Bicycle Design

2010 IBDC Award winners

Image credit: IBDCaward.org

The Taipei Cycle Show kicked off yesterday, and with it the winners of the 2010 International Bicycle Design Awards (IBDC) were announced. Taiwanese designer Hsi Huang took the grand prize for his “Shopping Bike”, which folds to transform into a shopping cart. Eric Stoddard, who had an entry in the competition and will be sharing his thoughts from the show soon, pointed out that, “All 3 of the top awards went to Taiwan designers, a sign of Taiwan’s growing dominance in the cycle industry and Asia’s increasing excellence in design. The Gold-winning Shopping Bike was definitely the standout in terms of concept, execution, and model quality.” You can read more about Huang’s winning entry, and the other winning entries here.  I also want to point out that Eric’s AutoVelo concept was given an Excellent Award. Congrats to him for that recognition.

You may remember that Mark Sanders was a keynote speaker at the Taipei Cycle Show last year. This year, he is also speaking, and participating in panel discussions, at the show. His “Imagine’ article  (re-titled “How Apple would Launch a bicycle”) was published in the first Taipei Show Daily. You can also see the original version of his article here.  As an industrial designer who works on different types of products, I was quite interested to read Mark’s thoughts on the “bicycle as a consumer product.”  Though I personally love to ride bikes aimed at the recreational “sporting” market (road, mountain, cyclo-cross, track, etc) I do agree that the industry concentrates way too much on that existing base of core users. Mark makes some great points in his side-by-side comparison of the “consumer product industry” and the “bicycle industry”. Take a minute to read his article and share your thoughts here.

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8 responses to “2010 IBDC Award winners”

  1. Victor Avatar
    Victor

    Question about Eric Stoddard’s AutoVelo design… It looks like the cranks are mounted to the from “fork” and would turn when the bike is steered using the handle bars. Wouldn’t that be impossible to pedal? The windshield also seems to attach to the “fork” and would expose the rider to the elements when turning. What am I missing?

    Reply
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  4. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    Hi Victor:
    Regarding your question about the crank position, there are already other recumbents on the market with FWD and cranks mounted on the steering end…most notably the Cruzbike and Flevobike. There are quite a few videos on Youtube showing people riding them with no trouble at all…Also, chances are your first tricycle or big wheel had FWD!

    I chose FWD because it allowed the crank to be as close as possible to the front wheel without interference. Unlike most recumbents that are too low and long with unusual steering angles, or recumbents with the crank way out over the front wheel, this allows a more compact wheelbase (about 1 meter), higher seating and a 70 degree head angle, making it much easier to maneuver and be seen in traffic. The plastic windshield would flex with the handlebar, and optional fenders would protect the rider from the elements

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    1. sallya Avatar
      sallya

      Hi Eric, i would like to buy the Trik.E, but it is not on market. it is very necessary for me having a “pedelec car” like this, i am without a licence and with trik.e i can drive speedly and transport things. Maybe it would be great transporting a person too.

      Reply
  5. Victor Avatar
    Victor

    Hi Eric,

    My kids’ trike is exactly what came to mind when looking at your design. I remember when the kids were just old enough for the trike, the leg that was at the outside of the turn would not be able to reach the pedal at the bottom/front of the stroke because the pedal would move further away from their body. With the trike they couldn’t (even if they wanted to) lean into the turn to steer. I guess it just isn’t that big a deal with bicycles where the rider can lean to steer instead of moving the handlebars much.

    I wasn’t aware of FWD recumbents. Found this video on youtube interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-PlGfFQV0A

    Thanks for the reply and explanation.

    Reply
  6. Sabinna Den Avatar
    Sabinna Den

    Taipei Cycle also has it’s degree of innovation down on the floor, often tucked away in nooks and crannies. Some very creative innovation moving in the direction suggested by Mark’s critique is out there (present tense as the show still has a few hours to run…). But certainly not nearly enough.

    Han Goes, an IBDC juror and also a keynote speaker at the Bicycle Trend Forum this year, had some very interesting comments to make in respect of the competition. To sum up, he observed that this year’s entries displayed a tendency towards pandering to what the candidates perceived to be jurors’ preferences. He felt that this year design schools and teachers had pressured designers to target jurors’ preferences, speculating that designers had examined winning designs in past competitions, noted the trends and abstracted them into what they considered to be a winning formula namely that a winning design should have *small wheels (a compact bike) *multi-purpose functionality *UD Design *folding mechanism *Electric power support. He pointed out that uniformity and congruence are not a problem per se; however abandoning “authenticity and independence” to pursue a strategy of purely pleasing the jury is not the right way to go. His recommendation was that in next year’s competition (The Future of Micro Mobility) there needs to be a re-alignment of focus to make sure that a high level of “disruptive, independent and authentic” innovation is maintained.

    In my view, this might be a bit harsh. Designers do not operate in a vacuum but in the context of an industry that, like any other, trends in various ways, these trends acting as the foundations for expanded possibilities ie. innovation. The elements of the “winning formula” that he points to reflect the context in which the industry is reproducing itself at this point in time (folding portability, LEV orientation etc.). One could argue that the entries display a reasonable balance between radical (im)possibility and current trends. Both Han and Mark come together on one point: radical differentation as Mark put it and disruptive, independent innovation as Han Goes put it are a way forward towards achieving practical design outcomes in the future.

    Anyhow, once again it’s been an interesting show.

    Reply
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