De Pigerne Promenade...

..which is Danish for "The Girls Promenade". Which is kind of how I think of the blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic. I have to admit, it's kind of an envy thing. Let me explain.

Firstly, here's the brief on CCC:

Copenhagen Cycle Chic began its bloglife back in June 2007 when journalist, film director and photographer Mikael Colville-Andersen decided to put a growing number of photos about Copenhagen's bicycle culture into one place on the internet.

A series of social documentary photos about Copenhagen started to include a number of shots of life in the World's Cycling Capital, including fashionable Copenhageners on their bicycles. The feedback about these photos was positive and there was clearly a growing interest abroad in seeing how the bicycle was an integral part of life in the Danish capital. Specifically about how Copenhageners have demystified the bicycle and use it without any form of bicycle 'gear'. Just as the bicycle was meant to be ridden when invented.

I love that statement about "how Copenhagers have demystified the bicycle and use it without any form of bicycle 'gear'". Really? Do the good bicycling citizens of Copenhagen not have to carry locks, has bicycle theft become passé in Copenhagen? Hm. I don't think so, although supposedly "convenience theft" has decreased since Copenhagen introduced their City Bike system. Do the Danes not have to use lights after dark? I can't imagine so. And I know for a fact (by looking at some of nice photography on the site) that bike baskets and panniers are widely used. So I suspect the "bicycle gear" that Mikael Colville-Andersen is referring to is bicycle clothes. Which raises the question:

Why are functional bicycling clothes so reviled, especially in Copenhagen?

I mean, look at the Copenhagen Cycling Chic Manifesto. (Here's the desktop version and here is the blog post.) While certainly delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I mean, come on.

I wear:

• bike shorts (simple black ones, not team-livery) because they don't chafe when I'm cycling at 15-20 mph;
• a bright fluorescent jersey to be visible in all weather conditions;
• cycling shoes for more efficient power;
• gloves to keep my hands from getting lacerated in a spill; and
• a helmet for safety.

I admit this may be "geeky" (however that's defined) but this is practical cycling, and it is, after all, the name of this blog. The Copenhageners (Copenhagenites?) sniff at this, because they know they have it good, and they want to flaunt it.

Why do I say they "have it good"? I've been giving this some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that this is a "hierarchy of needs" issue. Most readers will be familiar with Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" often expressed as a graphic pyramid from his 1943 paper, "A Theory of Human Motivation". The original hierarchy was expressed as the following levels of need:

• Physiological (meeting biological needs);
• Safety (security of body, resources, property);
• Love/Belonging (friendship, family, intimacy);
• Esteem (self-esteem, confidence, respect);
• Self-Actualization (morality, creativity, etc.);

Now, let's think about the environment of practical cycling. There's a hierarchy of needs here, also, if you think about it:

• Law (I must have the legal right to be on the road!);
• Safety (Can I make it to my destination without mishap?);
• Living Density (How far do I have to ride to work?);
• Physical Ability (How much strength do I need to do it?);
• Style (Can I look good or be cool doing it?);

The beauty of Copenhagen is that the first three levels of the pyramid are taken care of. Cyclists are legally supported in Denmark, and are numerous enough that they are well respected on the road. Copenhagen, like most European capitals, is very densely settled (and flat to boot) so that rides are short and it doesn't require significant physical stamina to handle the ride. Which gives the Danes the luxury of being able to focus on Style. Good for them, I say. But, as reported earlier, I'm jealous.

Keep up the promenade, girls. And, by all means, keep looking good. But please, try to not rub our noses in it quite so hard!

Apple and bikes

Continuing on in the "what if XX made a bike" series, let's take a deep breath and go after the big one: Apple.

Prologue: Today's state of bicycle "captial D" design to my mind is so-so at best. The fact that opportunity still exists for Apple to come in to the market (should they decide they want to) means that design is still lagging, despite all the effort put towards it. At right is a "design" put forth by Puma, a design-conscious fashion clothing manufacturer, for their fourth-generation bike. They appear to be making some kind of statement about color, except they can't quite get even that right (ahem, guys, get a white handlebar, stem, and front rim, and powder-coat the front brake calipers! If you're going to make it about color, DO IT!)

