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, [...] 
I didn’t think I would have time to post today, but here is a quick one.
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 [...] 
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,' [...] 
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" [...]
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 [...]
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 [...] 
Last week, Joey from the design firm jruiter + studio sent me this concept bike that they recently developed to “simplify inner city personal transportation”. The stripped down 29” wheeled concept bike has very few parts overall. Joey explains:
I recently mentioned that the Batavus BuB was one of the new city/urban bikes that really caught my attention at Interbike. Soon, I will get a chance to try out a prototype BuB for a couple of weeks… in fact I will be picking the [...] 
In May of 2010, Oakland, California’s Rock Paper Scissors Collective will be hosting Beyond Bicycles, a celebration of the art, science, and politics of harnessing human power. From now until March 15th, they will be accepting entries for the exhibition. They are looking for “human-powered [...] 
As you know, I like to share student designs from time to time. Joseph Campbell is a recent design graduate whose senior thesis project “dealt with bicycles and how they do not fit into Americas current grid”. As someone who has cycled for transportation for [...] 
I am still catching up from my vacation last week. It really was great to get away for a few days, play in the ocean with my kids, and totally relax, but I did come back to a LOT of email. I am catching up at [...] 
The Spooklight (pictured here) is a wireless turn indicator and brake light for bicycles. Using technology similar to the iPhone’s accelerometer, it automatically senses when the bike is slowing down and displays the brake lights. The turning signal function is operated manually via a touch sensitive [...] In the four years that I have been writing this blog, I have run across a number of concept bikes that I have chosen not to post simply because they didn’t look like they would work. I guess it just depends on the timing though, because in that same four [...]
Soon after I posted about the latest new speed records set by cyclists in streamlined recumbents, Christophe Sarrazin sent me this rendering of his most recent velomobile design. If you are interested in velomobiles, take a look at his Pixelman blog where you can see [...] 
Oregon Manifest kicked off this past weekend in Portland with the Constructor’s Design Challenge and race. According to the website, framebuilders from around the country were challenged to build “an innovative, modern [...]
In my last post, I discussed a couple of bikes from Interbike that got my attention. Today, I want to mention a few of the other bikes and products from the show that I considered to be standouts. I have been super busy this week [...] 
I am just now getting some of yesterday's photos from Interbike uploaded to my Flickr account. Take a look at my Interbike 2009 set here. Be sure to check back later too because there are many more shots to come.
The people at Limited Hype have posted some great pictures from a recent visit to Trek's design department on their Flickr account. Many of the shots were taken in places that' [...]
I talked a bit about electric bikes in my last post, so today I will share a different take on that subject. Meet Joules, the stoker on Carl’s home built electric tandem. Carl challenged himself by asking, “Could I build an electric tandem based on [...] 
As I mentioned in a recent post, show season for the bicycle industry is now underway. Eurobike 2009 has come and gone, and based on the pictures I have seen it appears to have been a pretty interesting show this year. Chris Matthews, a marketing [...] 
Thomas Pascoli Scott is a product design student at Centro Universitário da Cidade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He recently built this wooden bike as school project and submitted it to me in hopes of getting some feedback. I’ll let Thomas explain his idea behind the [...] 
For the last four years, I have really enjoyed having the US Pro race weekend take place right here in Greenville, SC at the end of the summer. There had been some talk of a possible location change for next year, so I was very glad [...] 
The USA Pro Championship race weekend kicks off tomorrow with an afternoon press conference. So far, I have only seen a preliminary start list for the races, so it will be interesting to find out if there will be any surprise entries…probably no major [...] 
Since these Guardian and Sky News articles came out nearly a month ago, several of you have emailed me to mention the Contortionist folding bike by designer Dominic Hargreaves. I saw a link on Twitter around that time and retweeted it there, [...] 
Last year, I briefly mentioned the flax fiber frames that were introduced during the 2007 Tour by Johann Museeuw, the former Belgian champion known as the Lion of Flanders. Museeuw has a range of carbon/flax models in the 2010 line, which you can read more [...] 
Last week, I mentioned the trouble I was having getting past the Great Firewall of China. Just when I was starting to figure out a few workarounds, I had another problem... the harddrive on my laptop decided to give up. Since I was traveling with a [...] 
Before I take off, I want to quickly point you to the Pulse urban bike concept by the designers at Teague. Like the Prelude concept bike that I posted not long ago, this design features a luminescent frame. 
The USA Cycling Pro Championship races are coming up later this month- August 29th and 30th. I am just wondering if any Bicycle Design readers plan to be in Greenville for the races. It would be great to meet any of you who are in [...] 
“Custom bike builders and designers from around the nation are challenged to design the ultimate modern transportation bike.”
