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2009 in review

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is the last day of 2009...where did the year go? The year's end is a good time to take a look at Google Analytics and see what has been happening with the blog this past year. Almost 750,000 people visited Bicycle Design in 2009 from 204 different countries and territories. Nearly half of those visitors came from Google (with “bicycle design” as the top keywords by a large margin). Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and the other search engines also sent quite a few people to the site.

Not including search engines and social media sites, I want to recognize and thank the top 15 sites that referred traffic to Bicycle Design in 2009. In order, they were:

1. BentRider Online
2. Fat Cyclist
3. miBrujula (that one was a bit of a surprise to me)
4. Treehugger
5. Cyclelicious
6. Engadget
7. Vintage Cannondale
8. Bike Commuters
9. Urban Velo
10. London Cyclist
11. Bike Hacks
12. Bike Hugger
13. Rocbike
14. Cozy Beehive
15. Core 77

A few of the most visited posts in 2009 surprised me a little. Quite a few of these are older than this year, but the list is based on page views in the last 12 months. Again in order, they are:

1. Finalists in the commuter bike competition
2. Aluminum vs. carbon fiber vs. titanium
3. We have a winner!
4. A belt drive singlespeed
5. “Commuter bike for the masses” design competition
6. Create your own mutant bike
7. Top tube pads
8. Track bike or fixie
9. E-hub
10. Skua
11. Strida 5.0 review
12. Homemade carbon fiber bikes
13. A 7 pound road bike
14. Hubless wheels
15. Chrome Metropolis bag review

The stats don't tell the whole story though, so I will just say in summary that 2009 was a great year for Bicycle Design. 2010 will bring a big change for the blog...one that I think will make it much better, so I hope you will all continue to follow along. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

Photo credit: A elderly gent riding his penny farthing at the London New Years Day Parade 2008 by Swamibu on Flickr.

A naked bike and lots of links

I hope that you have been enjoying the holidays. I have been taking time off work to spend with my family, so the blog hasn't been getting much attention in the last week or so. That doesn't mean that the links haven't been coming in though, so today I want to quickly pass along several links that have come to my attention recently.

Murray is a reader who sends me links pretty often. He forwarded these pictures of a nice looking custom Naked bike with some interesting details.

A while back, Murray also sent me a link to this French electric hybrid bike, the Matra MS1.

Several readers let me know about Africa Bicycle Design's new blog. I will be following along as the design team chronicals the development of new bikes for a Cycling out of Poverty project in Kisumu, Kenya.

Before Christmas, BikeHugger was asking readers to submit questions for Trek's art director, Mike Pfaltzgraff. The deadline has been extended so hurry up if you have questions about the graphics that go onto Trek bikes.

Gizmodo posted a unicycle built for two. It certainly doesn't look easy to use, especially with riders of different weights.

Good.is posted an article titled, “What the bicycle can teach us about the design challenges of the next century".

Don't fall for this claim from Ritte Racing that the UCI banned their bike for “being too good looking”. It is pretty funny though...good marketing for the bikes too. Via Cyclelicious.

Airnimal just released a new fixed gear folding bike that I think looks pretty nice. I would love to have something like this for travel.

Seth pointed out this student designed wooden recumbent trike that is worth checking out.

Wend Magazine tells us that the “The Dweeb-Free Bicycle Helmet is Finally Here”. I am not so sure about that, but take a look and decide for yourself.

Inhabitat posted about a “Recycled Christmas Tree Made of Bike Wheels”. It reminded me of our Bikeville parade float from last year, which featured different diameter wheels to make up the tree.

OK, I will close this post with that last Christmas themed link. I need to get back to the framesets that I am building up with my 11 year old. I was a little nervous yesterday watching him thread a bottom bracket into a new aluminum frame, but we are having a lot of fun assembling the bikes together.

