Category: Concept
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Bike Zone, Bipo, Vind, Cyclingboom and more
Man… do I ever have a backlog of stuff to share! I have been really busy with design projects lately, so the links that I have been intending to post here at Bicycle Design have been stacking up. I can’t get to everything today, but I do want to quickly mention a few interesting designs…
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PowerPac- a pedal powered charging unit by Ideso
Just a few days ago, I mentioned bicycles being used to charge cell phones in post-storm Manhattan. That task could have been made easier for more people with a product like the PowerPac designed by Ideso, a South African product design consulting firm. The PowerPac is the “world’s first product to offer a removable power…
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The Donky Bike and the Rizoma Metropolitan
I have posted a few of Ben Wilson’s pedal powered creations in the past. His designs like the ARTIKCAR, the SeeBikeSaw, the Bike_Kar, and the Pocket Rocket 2 may have been one-off art projects, but his latest bike is a product that you can actually purchase. The 20 inch wheel, 3-speed Donky Bike features a…
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Two different approaches to “reinventing the wheel”
If asked to name an invention that has dramatically improved the bicycle in the last couple hundred years, the pneumatic tire would probably be at the top of many people’s lists. John Dunlop’s patent for an air filled bicycle tire in 1888 set the course for the tires that are used on almost all vehicles…
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VeloTilt: Design of a low drag practical velomobile
Recently, Arnold Ligtvoet from RaptoBike sent me a link to an interesting project that he is involved with. The goal is to develop a velomobile that is both practical and fast, and the team that is working on the VeloTilt certainly has the credentials to make it happen. The development team consists of Will Schermer-…
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MiniMum by Omer Sagiv
MiniMum is the latest bike idea from designer Omer Sagiv, whose previous concept bikes I featured in a 2010 post. The MiniMum was designed as a simplified city bike; as Omer says, “using the minimum production effort, and on the other hand getting maximum user experience.” The frame is made from aluminum tubes and a…
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Eric Birkhauser’s ZIPcycle share concept
My post about Eric Birkhauser’s Petal Velomobile concept generated some good discussion earlier this year. The architect’s latest project, ZIPcycle, is a work in progress that will be part of a larger project that he is working on… a book on active transit systems. This time around, in addition to a sleek recumbent HPV, he…
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Catching up again
Yeah…I know that I sound like a broken record by prefacing most every post lately with a mention of how busy I am with work and other projects. I really haven’t been able to spend much time thinking about this blog lately though, so please bear with me while posts are infrequent, and my responses…
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Concept bikes from the Peugeot Design Lab
Earlier this year, I posted about the Peugeot DL122 concept bike, designed by Neil Simpson. There was quite a bit of interest in that original bike, so Neil decided to add a battery and motor to make an e-bike version that they could show at Eurobike. He redesigned the handlebars to hide the cables and…
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Toka bike by Tobias Bernstein
I am slammed with work this week, so I am a bit behind on posts. I do want to quickly pass along a few renderings that a reader recently shared with me though. Tobias Bernstein, an Industrial Designer working in Austria, shared his design concept for a belt drive foldable city bike. As an occasional…
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Go Fara: a student project by Adam Taylor
Adam Taylor is an industrial designer in England who is working toward finishing his MA in Future Design. His final project is a new commuter bicycle aimed at changing the everyday commute and working day of typical 9 to 5 office staff. The system consists of the Go Fara service and the bike “Tim”, which…
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Cannondale CERV concept bike
I have been a fan of Cannondale concept bikes for a long time. Some of them I loved, like Alex Pong’s CNC machined Magic Motorcycle full suspension bike from the early 90s (one of which is apparently still around at the Cycling Sports Group office in Connecticut). Others I thought were a bit strange, like…
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Kickstarting a trailer for the minivan lifestyle and a new gravel road bike
At any given time on Kickstarter , there are quite a few bike related projects seeking funding. Some of them, like Revlights most recently, do meet their funding goals and move forward into production. Most seem to struggle to get the funding that they seek though, and never see the light of day. Last week,…
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ISUDA Bike Share Design Competition
It has been quite a while since I brought up the idea of staging another design competition here at Bicycle Design. That post late last year generated many great comments, and I hope to be able to use a few of your competition ideas in the future. One common thread in many of the comments…
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A few interesting designs from Eurobike 2012
Today marks the last day of Eurobike 2012, and I haven’t been following the show as much as I would have liked. For more in-depth coverage check out Bike Biz, Bike Rumor, VeloNews, Road Bike Action, and Bike Radar (just to name a few). What I would like to share today are a few products…
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Road bike sketches by Ilya Vostrikov
Ilya Vostrikov is a Russian industrial designer who is currently working in Germany as an automotive designer. According to his blog, he has a role in “development of body kits and interior design for Porsche, BMW, Aston Martin, and Mini.” As you might expect, his blog features no shortage of car drawings, but he also…
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A practical velomobile…and really fast ones too
It seems like I have been hearing more and more from companies making velomobiles lately, and that is a trend that I hope to see continue. I am definitely not an expert on the subject of HPVs or velomobiles, but the Challenger from UK based Ocean Cycles is a pedal powered machine that immediately caught…