Tag: blue ocean
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E-Trike by George Cooper
George Cooper is a recent Industrial Design graduate from the UK. For his final school project, he set out to design a human powered vehicle geared toward the majority of people who don’t currently cycle (that blue ocean that is mentioned here from time to time). His solution is an electric assist recumbent tricycle with…
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Mando Footloose: a chainless hybrid e-bike
I briefly mentioned the Mando Footloose chainless e-bike recently, but it is an interesting design that is overdue for a post of its own. Mando Footloose is a partnership project of Mando Corp. and Meister Inc., both of which are automotive suppliers in South Korea. To design and develop a chainless hybrid electric bike “featuring…
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NuVinci Harmony automatic shifting for e-bikes
Automatic transmissions for bicycles are not a new idea. One that many of you may remember is the Browning transmission, which was licensed by Suntour in the 80’s. More recently, Shimano’s Coasting group featured automatic 3-speed shifting, but like the Browning transmission, it was not really a commercial success. Those are just two of many…
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Cinco by ORTRE: a bike for everyday cycling
Alex Liauw contacted me recently about an “everyday cycling” bike that he designed. He mentioned that he was very interested in the “Commuter bike for the masses” design competition held here at Bicycle Design a couple years ago, and that the competition inspired him to design a bike for that market. His bike, the Cinco…
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Does the bicycle industry need new ideas?
“The bicycle industry needs to move away from unsuitable sporty racing bikes and focus on the needs of non-enthusiasts if cycling is to become a mode of transport used by the majority.” That is the opening sentence in a Design Week (UK) cover story this week (which I discovered via Bike Biz). If you have…
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Bike day at Design*Sponge
I have mentioned Design*Sponge on this blog a couple times before. In a 2005 post, I referred to it as “one of my favorite non-bike blogs”. Five years later that is still true, so I was really glad to see that all of the D*S posts yesterday were dedicated to bikes. To kick off the…
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No longer Coasting
It should come as no surprise that I liked the idea behind Shimano’s Coasting group when it was announced about 4 years ago. I first mentioned in a May 2006 post that, despite the general negative reaction from many cycling enthusiasts to the look of the group, it was great to see Shimano making “an…
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Mark Sanders’ keynote presentation in Taipei
I don’t know if I mentioned it beforehand, but Mark Sanders was a keynote speaker at the Taipei Cycle Show yesterday. He spoke about his work as a bike designer, but the primary focus of his presentation was, in his words, “how alternative and universal bike design may be a help in attracting more people…
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Agnete’s “Who, Where, What” from the design competiton
As I suspect is the case with many of you, I have been following Tour of California coverage on the web all week. Despite some nasty weather (or maybe partly because of it) this year’s race has been a pretty exciting one so far. For now though, I want to shift out of that racing…
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“Commuter bike for the masses” design competition
–enter for a chance to win a Cannondale Bad Boy bicycle- Those of us who are already cyclists know that riding a bicycle is one of the best ways to get around town. Infrastructure, enforcement, and general traffic safety issues may be the biggest obstacles to convincing people with no real interest in cycling to…