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Bontrager commuter helmet and casual apparel
Quite a few things have been distracting me from the blog lately- a heavy workload, my kid’s ‘back to school’ activities, and a couple of pressing local bike advocacy issues. On top of all that, I am trying to follow that new race in Colorado, which I can never seem to remember the official name…
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Catching up with links
If you have seen the carbon/titanium Exogrid frames from Holland Cycles, you already know that they are works of art. Filmaker and photographer Jeff Katz recently documented the Holland Cycles framebuilding process starting with selection of the tubes and ending with a ride on the complete bike. The laser cutting of the titanium outer tube…
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Bontrager computer/stem integration concept
Another concept design fresh from Trek World 2012 is this Bontrager stem concept by Ryan Hahn, an industrial designer in Trek’s road group. The concept, which has a removable computer integrated into the magnesium stem, has been dubbed “Computermatron Stemigration” by Ryan. Let’s just hope that name sticks if this stem moves forward into production.…
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Learning bike concepts from TrekWorld 2012
Every August, TrekWorld provides an opportunity for dealers to travel to Wisconsin and check out new bikes from the company. The show is also is an opportunity to for the industrial designers at Trek to show those same dealers a bunch of cool concept bikes (like this one from last year). TrekWorld 2012 wrapped up…
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NuVinci Harmony automatic shifting for e-bikes
Automatic transmissions for bicycles are not a new idea. One that many of you may remember is the Browning transmission, which was licensed by Suntour in the 80’s. More recently, Shimano’s Coasting group featured automatic 3-speed shifting, but like the Browning transmission, it was not really a commercial success. Those are just two of many…
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Project Aura wheel lighting system
According to the Core 77 blog, “Project Aura is a bicycle lighting system designed to address the issue of nighttime urban bike commuting.” The design, by Ethan Frier and Jonathan Ota of Carnegie Mellon University, was recently chosen as the student winner in the Transportation category of this year’s Core77 Design Awards. You can read…
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A few bike links from Google +
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a slight decline in activity lately. I am definitely not giving up on Twitter, but I have been playing around with Google Plus for the last couple of weeks (add me to your circles if you are using it too). So far, I have discovered…
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Yann Lewandowski’s Cinelli Laser 2012 Concept
If you have been cycling for a long time, you no doubt remember the beautifully sculpted Cinelli Laser from the 80s (or better yet, this version). Those bikes were, and still are, highly coveted (by me at least). There has been some talk about a limited edition reissue of the Laser for about a year…
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Is TJ Tollakson the Graeme Obree of triathlon?
Admittedly, I don’t know much about the sport of triathlon, but I was very interested to see the bike setup of pro triathlete (and engineer) TJ Tollakson. A reader, Phil, sent me a link to a post about Tollakson’s recent win at Ironman Lake Placid using a 1996 Zipp beam frame bike for the cycling…
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Le Tour bikes and other Friday links
Wow, that was an exciting day in the Tour! I won’t give anything away for any of you who didn’t watch it live, but I will say that watching the stage this morning put behind a bit on work that I need to get done today. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, but…
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Toyota Prius Project concept bike
This is turning out to be a REALLY busy work week for me (better than the alternative, so I am not complaining). I don’t have much free time to post on the blog, but I do want to quickly mention the Toyota Prius project concept bike, a design project to “build a bike that encapsulates…
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Bikes, hubs, jeans, a camera bag, and more
The new Specialized Source is a bike that caught my attention as I was looking at the 2012 Global Product Launch coverage at Bike Hugger. The sporty urban bike comes as either a derailleur version or with a belt drive. I like the fact that it includes fenders, a bell, and a dyno-powered light…feature that…
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RPEV hybrid electric bike and more
Roy Prince designs and builds electric bikes (and other electric vehicles) in Oxnard, California. He chronicles the builds on his website, RPEV.org, where you can find pictures and blog entries for the various bikes. His latest project is the eCortina v2 e-bike, which you can read more about here. Roy points out that his “hybrid…
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Rael road bike concept 2.0
You may remember the Rael road bike concept by Evan Solida from a post earlier this year. Since that time, Evan has refined the design and set up a website for the project, which he hopes to move forward with soon. Evan’s primary focus lately has been the development of his Cerevelum “digital bike mirror”,…
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SoBi- a smartphone based bike sharing system
Around this time last year, I posted the Etta bike, a semi-recumbent city bike that Nick Foley designed as his senior thesis project at Pratt. Since then, Nick graduated and started working with the design team at the bike-sharing company Social Bicycles. Nick explains that Social Bicycles (SoBi) is a bike-sharing system that uses “smart” bikes…
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Is the UCI just misunderstood?
I have been critical of the UCI a few times in the past (here, here, and most recently here), but I now know it was only because I have been woefully uninformed. In a video posted today by Carlton Reid, UCI president Pat McQuaid explains that his organization is often treated as a ‘punching bag’…
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The Niner JET 9 RDO at Presscamp
Bike Presscamp took place last week in Park City, Utah. For those of you not familiar with Presscamp, it is “the future of cycling media events”…at least that’s what the website says. Self-proclaimed or not, there may be some truth to that statement. Presscamp basically provides manufacturers in the bike industry an opportunity to show…
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City Electric Bicycle by Vojtěch Sojka
Industrial Design student Vojtěch Sojka recently designed this ‘city electric bicycle’ as his thesis project at the University of Technology in Brno (Czech Republic). The school project was developed as a concept for the Czech bike company Superior, who helped Sojka with the production of the prototype. Sojka’s goal with the design was to create…