If Apple made a bike, what would it look like? Knowing what I know about Apple (I've been a Mac user since 1984 and have worked for 10 years for Nemetschek North America, makers of Vectorworks, the best-selling CAD product on the Mac), and particularly considering its recent successes with industrial design since the iPod, here is what I could reasonably predict about any Apple product:

• It would be iconic; recognizable as the thing that it is (that is, it would be a realization of a classic design rather than a revolutionary design.)
• It would feature obsessive attention to detail.
• It would focus on the user experience.
• It would definitively fix problems with the product category that users didn't realize they had.
• It would be visually beautiful and a tactile delight.
• It would co-promote other products made by Apple as part of a lifestyle.
  
• It would be expensive, a stretch for the pocketbook; something that conveys status, but stops short of aloofness.
  
• It would be value-engineered, so Apple could make a decent profit.
• It would be sold only through the Apple store. (duh.)
• There would be tremendous opportunity to create a third-party "add-on" ecosystem.
  

So, how would these "branding requirements" translate into a specific bicycle design? What are the "unrealized problems" waiting to be solved in bicycle design that could be fixed with an obsessive amount of user-centric problem solving and delivered through industrial design? I think the major problems to be solved (the "user requirements") are these:

• Looks: The bike should have a minimalist look, as much like a fixie as possible. The explosive popularity of fixies is all about that sexy, iconic bike look.
• Shifting: Bikes need to be easier to use (i.e. shift) so that users don't wear themselves out getting from point A to point B. (Fixies look great, but aren't practical unless you're an athlete.)
• Security: There needs to be a convenient, highly effective anti-theft solution.
  
• Comfort: The places where your body touches the bike, the controls, the seat and the pedals, need improvement. This is after all the "user interface" of the bike. Ideally, other than for a helmet (and maybe some sporty-looking gloves) you wouldn't need any special clothing to use this bike.
  
• Maintenance: The thing needs to set new standards of minimalism in maintenance.

Specking out this bike (at a high level) would be fun—more fun, I daresay, than the sweat-work of designing and testing it. (So, let's do it!) I would think we'd see the following kind of "functional specification" from Apple in trying to fulfill these requirements:

• Frame: Probably hydr0formed aluminum, welded, with smooth-dressed joints. The finish would be anodized ("nanochromatic" colors to match the iPod nano?) and clear-coated. All cables would be internally routed. The frame would be set up so that a minimum number of sizes (maybe just two: small and large) would accommodate all riders. This presumes a maximally adjustable seatpost and stem arrangement.
• Drivetrain: Internally-geared rear hub, probably 8 speed, with an automatic shifter working off cadence and speed scnsors integrated in the frame. Belt drive. Gear range for city hills.
• Brakes: Internal hub brakes front and rear. (Yes, the hubs will be big, but it'll be a clean look and low maintenance. Speaking of which...).
  
• Maintenance: Carbon or aramid drive belt good for 10,000 miles. Sealed bearings everywhere. Aramid-belted tires (possibly tubeless) with interior goo to stop slow leaks. All cables Teflon-coated. An absolute minimum of hardware exposed to the elements. Here's where that famous Apple attention to detail will pay off.
  
• Controls: Brake handles with fully-concealed cabling. The cyclocomputer would be your iPhone or iPod touch running a "free" app from the App Store. The app would integrate GPS, speed, odometer, traffic and weather reports, and (naturally) music. There would be special valve-stem caps that could sense low pressure in your tires and transmit warnings to the control unit via Bluetooth. Oh, and the app would enable customization of your shift points on the transmission. The front hub would be a dyno-hub to keep the lights and the iPhone charged up.
  
