It is design week in Milan right now. For those of you who are not already familiar with it, Milan’s design week coincides with the giant Salon del Mobile furniture fair that takes place this time of year. Annually, this is the biggest and best series of design events in the world. Of course, most of the events and parties are centered on the furniture, lighting, and home décor industries. After all, that is the point of the fair. Still, it is Italy, so you can expect to see more than a few bicycles if you are lucky enough to be in Milan this week. Biomega exhibited bikes at the 2001 Furniture Fair and set a precedent that hopefully will continue. Many bicycles do, after all, spend a lot of time parked indoors and certainly can be viewed as objects of high design.

This year, I know of at least one bike that is being shown at design week, the Daka designed ultra-portable A-bike. Though it is not a bike, the Scoot electric scooter is being unveiled this week in Milan as well. If you like to see development sketches and an outline of the design process, I recommend spending some time looking at Scoot’s website. I am sure there are more bike related products to see in Italy this week. Not being there this year, I unfortunately don’t know of them. If anyone who is in Milan spots anything interesting and bike related, send me a picture. The fuzzy picture above is something that I spotted in Milan a couple of years ago, an outdoor bollard light that is also a single bike rack. Cool product, I’d love to see these used in public spaces here in the U.S.