Well… the 2009 Tour de France just wrapped up yesterday and I am already starting to experience withdrawals. No more live feeds or up to the minute tweets to follow each morning...how am I going to get by? It was an exciting Tour to watch this year, [...] 
Some of you may remember a couple of years ago when I posted a Hotta time trial bike that was forwarded to me by a reader. In that post, I mentioned how much I love those early 90’s British time trial bikes (designed prior to [...] 
I just got back from a couple of days in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my family. It was nice to get away without a computer for a bit, but I did miss out on a couple of really good Tour stages this weekend. [...] 
If you follow the tech sections of the big cycling websites, you know that quite a bit of new or prototype equipment gets tested during the Tour. On any given stage, different riders on a team are not always using the same equipment from the sponsors. [...] 
I am sure that many of you will agree that the 2009 Tour de France has been a great one so far… I think the most exciting in recent years. I have been following the race coverage online every chance I get, so I haven’t been paying [...] 
Many of you have probably already seen Armstrong’s latest custom painted time trial bike, a prototype version of the Trek TTX. If you didn’t notice it in the proloque, you may have spotted it somewhere else on the web as it has garnered quite a bit [...] 
FrameForum recently posted an excellent article about German carbon fiber framebuilder rafael (the brand name is intentionally not capitalized). Rafael Hoffleit, a 32-year-old architect and triathlete from Heidelberg, is the designer and builder of the world’s first custom carbon monocoque frames. Mr. Hoffleit recently [...] 
In keeping with the theme from my last post, I want to point out an article by Evan Solida at Product Design Hub. The article features tips for designers who want to develop their ideas into real products. Evan is doing just that with his [...] 
You may remember about 6 months ago when I posted the LightLane concept, which was designed by two Altitude employees, Evan Gant and Alex Tee. Their concept, which involved simulating a bike lane with lasers mounted near the seat, was originally conceived as an [...] 
Marten Wallgren is a vehicle design student at the Royal College of Art in London. He was part of a group, along with Il Choi, David Seesing, and Miika Hekkinen, who recently won a Seymour Powell award for best concept in the "Future City Mobility" [...] 
I posted about Mike Burrows’ Ratracer VLR recumbent early last year. I’ve mentioned him on the blog a few times and have great respect for his work, so I was glad to see an article in the current issue of Velovision magazine that [...] 
John Hobson submitted an entry to the commuter bike competition late last year. Since that time, he has completed a prototype of his laminated wood bike design a part of one of his design courses. Attached are a couple of pictures of his prototype…his description [...] 
It probably won’t surprise many of you to hear that I have a pretty extensive collection of bicycle books at home. Some of you may even remember when I mentioned a few of my favorites some time ago in a post about old bikes. Well, [...] 
The Bike Hugger crew is in Minneapolis right now for the launch of the Globe Brand Bikes from Specialized. The new bikes look pretty cool from what I have seen so far...love the bent ply rear rack that is shown here. Read more about the launch at [...] 
The 2009 Bicycle Film Festival is taking place in quite a few different cities, but the New York festival is still the original and the one I would most like to attend. I happened to be in New York while the 2005 festival was [...] 
French designer Jérôme Blanchard has an interesting concept bike posted on Coroflot. He has several other bike designs in his Coroflot portfolio, so take a look. Via Core 77.
Jason Bushby, a transportation design student at Northumbria University in the UK, recently designed “a bicycle for the non-enthusiast” as his final project. As you can see from the image shown here, he built a working model/ prototype of his design, which he calls the Prelude. [...] 
Whew… it has been a very long day! I left my house at 5:00 AM to ride downtown and help set up for Greenville’s Bike to Work Day breakfast/ festivities. I was concerned about attendance due to overnight storms, but I think our BTWD event went [...] 
A few months ago, Pierre sent me a message about Paris Bike Days, a small bike show that was held for the first time in April. I flagged Pierre’s message and meant to post about it at the time, but it was sort of lost [...] 
I have definitely been a bit behind in keeping up with the blog lately. In the last couple weeks, I have bookmarked quite a few links, and received several good tips from readers, but I just haven’t had the time to pass along. Tonight, I want [...] 
I mentioned a little earlier that I am fairly new to Twitter. I am not sure why I waited so long to start though because Twitter is the place to be if you want to see and hear things first.
If you have been following the Giro d'Italia this week, you have seen at least one of Lance Armstrong’s art bikes, which will be auctioned after the race to raise money for LIVESTRONG. Shepard Fairey, who is best known for his design of the Obama' [...] 
It has been a while since I have passed along any of the entries from last year’s “commuter bike for the masses” design competition. I have been busy with other things, but I do still have quite a few of the entries to share. [...] 