Photo credit: Swhittingham on Flickr

New bikes from Le Batard and a few old ones

I mentioned "Le Batard” custom bikes in an earlier post. The B2O bamboo bike that I mentioned in that post will be launched in February as a limited edition series of 50. Le Batard custom cycles also has a couple of other bikes in the works, which I will share in this post. The time trial "enhanced version" (pictured here) features a polished aluminum frame. The stem, bars and levers are all custom made to match the frameset. Le Batard points out that the design of the stem, which you can see in this detail shot, is a tribute to Rene Herse.

The “air-bike” is a small folding bike concept by French designer Sylvio Beraka. The prototype, which was made by Le Batard, has an aluminium frame, 24" wheels, double kevlar drive belt and a SRAM P5 hub with a coaster brake. You can download a pdf about the concept from Beraka’s website if you are interested in reading more. At first glance, the air-bike might remind you of that jruiter studio bike that has been all over the web lately. Certainly, the two bikes have a similar appearance due to their ultra short wheelbases and rider positions directly over the rear wheel. That must be a trend, because I noticed one other urban bike with a really short wheelbase recently. OK, maybe that last one is a bit older than the other two. It does look like it would make a great wheelie machine though (hence the name Bronco). I would love to see a picture from the late 1800s of a trick rider on one of those little bikes.

Speaking of old bikes, take a look at this nicely curved Cygnet from 1898. It looks a little bit like the Cannondale Dutchess, a fact that Wytze (the designer of the Dutchess) mentioned recently on Twitter after seeing a picture of the Cygnet. While you are at it, take a look at some of the other interesting antique bikes in the Pryor Dodge Collection. I never get tired of looking at bike designs from 100 years ago.

The Copenhagen Wheel

“Transform your ordinary bicycle into a hybrid e-bike that also provides feedback on pollution, traffic congestion and road conditions in real time!”

That is the opening statement on the website for the Copenhagen Wheel, a project by MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory. With a claim like that, it is no wonder the project has been getting so much attention on the web since its debut at the COP15 climate Summit in Copenhagen a couple of days ago. Like the Sanyo Eneloop bike that I mentioned last year, this design stores kinetic energy from braking for future use by way of technology similar to the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), which has changed Formula One racing dramatically in recent years. Unlike the Sanyo bike though, this design stores that energy in a battery that is contained in the wheel, not on the frame of the bicycle. For that reason the Copenhagen Wheel is retrofitable on any type of bike (including the Cinelli Mystic pictured here courtesy of the SENSEable City Lab’s website).

In addition to a battery and motor, the Copenhagen Wheel has a variety of other functions that are hidden within the oversized red hub. By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends.

"One of the applications that we have discussed with the City of Copenhagen is that of an incentive scheme whereby citizens collect Green Miles - something similar to frequent flyer miles, but good for the environment," says Christine Outram, who led the team of researchers at MIT.

You can read more about the technology, and the team’s ideas behind the design, at the MIT Media Relations site.

The idea of storing braking or downhill coasting energy, and using that energy for a burst of speed later is nothing new. Whitt and Wilson’s 1982 book, Bicycling Science (coincidently…or not… published by The MIT Press), discusses energy storage systems going back many years. Thirty plus years ago, the most successful designs used flywheels to store energy (as opposed to those systems which relied on elastic bands or springs). Flywheels are heavy though, so the practical application for bicycles was pretty limited. Even with modern technology, some would argue that practical applications of energy storage systems are still debatable. In a New York Times article about the Copenhagen Wheel, Dr. William Mitchell, who runs another lab at M.I.T. called SmartCities, is quoted as saying:

“Regenerative braking hardware adds mass, complexity and cost, and the energy efficiency gains from it turn out to be surprisingly limited."

Steve Hed and Jens Martin Skibsted are also quoted in that NY Times article, so be sure to read it for a different perspective than you get from the MIT press releases. Another place to read about the Copenhagen Wheel is TreeHugger. They mentioned it in a post along with 4 other bike solutions spotted at COP-15.

