Year: 2012
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A few Friday links
Okay, it is time for another Friday catch-up post to quickly share a few links that I recently bookmarked, but haven’t had the chance to mention yet. Chris Luomanen’s Barbasket is an interesting concept. It is a handlebar with a soft basket that attaches to the integrated frames. The project is on Kickstarter now, so…
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A new Aston Martin and an old Lotus bike
A couple of readers have inquired about the Aston Martin One-77 bike, which is billed on the website as “the world’s most technologically advanced road bicycle.” Aside from the information that can found on the website, I don’t really know much about the bike, which features a split seat tube and dual crown fork design…
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Olympic road bikes
I definitely have a bit of Olympic fever, so I was up early on Saturday and Sunday to watch the London 2012 road races live (both really great races by the way). In the men’s and women’s pelotons, it was hard to miss the neon red Specializeds that were used by riders on teams sponsored…
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A bike parking design competition for Puerto Rico
According to the designers, Ariana Hernández and Aixa Solá, “Bench rack is a concept born from the need for street furniture to help maximize space and urban audiences”. The design concept works as a rack for bicycles, but also functions as bench seating in an urban public space. Bench rack is just one of many…
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KETTLER eMotion electric bike concept
I mentioned a project from Behance yesterday, so I will follow up with one more today. The eMotion electric bike concept shown here was designed by University of Wuppertal students Stefan Reichert, Sven Schulte-Tillmann, and Arina Nechaeva in collaboration with the German bike manufacturer KETTLER. The brief for the project was simple- “develop the future…
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Trek Visual Brand Language Sculpture
I was on vacation at the beach with my family last week, and took a break from this blog (and the internet as a whole). I have some catching up to do, and a lot of bike design content to sort though and share, but I’ll start with a very quick post today. Michael Hammond…
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Velomobile technology, design, and engineering seminar
Though I have yet to actually ride in a velomobile, I mention them on the blog fairly often. It is definitely a transportation category that interests me, and one that I would very much like to learn more about. For that reason, I really wish I could make it to the 7th International Velomobile Seminar,…
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The Faraday Porteur and more
After a longer than average trip to China, I am especially busy this week trying to catch up in the office. I do have a few links that I want to pass along though, so I’ll take a quick break from my backlog of emails and drawing approvals to share a few of them now.…
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FABIKE
With his FABIKE project, Fabio’s goal was to create a “high-end urban bike with innovative solutions.” The name stands for Flexibly Adjustable Bike, and the versatile 7075 aluminum sliding vertical dropouts with titanium locking bolts are the core of his frame design. A few other singlespeed/ fixed gear bikes, Lynskeys for example, have sliding vertical…
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BlueSkyBike by Richard Heath
BlueSkyBike is a collaboration between Industrial Design Intern Richard Heath from Auckland, NZ, and BlueSky Design in Sydney, Australia. Their electric folding bike concept is aimed at style conscious urban commuters and is based on Richard’s experience commuting from Sydney’s western suburbs to the city each day via train. Richard explains the concept below: “Practicality,…
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Cervellum Hindsight 35 – first impressions
About a week before I left for China, Evan Solida, the designer and founder of Cerevellum, dropped off one of the first production Hindsight 35 units for me to try out. Some of you may remember the test ride I did with one of his early Gameboy based prototypes back in 2008…and I think you…
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Guilin Bike Stand by David Hu
I am traveling in China this week, and at the moment I’m watching the evening celebrations of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday on Qiandeng Lake from my hotel window in Foshan. I think it is about time to get outside for a closer look, but first it seems fitting to quickly share a design for…
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AeroVelo’s human powered helicopter project
Late last year, I mentioned the University of Toronto Human Powered Vehicle Team’s Vortex HPV, which they raced at the World Human Powered Speed Championships in Battle Mountain, Nevada. This year, the team from Toronto has a more ambitious project- the world’s first successful human powered helicopter. Team member Victor Ragusila explains that they are…
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Are beam frames making a comeback?
My post from last year about pro triathlete TJ Tollakson’s 1996 Zipp bike is still generating a fair bit of traffic here at Bicycle Design, so I assume there must be some renewed interest in beam frames. If the reaction to Graeme Pearson’s Z1-Eleven frame design on the Slowtwitch forum is any indication, there is…
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DIY electronic shifting
If you want Di2 on your bike, but you don’t have an extra few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, Computer Engineer Nabil Tewolde has a perfect solution for you. His DIY electronic shifting system is, for the most part, made from parts found at his local hardware store, electronics shop, and hobby…
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Three bike books from Laurence King Publishing
I was only expecting a copy of The Custom Road Bike, by Guy Andrews, from the folks at Laurence King Publishing, but I received two other books as well. All three are interesting, so I want to quickly share my impressions of each of them. When I first browsed through The Custom Road Bike, it…
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3D printed carbon fiber bike frame by Andrew Leinonen
You may remember Andrew Leinonen’s StayLocked “self-destructing” bike frame from a post last year. His latest project is also pretty interesting- “a custom bicycle frame that uses 3D-printed lug sockets to define the bicycle’s geometry.” The printed ABS lugs are then bonded to steel aluminum frame tubes and reinforced with carbon fiber, using 3D printed…
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Dura-Ace 9000 and SRAM XX1- both go to 11
So I guess I should mention Shimano’s “official” release of the Dura Ace 9000 11-speed groups (electronic and mechanical) , though it seems a bit anticlimactic considering the fact that we have all seen the “unofficially” leaked photos that appeared on the web months ago. As suspected from those early pics, the crankset has a…