I was working out of town last week and didn’t get a chance to write anything on the blog. The preceding week was pretty hectic too, so posting has been especially light at Bicycle Design of late. I guess it is just this time of year. I have been really busy at home and at work, so it is hard to find a little extra time to write about bikes. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of bicycle design related info to pass along though. I really appreciate all the tips that I have received from readers the last couple weeks. It may take a while to get to all of those messages though, so please bear with me if I am a little slow to respond.

One topic that many of you shared with me last week was the announcement of winners in the Copenhagen Bike-Share Design Competition, which took place during the COP15 climate summit. Two readers who alerted me to the announcement happened to be the first place winners (yes, there were 2 first place prizes awarded). You may remember Erik Nohlin as a finalist in the commuter bike design competition that I staged last year. He now works for LOTS Design and was part of the team that created the OPENbike. Read more about their winning design below:

“LOTS Design (Gothenburg), Koucky & Partners (Gothenburg) and Green Idea Factory (Berlin) teamed up to design an innovative bike sharing system for the City of Copenhagen. The team’s entry, called OPENbike, was yesterday awarded a first price at the city’s international design competition with 127 entries.

The City of Copenhagen, one of the world leading cycling cities, aims at establishing a new bike share system and has therefore initiated an open international design competition.

The winning entry, called OPENbike, puts the user in the centre and proposes a system that is easy to use, flexible and fully scalable. The design goal has been to create a system that seamlessly integrates with public transport and becomes a natural part of Copenhagen’s existing bicycle culture. The system proposes a smart card system and positioning solutions integrated in each bicycle to create a fully floating bike share system. OPENbike does therefore not need special stands and bicycles can easily be repositioned and adapted to the cities changing needs.”

The other 1st place prize went to Thomas Coulbeaut for his Myloop design, which uses a docking station that secures the bike and recharges it when it’s not in use. The docking solution takes up very little space and has virtualy unlimited capacity due to the fact that the bicycles can be locked to one another. The design allows for a lot of flexibility in the way the stations are configured… a feature that the competition jurors seemed to like.

On the CPH Bike Share Competition website, you can download pdfs with more information about the winners or any of the 127 entries. I encourage you to click around and read about some of the different ideas. Also, be sure to take a look at this Copenhagenize post, which features a 20-minute video of the awards ceremony.

Another good source for information about bike sharing programs in general is The Bike-sharing Blog. Russell was one of the readers who sent me a tip about the CPH winners last week, and his blog is one that I will continue to watch.

Finally, on the subject of bike sharing, I will mention that Greenville, SC (where I live) is in the number 1 spot on the B-cycle “Who wants it more?” map. Pretty cool for a little town with a population of around 60,000 people! I am certainly a big supporter of a bike sharing program here, and look forward to that becoming a reality soon.

Since I mentioned Greenville, I also want to share some pictures of the Bikeville group setting up for, and riding in, the Downtown Greenville Christmas Parade. We had a “Share the Road” theme for our bicycle-powered float this year. Despite a few minor challenges keeping one of our bike riding mannequins upright, I think it went pretty well. In addition to the photos, you can check out a few videos that I shot that night. The one that I filmed while riding is a little shaky, but still worth watching. Check out the conference bike going from one side to the other…definitely a crowd favorite.