Not related to the wheel, but while I am throwing out Copenhagen related links, I’ll mention this StreetFilms video which features Mikael Colville-Anderson from Copenhaganize talking about bicycle infrastructure projects in that city. Great stuff! Watching that video akes me want to visit Copenhagen all the more.

Winners of the CPH Bike-Share Competition

I was working out of town last week and didn’t get a chance to write anything on the blog. The preceding week was pretty hectic too, so posting has been especially light at Bicycle Design of late. I guess it is just this time of year. I have been really busy at home and at work, so it is hard to find a little extra time to write about bikes. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of bicycle design related info to pass along though. I really appreciate all the tips that I have received from readers the last couple weeks. It may take a while to get to all of those messages though, so please bear with me if I am a little slow to respond.

One topic that many of you shared with me last week was the announcement of winners in the Copenhagen Bike-Share Design Competition, which took place during the COP15 climate summit. Two readers who alerted me to the announcement happened to be the first place winners (yes, there were 2 first place prizes awarded). You may remember Erik Nohlin as a finalist in the commuter bike design competition that I staged last year. He now works for LOTS Design and was part of the team that created the OPENbike. Read more about their winning design below:

"LOTS Design (Gothenburg), Koucky & Partners (Gothenburg) and Green Idea Factory (Berlin) teamed up to design an innovative bike sharing system for the City of Copenhagen. The team’s entry, called OPENbike, was yesterday awarded a first price at the city’s international design competition with 127 entries.

The City of Copenhagen, one of the world leading cycling cities, aims at establishing a new bike share system and has therefore initiated an open international design competition.

The winning entry, called OPENbike, puts the user in the centre and proposes a system that is easy to use, flexible and fully scalable. The design goal has been to create a system that seamlessly integrates with public transport and becomes a natural part of Copenhagen’s existing bicycle culture. The system proposes a smart card system and positioning solutions integrated in each bicycle to create a fully floating bike share system. OPENbike does therefore not need special stands and bicycles can easily be repositioned and adapted to the cities changing needs."

The other 1st place prize went to Thomas Coulbeaut for his Myloop design, which uses a docking station that secures the bike and recharges it when it’s not in use. The docking solution takes up very little space and has virtualy unlimited capacity due to the fact that the bicycles can be locked to one another. The design allows for a lot of flexibility in the way the stations are configured… a feature that the competition jurors seemed to like.

On the CPH Bike Share Competition website, you can download pdfs with more information about the winners or any of the 127 entries. I encourage you to click around and read about some of the different ideas. Also, be sure to take a look at this Copenhagenize post, which features a 20-minute video of the awards ceremony.

Another good source for information about bike sharing programs in general is The Bike-sharing Blog. Russell was one of the readers who sent me a tip about the CPH winners last week, and his blog is one that I will continue to watch.

Finally, on the subject of bike sharing, I will mention that Greenville, SC (where I live) is in the number 1 spot on the B-cycle “Who wants it more?” map. Pretty cool for a little town with a population of around 60,000 people! I am certainly a big supporter of a bike sharing program here, and look forward to that becoming a reality soon.

Since I mentioned Greenville, I also want to share some pictures of the Bikeville group setting up for, and riding in, the Downtown Greenville Christmas Parade. We had a “Share the Road” theme for our bicycle-powered float this year. Despite a few minor challenges keeping one of our bike riding mannequins upright, I think it went pretty well. In addition to the photos, you can check out a few videos that I shot that night. The one that I filmed while riding is a little shaky, but still worth watching. Check out the conference bike going from one side to the other...definitely a crowd favorite.

rafael r-011

I mentioned German architect Rafael Hoffleit’s custom carbon frames in an earlier post. His r-009 road bike caught my attention before, so I was very excited to see his new time trial bike, the r-011. The bike has an “integrated hydration and steering system, which allows the use of standard cable shifter systems totally hidden inside the stem and frame.” The “Fluid” hydration system is open at the top and can be refilled while riding. It is also easy removable for cleaning or for UCI races where the extended headtube fairing is not allowed. Like the r-008 and r-009 frames, the r-011 has double chamber tubes for lateral stiffness. Also like other rafael frames, the r-011 contains no metal at all - even the bearing housing is carbon. Rafael points out that his special mold system allows flexibility in tailoring the bike to the intended use. The frame can be created with a higher front end, which allows triathletes to sit comfortably without the use of spacers under the armrests, or it can be configured with a deeper straight stem/ top tube position for flat out time trialing.

