Category: Commuter
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Velomobiles and ‘bents
Brecht Vandeputte sent me this photo of a WAW 045 velomobile racing a Dodge Viper. OK, it probably wasn’t a real race, but it is still a pretty cool image of a slick looking velomobile. For those of you not familiar with the WAW, it is a Belgian 3-wheeled velomobile with a Kevlar body. It…
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Skua
I mentioned in my last post that Mark Sanders shared a few entries from the recent “commuter bike for the masses” competition in his keynote presentation at the Taipei Cycle Show. I just realized that one of the entries he included in his presentation is one that I had not yet posted. Skua is a…
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Mark Sanders’ keynote presentation in Taipei
I don’t know if I mentioned it beforehand, but Mark Sanders was a keynote speaker at the Taipei Cycle Show yesterday. He spoke about his work as a bike designer, but the primary focus of his presentation was, in his words, “how alternative and universal bike design may be a help in attracting more people…
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A design award for the IF Mode
I mentioned in an older post that Mark Sanders’ IF (Integrated Folding) Mode bike for Pacific Cycles was featured on the iF (international Forum) Design website. Now the bike, a cleverly designed full size wheel folder, has won an iF Product Design GOLD Award. For any of you who may not familiar with the international…
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Connect
One of the entries that we received in the commuter bike competition was this one called “Connect” by David Boyce. This bike design locks into a proprietary rack by way of a mechanism that is integrated into the frame. To me, this idea just didn’t really fit the competition’s design brief, but I want to…
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Agnete’s “Who, Where, What” from the design competiton
As I suspect is the case with many of you, I have been following Tour of California coverage on the web all week. Despite some nasty weather (or maybe partly because of it) this year’s race has been a pretty exciting one so far. For now though, I want to shift out of that racing…
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F.O.U.R concept bike
I want to quickly pass along another entry from the commuter bike competition today. As I mentioned before, I am posting these additional entries in no particular order, but I think many of the ideas have interesting elements that are worth sharing. Leonhard Reibmayr of Basel, Switzerland designed this bike that he calls F.O.U.R. I…
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Alternative solutions- Recycle and Bikonomic
When I announced the winner of the commuter bike design competition, I mentioned that we had a few differing opinions on the jury. Those differences led to great discussions, which were the highlight of staging this competition for me personally. One juror in particular felt pretty strongly that a non-cyclist would not give up his…
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Intera, the ideal inter-city and intra-city combination
When I announced the design competition finalists and later the winner, I mentioned that I also planned to post some of the other entries. As I said, I thought many of them were very interesting and, in my opinion, deserve to be shared. I am not really going to be posting them in any particular…
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Design competition follow up
I wanted the design competition to spark a conversation, and it has certainly done that. I had a feeling the winning entry might be slightly controversial, but I didn’t expect some of the really strong reactions that I have seen lately on my blog and elsewhere. I guess that is not all bad though. As…
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We have a winner!
It has taken some time, but I can finally announce that Torkel Dohmers’ “ThisWay” concept has been chosen as the winning entry in the Bicycle Design “commuter bike for the masses” design competition. Congratulations to Torkel, who will receive a Cannondale Bad Boy 700 for his efforts. Since I already published Torkel’s description of his…
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LightLane
Recently, a couple of readers emailed me to mention the LightLane concept by Alex Tee and Evan Gant. The concept has been posted recently on various design and tech blogs including Core77, DVICE, and Yanko Design to name a few. I always appreciate reader tips, but actually, I had already seen this one. The LightLane…
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Finalists in the Commuter bike design competition
After compiling the top ten picks from each juror, I am finally able to announce the finalists in the “commuter bike for the masses” design competition. Rather than elaborate on the entries, I am going to post the 6 finalists, in no particular order, along with the descriptions provided by the designers. I may post…
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Computer commuter and a few more links
I was way too busy on my trip last week, so I didn’t have time to post to the blog. Several people sent me post ideas and links though, so I want to take the opportunity to share a few of those. Also, I want to mention that the rest of the jury and I…
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Design competition- the next step
Thanks to all of you who submitted entries to the commuter bike for the masses design competition. The competition deadline was Friday at midnight, and the vast majority of the 65 entries showed up in my inbox on that very last day (many in the final few hours). Now that you all have done your…
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The Sanyo Eneloop electric bike and more
It has been a crazy week for me so far and I don’t foresee a slow down in the next couple of days. I will be leaving for a 2 week long business trip next week, so I have a lot to do in the office and at home before I hit the road (or…
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Favorites revisited
Recently someone asked me a pretty tough question- what are my 5 favorite bicycle designs? I didn’t know how to respond; that is almost an impossible for me to answer because of the great variety of bicycle types that interest me. The question immediately made me think of a post from years ago– March 2006…
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People’s Design Award and some stuff you should buy
A recent post at Streetsblog mentioned that quite a few bike related products were nominated this year in the People’s Design Awards, an online competition sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Over 276 products were nominated and, as Streetsblog points out, “five were folding bicycles, and four others were related to cycling.” In particular,…