• User Interface (pedals, seat, handlebars): I think Apple could come up with some clever platform pedals that would work with street shoes but still have some restraint to allow pedaling efficiency. And the handlebars should be "fixie" style, perhaps with cell-foam padding so they could be used without gloves. The saddle is the real problem, because it needs to fulfill two conflicting requirements (1) be an iconic bike saddle; and (2) be comfortable. I think they'd have to do something like provide a "basic" saddle that has a proven comfort record like the Terry Liberator, and a "premium" saddle that is a Brooks classic leather saddle that comes fully broken in. (That will be an expensive extra cost option!)
• Accessories: I think fenders, yes; but rack, no. (Fenders are sexy, racks aren't.) Instead of selling racks and panniers, Apple could sell coordinated backpacks (they could re-brand this ergonomic German one). Lights front and rear, for sure, integrated into the frame. The really tough challenge is the security issue. You could easily design security to work for Mudville, but not so easy for Manhattan. And effective locks are so big and heavy. I think Apple might try a two-pronged approach: first, a frame design that integrated a solid locking bar that would allow you to use a small high-security lock rather than a U-bar lock, and secondly, something (again an extra cost option) that worked with the iPhone to transmit a "help" signal if the bike were being tampered with.
  

Whew. Quite a bike, huh? What should it sell for? I would say that it ought to sell slightly above the price range for Apple laptops, say $1900 to $3500 depending on the options. I daresay that Apple has enough economies of scale, manufacturing wise, to be able to pull this off, and to value-engineer it to make a profit. (That auto-shifter will be tricky to engineer for sure, but Apple's just the company to do it.)

An industrial designer who is really ready to take on the challenge of the Apple bike is the Swedish designer Erik Nohlin from Gothenburg. He entered his delightfully minimalist, well thought out "MuskOx" design in the Bicycle Design (blog) "Ultimate Commuter Bike" design contest. (He should have won in my opinion.) If Apple wanted to get into bikes, they should just hire this guy, give him the list of requirements, and fund him.

But, first things first, Apple. Before you can proceed on this project, you have to wrestle the "iBike" trademark (#3096850) away from Velocomp LLP, makers of the "iBike" cyclocomputers.

A review that makes me want to buy the book

David Byrne, who has received coverage in this blog before, has become the de facto spokesman for cyclists in New York City and beyond. Normally, I'm the type who resents (to no small degree) being spoken for, but Byrne's eloquence in his review (in today's New York Times Book Review) of Jeff Mapes' PEDALING REVOLUTION: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities is so compelling that I'm inclined to settle and say, "I'm happy with Byrne being the voice of my generation."

According to the NYT-Book Review editors, Byrne is himself writing a book on bicycling and cities and their intersection called Bicycle Diaries in September. This will be worth reading, as city (and suburban) planning and the impact of cycling on it (and vice versa) is a topic I'm finding more and more interesting.

There is one egregious flaw in Byrne's review. He says therein,

I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

I must insist here that it can be only false modesty that allows Byrne to assert that his personal involvment "won't make riding any cooler".

San Francisco April-May 2009

So, within one month I've managed to visit both Seattle and San Francisco, both west coast towns that are reputed to be bicycling cities (with the third of the West Coast Bicycling Triplets being Portland, of course.)

I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and arranged to go get drinks and a bite with my friend Scott at Zeitgeist, a fun bar and grill on Valencia street in the "SoMa" district of San Francisco. Arriving at my hotel and unpacking my bike, I discovered I'd left my pump at home (insert self-administered dope slap to forehead here) and so I looked up a nice bike shop called Freewheel just a few blocks south of Zeitgeist. I got down there in plenty of time, got the exact pump I was looking for (a Topeak Road Morph), and had time to do a little sightseeing on South Valencia before heading back north to grab a couple of beers and a burger with Scott.

Thursday night, my company Vectorworks was co-host of what turned out to be just a bang-up party —the City To Green Party— for architects, cyclists and artistic locals at the 3A Gallery on South Park street. In the gallery was an exhibit of track bikes from the second half of the 20th century. The gallery proprietors hung a show of track bikes on the walls and described the provenance of each bike, and detailed descriptions of the bike realization as a work of art. Here's a transcription of one of the the bike descriptions:

---------------------------------------------------------
Automoto, France, 1940s.

