Author: James
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Velomobiles in Wired
My post yesterday prompted a couple of comments about HPVs. It is certainly worth acknowledging that recumbent bikes and trikes are fast and also that they are quite efficient in most situations. I have only ridden a recumbent once, and I must admit that my knowledge about them is somewhat lacking. Still, I am interested…
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Reinventing the UCI
In case anyone has not picked up on it, I am not a big fan of the UCI’s restrictions on the bicycles used by professional cyclists. The evolution of road and track bicycle design was accelerated in the 90’s when Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman were trading the hour record back and forth. So what…
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Cannondale Jackknife
In response to my last post, Philippe Holthuizen sent a few images of a concept bike that he recently co-designed for a contest sponsored by Cannondale Europe. Philippe developed this concept along with his partner on the project Rodrigo Clavel, a fellow graduate student of transportation design at the Elisava Design School in Barcelona. The…
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Your turn- take two
Back in November, I posted a CAD template for drawing a mountain bike. I am not sure if anyone has used it, but if so I would love to see the resulting work. For those of you who are more interested in road bikes, here is another really basic template to use for sketching. Just…
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A homemade velomobile
Here is an interesting project that I spotted on Treehugger. Steve runs a kayak company on Canada’s west coast. In his spare time, he is building and refining a velomobile that is based on a Hase Kettwiesel recumbent trike. Steve started out with the simple goal of making a replacement fairing for his Vision recumbent,…
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Bike tubes in the sky
I heard about this idea on the Smart City radio show this weekend (for those of you who missed it, a podcast of the show is available here). Chris Hardwicke is a Toronto architect with an interesting conceptual design for a bike transit system in his city. The Velo-city project proposes a network of elevated…
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Danish design part 2- Biomega
When I wrote the last post, I did not intend to start a series about Danish bike design, but yesterday I received my latest issue of ID magazine. This year’s annual ID Forty issue, which prompted today’s entry, spotlights 40 people who the magazine feels are not getting enough credit, in the U.S. at least,…
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A nice Danish design
I just saw this week old post on Biking Bis. The trioBike is one of the best looking utility oriented designs that I have seen. The front carrier for two kids converts easily into a stroller while an extra wheel under the stroller transforms the bike into a regular disc brake equipped two-wheeler. In my…
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The top ten Bicycle Design posts of 2005
Happy New Year! Though it really has nothing to do with the content of this post, I thought the picture to the left, which I borrowed it from we make money not art, was appropriate for this time of year. I started this blog in September of the past year as a place to occasionally…
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Another product idea
I don’t know how many of you keep a training log, but I suspect that many of you do. Maybe some of you are resolving to start keeping a cycling diary in 2006. Even if you don’t race, keeping a somewhat detailed log that includes the basic stats from your ride, a description of the…
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The lights are back on
When I mentioned that my posts this month would probably be sporadic, apparently I meant it. I have been traveling and working a lot lately, but I planned to post when I returned home late last week. As it turned out, Mother Nature had a different idea. We had a pretty nasty ice storm that…
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Busy, busy, busy
December is always the busiest time of year for me. Right now, I have a big product launch in January that is consuming almost all of my time. Currently, I am also working on a local advocacy project that will be part of an upcoming presentation to our city council. Between family, work, and other…
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A useful link about useful bikes
Steve Hampsten of Hampsten Cycles had a great post over the weekend that features some really nice “Porteur” bicycles. All of these traditional, utility oriented bikes are beautiful, but I especially like the Vanilla that is pictured here. I probably wouldn’t get decked out in lycra to take this bike on a fast weekend club…
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A piece of mountain bike history
The December issue of Bike magazine has an interesting article titled “12 of the Greatest Mountain Bikes Ever Made”. As you can imagine, most of the bikes featured in the article are from the early days including Gary Fisher’s 1937 Schwinn, a ‘77 Breezer, an ‘81 Stumpjumper, a mid eighties Fat Chance, and an early…
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One of my favorite designs
A recent Cyclelicious post about rocket-powered bikes reminded me of this great design. As much as I would like to claim this one, I must give credit where credit is due. My son drew this bike when he was four and asked me if I could make one like it for him. Sometimes I feel…
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A concept bike for non-bike people
If you are reading this blog, chances are, like me, you are a bit obsessed with bikes. I realize that lots of people out there don’t love bikes as much as I do, but that doesn’t mean that many of those people would not like to own and ride a bicycle if it were designed…
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Software for bicycle design
My recent post about the design of Armstrong’s time trial bike reminded me to mention the importance that 3D modeling software plays in the field of product design. Though all of the bike concepts that I have posted on this blog have been quick hand sketches or 2D Photoshop renderings, I use 3D software daily…
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My Thanksgiving ride/ informal product test
I was out of town over the Thanksgiving holiday visiting family. Before the trip, I talked to a friend who mentioned that he had an extra bike that I could ride if I did not want to bring one along. We ride the same size bikes and he always has some pretty nice new stuff,…