the cargo hauling system, the steering, and many other features were lost to the judges and public because this bike didn’t get finished in time to fit the rules of the competition. I am sorry about that and apologize to the world for not having the opportunity to share what makes this bike different, but I made the choice to forgo the deadline and finish the bike correctly. And it is done correctly. And the paint is real pretty too.

I guess sometimes the rules of the game, deadlines and other limiting factors, can hinder the creative process to the extent that something that might just be significant is simply overlooked and it becomes more important to punish the loser. And one needs to ask in the end who is really the loser?