Peugeot B1K concept bike

Wow...this past week in Dongguan passed very quickly. Right now, I am getting ready for a flight north to the Shanghai area, but I have a few minutes for a quick post.

Bike Rumor mentioned this Peugeot B1K concept bike a couple of days ago (see more renderings there). Much like the flashy concept "fantasy" vehicles that are common in the auto industry, I doubt that this design was intended to ever be produced. More likely it was created to generate excitement and gain some needed attention for a brand that is poised for a revival these days. Though not intended for production, concept designs like this do serve a real purpose for designers (aside from creating flashy images for marketing). Cutting loose a bit and creating something that is purely conceptual from time to time helps to inspire the design team and (forgive me in advance for the cliche) "keep the creative juices flowing". That creative energy can translate to a really nice, and saleable, product line down the road if the company chooses to puts the resources in place for the product development team to succeed.

It is pretty obvious that this exact bike won't be coming to a bike shop near you anytime soon, but it is an interesting form which could indicate a very general design direction to come for Peugeot. They certainly need to do more to revive themselves than rebadge off the shelf steel, ti, aluminum, or carbon frames as some other older brands have done. One other old French brand comes to mind...I'll let you guess which one . These days they make perfectly adequate bikes in the four materials I just mentioned, but there is really nothing special about any of the bikes, so they really have no choice but to compete solely on price in every category. It is kind of sad to see a brand with a long history and a well known name and race to the bottom like that with a low price strategy. Regardless of the design direction they choose, I certainly hope that Puegeot can do better.

I need to run now, but for a more thorough perspective on the importance of design in the bike industry, check out Chris Matthews' recent "Bicycles & Business Design" post. As is always the case at Chris' blog, the post is well written and insightful.

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.