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 [...] 
Have I mentioned before that I am not a big fan of the UCI’s draconian restrictions on the design of racing bicycles? Yeah, I know I have mentioned it at least once, but it has been a while so allow me to rant again. According [...] 
I have wanted a new set of road wheels for a while, but I have been putting it off. The Shimano wheelset (I am not even sure which model) that is currently on my road bike is about 3 1/2 years old and has definitely seen [...] 
I briefly mentioned in a February post that I had a new messenger bag from Chrome to try out. Now that I have been using that bag, their Metropolis model, for a couple of months, I can say that I really do like [...] 
I am home in Greenville right now, but I really wish I were in Milan for design week. Around the time of Salone Di Mobile and Euroluce, the Italian city is the place to be for anyone with an interest in design. Though the Salone [...] 
Many of you will recognize the name Eric Stoddard. He is the guy who recently wrote three excellent guest posts here at Bicycle Design about his impressions of the Taipei Bicycle Show. Eric has an interesting new design that he just added to [...] 
It is another hectic week for me, so I don’t have time to collect my thoughts and write the post that I would like to write. Instead, I will quickly pass along a collection of links that have come to my attention recently.
I am sure that you have all seen the Segway P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) vehicle by now. The vehicle, which is basically a seated position Segway with an enclosed shell, integrated wireless navigation technology, and a top speed of 35 mph, is slated [...] 
As Cyclelicious mentioned in a post earlier this month, the 2009 North American Handmade Bike Show was the biggest one yet. That is great news, but it shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Notwithstanding current economic conditions, it seems like interest in custom bicycles [...] 
Eric’s guest posts at the beginning of this week came at a great time. I have just been too busy to write much for the blog lately. It is not that I have a shortage of content- in fact, look for a book review next week [...] 
Note from James: In the last post, I introduced Eric Stoddard who shared some of his commentary from the IBDC awards. In this post, he is back with more thoughts and observations from the show floor in Taipei:
Eric Stoddard is a talented automotive and product designer (you can see examples of his work on his website, SpeedStudioDesign). He attended the Taipei Cycle show last week and I asked him if he could provide a bit of commentary for Bicycle Design readers. I [...] 
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 [...] 
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 [...] 
Some of you may have noticed the yellow fixie with “DEVO” on the top tube hanging above a desk in one of the Trek design studio pictures that I posted not long ago. For those of you who wondered about that bike, yes the logo [...] 
Some of you may have noticed that posting has been light here at Bicycle Design lately. One reader recently emailed me to ask if I have “lost interest in the blog”. No, not at all. The truth is that have just been very busy with work, [...]
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. [...] 
I have not yet found time to look through all the pictures from the North American Handmade Bike Show, but based on what I have seen so far, there is a lot of good coverage out there. The NAHBS website is a great place to start, [...] 
I mentioned a few interesting bikes at the last couple of North American Handmade Bicycle Shows. This year’s show, which opened today in Indianapolis, promises to be the biggest one yet. I really wish that I could make it to the show in [...] 
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 [...] 
Before I get started, I will mention an event that I am a bit late in reporting. The Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center held a bicycle design event last Friday that sounds like it would have been quite interesting. If any of you were [...] 
Some of you may have already seen this story on Bike Radar or CyclingNews. Trek recently opened the doors to a new 20,000 square foot design studio that is located in a former warehouse area of their Waterloo, Wisconsin headquarters. I won’t repeat [...] 
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, [...] 
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 [...] 
Wow, it is already Wednesday night; I don’t know where half of the week has gone. I have been way too busy since my last post, but I do want to quickly pass along a few links that I recently found interesting.
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 [...] 
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 [...] 
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' [...] 
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 [...] 
It is no secret that I like living and riding in Greenville, South Carolina. Regular readers are probably used to mentions of Greenville on the blog from time to time, especially toward the end of summer when the U.S. Pro Championship races draw near. As soon [...] 
Several people have asked about it, so before I get started with the post I want to let you all know that the finalists from the commuter bike design competition will be posted later this week. It has taken longer than I expected, but in [...] 
I have a few bike design related links that I want to pass along. Well, I have them, but posting will have to wait until next week. For now, I just want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. I hope that each [...] 
This afternoon, I took a short break from a project that I am working on to browse through the design magazines on the corner of my desk. The stack included the December issue of Metropolis and the Jan/ Feb issue of ID Magazine. Bicycles [...]
Note from James: This is 
Francis Chu is an urban cyclist in Singapore who designed a reusable anti pollution mask for cyclists. Filter masks are nothing new, but unlike some of the other more cumbersome replaceable filter designs, the 
