Category: Commuter
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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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Petal Velomobile by Eric Birkhauser
Architect Eric Birkhauser recently sent me a link to his entry in the B’Twin/ Local Motors design competition (see the other entries here). His velomobile, with LED lights integrated into the shell/frame, sounds pretty interesting, so I want to share a few of the image boards here along with Eric’s description of the concept: “The…
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Anti-theft bike lights
The Blink/Steady bike light is Brooklyn-based designer Benjamin Cohen’s solution to the problem of bike light theft. The light is machined from solid aluminum and is secured to the seat post by a set screw inside the unit, making it difficult to steal. There are no buttons, and it uses an accelerometer to turn on…
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Taiwanese basket bike and a crowdsourced MTB
A couple of months ago, I mentioned the Peugeot DL122 concept bike, which featured a slot compartment in the main triangle area designed to hold a briefcase. Robert, from Ascend Cycles, pointed out that 20 inch wheel bikes with a similar compartment in the frame are a pretty common sight on the streets of Taipei.…
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Bicycle Design Competition follow-up
OK, we are nearly halfway into 2012, and I still haven’t started working on the new design competition that I mentioned late last year. I still need to decide on the details and find a company to provide a prize for the winner, but it is going to happen (once I can find a little…
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Porsche concept bike by David Schultz
Not too long ago, I posted a picture from a 20 year old copy of Bicycling Magazine, which featured two industrial designers at Specialized in the early 90s (two of the first in the bike industry). One of those young designers was current Specialized creative director Robert Egger, who I have mentioned on this…
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A well-lit helmet and a trail of chalk
I first noticed the Lazer Urbanize helmet, with integrated front and rear lights, at Interbike 2009, and it was one of the products that I really liked at the show. For commuting and urban riding, I definitely think the idea of a helmet that not only illuminates the road ahead, but makes the wearer’s head…
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Specialized Turbo e-bike
I was pretty excited over the sporty Trek Phase e-bike concept that was displayed at Trek World 2009. Like the carbon fiber version of the Sanyo eneloop for the Japanese market, the Trek Phase concept bike challenged the common belief (in the US at least) that e-bikes have to look clunky, utilitarian, and uncool. I…
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A couple of weeks with a bamboo WebbWorks Hilltribe
I have mentioned quite a few different bamboo bikes on this blog, but until recently I had never really ridden one for longer than about fifteen minutes. A few weeks ago though, that changed when my friends at TTR Bikes loaned me an Alfine 11 equipped WebbWorks Hilltribe to try out for a while. It…
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A couple of folding bike concepts
For his thesis project at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Industrial Design graduate student Ramon Hung designed the Velo Chic folding bike, which is specifically aimed toward women living in urban areas. On his portfolio site, Raymon points out that: “In America, women comprise only 25% of bicycle riders. The main factor that…
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Tulip Fun Fun rack and the Shape Field bike
I saw Margus Triibmann’s Tulip Fun Fun bike rack yesterday, and mentioned it on Twitter and Google+ saying, “This is a clever bike rack design. I’d be interested to see how it holds up over time in an urban environment though.” A few people replied with concerns about the security of a flexible bike rack,…
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2011 recap for Bicycle Design
I finally had a chance to review this site’s stats from 2011, so it’s time for another year end recap post. Continuing the trend from 2009 and 2010, Bicycle Design’s traffic seems to be growing slightly. Google Analytics reports just over a million total pageviews (1,138,282) for the blog during 2011 from 191 different countries.…
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An interesting vintage singlespeed
I am back at my desk catching up after a great Holiday break. I have been on the internet very little in the last 2+ weeks, so I have a lot to share…once I get through some of this email. For now, I want to quickly point you to this interesting chromed Biscotti single speed…
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Any ideas for a Bicycle Design competition in 2012?
It has been a few years since the first design competition that I staged here at Bicycle Design. The “Commuter Bike for the Masses” competition at the end of 2008 took quite a bit of time to organize and administer, but it was a lot of fun to see, and discuss, the many creative entries…
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Cyber Monday and an $18K bike with identity issues
It is Cyber Monday today, so that means that you should all immediately stop reading blogs like this one and start buying lots and lots of stuff, right? OK…I am not really serious, but if you are planning on buying any bike related gifts today (for yourself or others), I hope that you will consider…
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Plus 1 this post!
In addition to visiting this site, you may already follow Bicycle Design on Facebook or Twitter. Now, there is one more way to keep up with this blog… with the new Bicycle Design Google + page. If you don’t already use Google +, I encourage you to take a look. The network has a great…
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Catching up with links
I’m still very busy getting caught up in the office after a couple of weeks in Asia, but I have a backlog of interesting links that I want to pass along. Some of these probably deserve a bit more detail than I can give them today, but time is limited…so here comes another rapidfire links…