IBDC entries and a few other links

I am in China this week and next. My schedule is pretty tight, so I won’t have a lot of free time for the blog while I am traveling. Right now though, it is the middle of the night and I am still not adjusted to this time zone, so I will pass a long a few links of interest.

The shortlist of IBDC (International Bicycle Design Competition) entries has been announced. The winners will be announced at the Taipei International Cycle Show, which takes place March 17th -20th. The design pictured here is AutoVelo, by Eric Stoddard of Speed Studio Design. You may remember Eric from his excellent coverage of the Taipei Cycle Show for Bicycle Design in 2009. Hopefully he will get a chance to share some of his thoughts from the show with you again this year.

Jeongche Yoon sent me some information about her 'BiCX' Self-recharging folding bicycle design. The e-bike’s “rechargeable lithium-ion-polymer battery never can be recharged by ordinary electric outlets in home, but only recharged by human power such as pedaling and free-riding.” Read more about the design at Jeongche’s website or at Yanko Design.

Monocle recently posted this "bicycle design" video clip which has been getting a lot of attention on design sites lately. It contains a couple of interesting short interviews, so take a look if you haven’t already seen it.

Designboom points us to the urbike design by Eduard Sentís in a recent post.

Velogogo recently posted these wooden seat posts photos by Yohei Morita. Check out some of the other wooden bikes and parts made by Mr Sueshiro Sano, in Yohei’s photostream.

Switching gears to race bikes, I want to mention the 3 part “bikes of the Tour Down Under” series at Road Bike Action. Check out part 1, part2, and part 3 for great shots of the bikes that some of the maojr pro teams are riding this season. I really like those Sky Pinarellos, but I wouldn’t be too picky if someone offered me any one of these machines.

I could ramble on with a few more links, but it just passed 2:30 am here in Dongguan. I have meetings early this morning, so it is time to log off and get a little sleep…or at least try to sleep. The 12 to 13 hour time difference here is always a tough one for me to adjust to.

Cannondale Simon electronic suspension and more

Stanley Song, an engineer from Cannondale, was at CES with a prototype electronically controlled bicycle suspension system called “Simon”. This design replaces many of the internal mechanical parts (springs, valves, etc) with an electromechanical device that can vary the suspension based on rider weight and current riding conditions. Check out the videos of the prototype at this Engadget post…it really is pretty cool. Via Cyclelicious.

Yanko Design posted a Police Bike concept by Ciprian Frunzeanu. Also at Yanko design, you can see prototype photos of Fredrik Rudenstam's Nishiki urban commute concept bike. You may remember that I posted his rendering of that bike a while back.

NYC based designer Yuji Fujimura's square electric bike design has been getting a lot of attention on the web the last few days. One of the features in his concept is a built-in computer laptop port.

Bike Rumor posted pictures, taken by Conrad Stoltz, of this “one-off carbon fiber tandem based on Specialized’s 2010 SHIV time trial bike”. Wow! I want one…or I should say, “I want it” since there are no others in existence.

MocoLoco posted a custom Trek Carbon District belonging to Lance Armstrong. The yellow belt is a nice touch.

Speaking of Trek, take a look at these “Trek Exhibition Bikes” at Carefully Considered. These appear to just be photoshop renderings and not real custom paint jobs. Either way, I like the top, left one.

Cyclelicious posted these handmade wooden bikes from a Japanese shipbuilder.

According to Inhabitat, the number of cars owned by Americans last year declined by about 4,000,000, with more people relying on car sharing, public transportation, and of course…cycling.

Finally, I will mention that Bicycle Design was mentioned, along with 5 other cycling blogs, in the Guardian UK's weekly internet review. Take a look, and check out the other bike blogs if you aren’t already familiar with them.

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

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.