I mentioned the winners of the International Bicycle Design Competition in my post last Thursday. I couldn’t find many good photos of the finalists online at the time, but that has changed in the last few days. Eric Stoddard is now home from the show, and has posted many photos from Taipei to his Flickr account. His photoset from the IBDC Awards is here, and you can read his thoughts about the competition in a post on his new Speed Studio Design blog.

I spent some time last night browsing through Eric’s photosets from the show. He took a lot of great shots and has them sorted by category for easy viewing:

• Urban, road, & MTB bikes
• Folding & mini bikes
• Electric bikes
• Weird and wacky stuff
• Components & accessories

Many of the pictures look like they could have been taken at Interbike or Eurobike…nice looking bikes, but nothing that far out of the ordinary. Then there are shots like this, or this, or even this, which could ONLY be from the Taiwan show. Some of the really crazy sculpted carbon forms caught my attention too, like these two bikes from Matrix, this frame from Kinesis, or this handlebar from Control Tech. As Eric pointed out, “more is more” seems to be trend for many of the designs for the Asian market with “bold colors and graphics, bikes with gold/brass trim and components, brightly colored colored anodized parts, and even a bike with a frame entirely wrapped in hand-stitched leather!” Quite a few of the commuter oriented folders and e-bikes stood out too, like the Topeak Jango Flik and these Lohasias with what appear to be giant tailpipes sticking out the back. I also couldn’t stop looking at this Asama with front and rear child carriers and a basket mounted to the step through frame. Mini velos like this one are another type of bike that may be rare in the west, but are pretty popular in parts of Asia. I could go on listing unusual bikes from Taipei, but I encourage you to browse through all of Eric’s photos and see them for yourself. He did a great job of documenting the show…it is the next best thing to actually being there.

Eric has a “design trends” post on his blog with his thoughts about each of the categories mentioned above. Be sure to check that out as you look through his pictures…and keep watching his Speed Studio Design blog for more commentary from Taipei Cycle soon. I am looking forward to reading what else he has to say.