Though Mr. Hoffleit is primarily an architect who creates these bikes as a side project, these are far from just concept bikes. All of the bikes he builds are working race machines… in fact, on his website you can see custom painted r-011s that were recently raced in the 2009 Challenge Barcelona and the 2009 Ironman Frankfort. Hoffleit told me that he built his first bike (a recumbent) at age 9, so the bicycles he creates are the result of a lifelong passion. The majority of bikes that he has designed so far are aerodynamic race models due to his interest in the sports of cycling and triathlon, but he plans to build additional bikes soon, including a folding bike and a recumbent. Check the concepts section of the Rafael site to see what else he has in the works. If the racing bikes are any indication, I’ll be looking forward to seeing the other types of bikes that he comes up with in the future.

While I am posting, I will mention another interesting road bike out of Germany. Ron at Cozy Beehive posted about this homemade electronic shifting bike a while ago. In addition to the e-shifting system, the frame and wheels are home built as well. Check out Ron's follow-up post to learn more about the bike

ARTIKCAR by Ben Wilson

I didn’t think I would have time to post today, but here is a quick one.

You may remember Ben Wilson from the 'seebikesaw' that he designed for Brooks England. His latest project ARTIKCAR was designed for Walk the Plank’s illuminated Art Car Parades, which will kick off on the streets of Manchester, UK later this week. Wilson was one of three artists who were awarded commissioning money to create a mobile work of art, which will join the existing troupe of vehicles. His ARTIKCAR design was “inspired by a child’s wooden toy car. The Pedal Powered vehicle is made from steel tubing, it steers by leaning and uses an innovative technology to illuminate the car.”

For more information about the upcoming parades in Manchester and in Edinburgh, see the Walk the Plank website. For more details about the ARTIKCAR project, check out Ben’s blog.

Hen and Chickens

This cargo carrying penny farthing pentacycle, 'Hen and chickens', was the featured bike in a VeloVision story that was forwarded to me by a reader, Ross. The Canberra Bicycle Museum in Australia closed last year and this old bike is one of nearly 150 that are still to be sold. On the museum website you can find an older pdf catalog of bikes for sale (an updated one is due to be posted soon). Contact oldbikesincanberra (at) gmail.com if you are interested in any of the bikes.

Another reader, Nick, pointed out one of the bikes that looks pretty familiar. This 1984 trick bike, with its unicycle style direct rear drive, is very similar to the minimalist bike design that you saw here not long ago. As Nick said in his email, “What's old is new again.”

I may not get a chance to post again this week, so I am going to pass along a few more links while I am at it:

Ron of Cozy Beehive points us to this video of Mike Burrows discussing his latest designs. Another interesting Beehive post recently pointed out that 60% of cycling hour records were due to engineering. Click through to the Science News article that is cited; it is pretty interesting.

The Matra MS1 is an “Electric Bicycle Hybrid” from France. This is one of those designs that begs the question, is it an e-bike or a moped?

Speaking of e-bikes, the SANYO eneloop synergetic hybrid bicycle was honored with the 2010 CES Best of Innovations award for Eco-Design and Sustainable Technology.

TreeHugger mentioned the Pardo, a prone position human powered machine of some sort. I am not sure I want to trade my bicycles in for one of these, but it does look like it would be fun to try out.

Also at TreeHugger was a mention of the Feetz Tribike, a nice folding design for transporting kids or cargo.

I recently noticed the Pteranodon mountain bike concept by JinSeok Song on Coroflot.

MTB by 198 recently interviewed mountain bike pioneer, Joe Breeze. It is interesting to read his responses about the industry and mountain bikes today.

Cool Hunting shared some nice pictures from the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show not too long ago.

Finally, I will mention that I just uploaded pictures of the Batavus BuB prototype urban bike that I was trying out for a couple of weeks. Look for a write up on that soon.

Cannondale Dutchess follow-up

The blog's stats for the last couple of days show that my last post, about the Cannondale Dutchess concept bike for women, has generated a LOT of interest. That certainly doesn’t surprise me. Having seen quite a few student designed concept bikes over the years, I can say without hesitation that this is one of my favorites. For that reason, I wanted to find out more about the bike, and the ideas behind it, from it’s designer, Wytze van Mansum. I got quite a bit of info from Wytze, so this post will be a bit longer than usual.

Before going into some of the details, I will share his short, official explanation of the design:

“This is the Cannondale Dutchess; the result of the graduation project of Wytze van Mansum at the Delft University of Technology in assignment of high-end bicycle manufacturer Cannondale.

There is a revival of the city bicycle as a mode of transport throughout the USA in congested cities like New York. And Cannondale is eager to serve the high end of this new market.

This elegant commuter is designed with young urban women in mind, who care about their looks, health and the environment, but don't want to be bothered with technical details or bicycle maintenance. To fill this desire of a carefree and stylish ride the design was approached as a fashion item. Although the looks of this bicycle are of a deceiving simplicity, the underlying technical details are far from that.

Dutchess refers to the typical Old Dutch bicycle, the ‘Omafiets’, but integrates its form elements in an innovative way. The rear fender acts as a structural part of the frame; it holds the carrier with a load of up to 50kg. The eye-catching arch connects the whole bicycle from handlebars to taillight both structurally and visually. At the same time it expresses the sturdiness, comfort and ease of ride of the ‘Omafiets’. What she didn’t inherit is the weight; loyal to the Cannondale philosophy the weight of the complete bicycle is kept under the 14kg by the integration of parts and functions.

The integrated transmission with the gears in the rear hub means the bicycle can be ridden in formal clothes and at any speed.

The hub brakes are completely integrated and hydraulics makes them self adjusting to compensate brake pad wear. Because the brake lines are fully integrated into the frame the brakes can double act as wheel locks. The lock in the handlebar stem locks up the oil flow and keeps the wheels locked.

The adjustable handlebars allow for different riding positions from upright to extremely sportive and they can be folded together for easy storage. They also can be used to secure the bicycle to a fixed object with the same lock that is used to lock up the wheels

High up and well visible, the bicycle rider sits on a pedestal compared to other road users. While car drivers are tucked away in metal boxes and pedestrians go up in the crowd, the Dutchess’ cyclist paddles along gracefully, displaying herself to the world. By this rational a bicycle could well be considered a fashion accessory. And this clean, maintenance free concept bike could even be sold as such.”

Pretty interesting…and you can read more about the Dutchess project (as well as see more development images) if you download Wytze’s portfolio. Several of his other bike concepts are included in the pdf, so I would definitely recommend checking it out. You probably still have some questions about the Dutchess though, so lets get into some of the features.

The frame shape is quite different, with its flowing lines and lack of seat stays, but it still comes across a clean, updated traditional bike form. That is the core of what initially appealed to me about this design. Wytze explains his idea behind the form;

“It should stand out in the shop, really something special; but when the user is riding it, the attention should be on her, not on the bike. She wants to be seen, not been stared at as if she was riding some sort of circus attraction.

I achieved this by making the form logic; normally a diamond shaped frame is the most logic form, but this is for a sports bicycle. Add the rear fender, the luggage carrier, the chainguard and the step through frame to the equation and you will see that this is a more logical form then the diamond shape. This is the reason why everybody sees it as a regular bike even though it is so different.”

The pivoting handlebars in this design allow the rider to tailor her position on the bike. Toward the middle of the pivot, the bars allow for a very upright typical “omafiets” position with good visibility for city riding. When the bars are positioned all the way forward, the riding position is much sportier (see the picture that illustrates these two positions). The system is continuously variable, so the rider can choose any position and lock it down with the handle in the middle. The fact that the handlebars also close and function as a lock is really just a byproduct of the hinged system. Wytze explains:

“There is a central locking point in the stem, it locks the handlebars (as in the video), and it locks off the flow in the hydraulic brake lines, so the wheels can be locked. Brakelines are inside the frame, stem, handlebars. Thieves need to cut into these vital parts to mess with it.

The handlebars lock is not always practical, it was mainly designed to fold together for easy storage. In the concept a cable lock was integrated inside the long arch which could be pulled out, wrapped around a fixed object and inserted in the stem, double acting as a steering tube lock.”

The modular wheel idea is another interesting element of the design. According to Wytze:

“The hubs / wheels are identical; it is transformed into the specific front or rear hub by inserting either a dynamo or gear 'module'. This whole thing asks from you to completely forget what you know about dropouts. You have a cheap, empty shell as a hub/wheel. You slide it between the forks, insert the brake modules and the specific modules, tighten them and the wheel is all set. This is as fast as a normal set up, but you can't take out the wheels when the brakes are engaged (hence the brake - wheel lock). Furthermore as a bike mechanic working at my LBS I have to re-lace many wheels because the gear hub wheels can't be bought as stock part because there are so many possible combinations. Here you can order cheaper prefab (prelaced) wheels and slide in the expensive gear modules.”

This is a concept bike though, so regarding the wheels, Wytze goes on to say; “This is dreaming: this is a better standard then the current solution, but it will never happen.”

Also because it is a concept bike, the drivetrain is not completely explained. Wytze says that “it is maintenance free, it has an efficiency of 96% (compared to 98% chain efficiency). It works.” The hole in the bottom bracket is visually striking, but it had another purpose in the design; “it is the legacy of the idea to give the customer the option to fit the bike aftermarket with an electric pedal assist.

Nowadays you either buy an electric bike, or you don't. Transforming one into the other is not simple. But here you can slide an aftermarket motor in the crank, slide the battery pack in the oversized seattube, and you have pedal assist for at least a range of 10 miles (for most commuters far enough) you can slide out the battery pack and fast charge it in half an hour. You can take out the motor and batterypack and have the advantages back of a lightweight bike.”

Wytze spent 8 months on the design and 5 months on the build, but due to time constraints, there were still quite a few details that didn’t make it into the prototype. I will let him outline some of those details for you:

- the luggage carrier is modular, you can exchange it for a basket, they love having a basket in the rear in Germany ;), or a childs seat (as the rearfender is the frame, it can be legally attached to the fender under european laws)

In the concept there are skirt guards covering a large part of the rear wheel (the arch and fender are the contours) the skirtgaurds contain envelop bags or very flat paniers as you might call them. Up front there is a basket / bag hybrid. Here in the Netherlands at the show that (lack of storage) was what bothered most people about the prototype.

- the saddle was to be a lot nicer then the stock one I used here. (see render on my site)

- there were even airless tires incorporated to really achieve that maintenance free bike I had envisioned.

- kickstand is included in the design, just not in the prototype; it is a double legged, sturdy kickstand that slides from the straight part in the rearfender near the bracket, remember the rearfender is actually a tube so it can contain the kickstand

- (though it isn’t shown in the pics) the rear fender is a hollowtube as mentioned before, there is actually a small plastic fender extension that slides out of the back, to make the fender long enough for the really rainy days.

Whew! Long post. For those of you who made it this far, I will say again that I am really impressed with this student project. If you have ever worked on a corporate sponsored project in design school, you know how many hours went into this. It is worth remembering that this design and rideable prototype was the work of one student, with input and guidance from Torgny Fjeldskaar at Cannondale (Update 11/21: Wytze had two other mentors on this project; Annemiek van Boeijen and Bruno Ninaber van Eyben).

I think Wytze did a great job. If you haven’t already, check out his website and watch the HD video of his prototype in action.

Cannondale Dutchess

dutchess_1, originally uploaded by carltonreid.

BikeBiz points us to the Dutchess, a new concept bike designed by Wytze van Mansum, a design student at the Delft University of Technology. According to a company statement, the bike was "designed for women keen to express their style amongst the fast paced and ever changing urban vibe."

The Dutchess is only a rideable prototype at this point. As has been the case with previous concept bikes though, elements of the design may make their way into future Cannondale urban bicycles.

See more pictures of the bike in Carlton Reid's Dutchess gallery on Flickr.

Update 11/17: Watch this video, made by Eelke Dekker, which shows the Dutchess concept bike in action. I have more information, straight from Wytze, about this bike's features and the ideas behind the design, so look for that in a separate post soon.

Eric Staller's Conference Bike

Conference Bike, originally uploaded by the Rested Traveler.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have already seen the pictures I posted of people riding our local Conference Bike this past weekend. One of the bike shops here in Greenville, TTR Bikes, owns that CoBi and generously allows Bikeville (a local bike advocacy initiative that I am a part of) to use it for various events. People in Greenville are getting used to seeing the big red Conference Bike around town from time to time, but it still never fails to generate attention and excitement when it is cruising down Main Street. If you ever get the chance to ride one you should...it is a lot of fun.

The Conference Bike was designed in the mid nineties by Eric Staller, an American artist and inventor who is currently based in Amsterdam. The 400 lb. + bike (well really trike...or quadracycle if you count the two rear wheels that are right together) is made in Germany to Staller's specifications. It seats 7 people in a ring, but only the driver can steer or operate the hydraulic brakes. I won't go into much detail about the CoBi, but you can read more about it on the website if you are interested.

The CoBi was not Staller's first pedal powered creation. If you look at the Urban UFOs section of his website, you can see a few of his previous bike based projects like Bubbleheads (1987) and OCTOS (1990), an eight person pedal powered machine which led to the development of the CoBi. You can also see the Lovebike (2000), which came along after the CoBi and is basically a 5 person heart shaped version of it. For more about Staller's work, check out his book, “Out of My Mind”, which is available on his webstore of the same name.

The conference bike is definitely an oversized conversation piece, but I think it serves a greater purpose than that. Riding it around town and at events like the one this past weekend gives us the opportunity to talk to people who otherwise might not be interested in cycling or bike issues. Everyone is curious when they see something like this, so when offered a free ride most people are quick to jump onboard. Some of those people may have not ridden a bike since they were kids, but they always have a smile on their face when they step off of the CoBi. As a tool for promoting bicycling as fun (not just green) activity, I think it is great. Every city should have one.

A carbon commuter concept and assorted links

I found Fredrik Rudenstam’s Nishiki urban commute concept bike while browsing though Coroflot portfolios this week. Rudenstam designed the carbon fiber commuter as part of his Master thesis project at the Jönköpings University in Sweden. The rendering doesn’t show any provision for cargo, but it is a good looking bike and the integrated LEDs are a nice touch. Fenders don’t seem to be an option either, which would be a dealbreaker for many commuters. I personally commute on a lightweight road bike with no fenders, so a bike like this would work for me if it had a small integrated rear rack for a light trunk pack.

ROBRADY design was recently awarded a Gold Spark award for the design of their db0 electric folding bike. You can read more about the bike and the award here and here.

Treehugger posted about the PUYL Tire Pump, which features an integrated LED light. The battery for the light recharges as the pump is used. Great design…but unfortunately only a prototype at this time.

Ecouterre posted about LFLECT, a line of reflective knit accessories that look like regular clothing by day but illuminate at night.

Cyclelicious points us to Cargo Bike Gallery, a great place to see various cargo bike deigns.

Finally I will mention LimitedHype’s visit to Trek’s headquarters. I linked to some of their pictures in an earlier post, but I don’t think I ever mentioned their post, which includes additional shots of the design department. It really is a great creative space.