Cycles Automoto was a pioneering French maker of motorcycles and bicycles founded at the turn of the 20th century. Well regarded for thoughtful design and meticulous construction, Automoto grew in popularity until merging with the Peugeot group in the early 1960s. Part of that popularity is attributable to the company's wide ranging product offerings, whose bicycle line along grew to include 20 models. When an Automoto advertisement boldly declared, "Le Triomphe De La Qualité Française", few in sound conscience would have doubted the claim.

Built for the professional track racer
Restored condition
Magistroni cranks
Chater Lee Pedals
Major Taylor stem

Collection: American Cyclery of San Francisco
---------------------------------------------------------

Quite refreshing. A very well attended party, right to the end, as you can see from the photos. I've often wondered why the intersection-set of architects (particularly young architects) and bicyclists is so large. At least 30 attendees (including yours truly) arrived on bike and were graciously attended to out front of the gallery in a nice bike parking lot attended by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition , a club of more than 10,000 members. Very, very nice work.

This poem was transcribed in chalk on the walls of the foyer of the 3A Gallery:

Ode to Bicycles

I was walking
down
a sizzling road:
the sun popped like
a field of blazing maize,
the
earth
was hot,
an infinite circle
with an empty
blue sky overhead.

A few bicycles
passed
me by,
the only
insects
in
that dry
moment of summer,
silent,
swift,
translucent;
they
barely stirred
the air.

Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving
their eyes
to summer,
their heads to the sky,
sitting on the
hard
beetle backs
of the whirling
bicycles
that whirred
as they rode by
bridges, rosebushes, brambles
and midday.

I thought about evening when the boys
wash up,
sing, eat, raise
a cup
of wine
in honor
of love
and life,
and waiting
at the door,
the bicycle,
stilled,
because
only moving
does it have a soul,
and fallen there
it isn’t
a translucent insect
humming
through summer
but
a cold
skeleton
that will return to
life
only
when it’s needed,
when it’s light,
that is,
with
the
resurrection
of each day.

- Pablo Neruda, 1956

I broke 1000 miles for the year so far on the last day of April on the streets of San Francisco. For me, this really cut it. Call me fickle (less than a month ago I was extolling Seattle,) but San Francisco is US Bicycling City Number One in my book.

Bicycle as Fetish

My dictionary defines it thus:

fet•ish |ˈfeti sh |
noun
•an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.

Now, bear that definition in mind as you read and view this article from the Style (of course!) section of the New York Times, a photo layout of high-fashion models draped over Dutch and high-end American street bicycles. After reading (with no small amount of amusement) this article, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that bicycles are now a fetish in urban America. Since it is defined as bestowing powers, what can we say is the power it might bestow? I submit that the power (in today's America) is coolness.

Bikes have become cool. Partly as a result of Lance, partly as a result of the skinny young bike couriers, partly as a result of the ecological movement, partly as a result of last year's gasoline price bubble, bicycles have arrived.

The fashion models bear witness to this. I mean, really! The set of individuals who would not only bike to work but who would insist on being a fashion plate is very, very small. This is not for societal reasons, it's for practical ones. Let's examine a quote from the Times article:

Can the bicycle, the urban answer to the wild mustang, slow down and put fenders on? Can the urban cyclist, he of the ragtag renegade clothes or shiny spandex, grow up and put on a tie?

I think what's interesting is the way this quote (and the article as a whole) presents this as an either-or. Either spandex or worsted. Either wild or staid. Either adolescent or grown-up. While the either-or is effective as a literary device, I think it's a bit overwrought in this particular case. Let's look at some facts:

"Real" cycle-commuters have to deal with the weather. Even sitting upright on a Dutch bike, in New York City there are probably only about six weeks out of the year (three in spring, three in fall) where you could ride to work a distance of greater than 3 miles and not get either grossly lathered up or pretty darn cold. Fashion cycling is a very limited activity, and people who cycle because they are motivated by fashion-good-looks won't be doing so for very much of the year.

"Real" cycle-commuters have to deal with safety. The Times article states, "Dutch bikes are ridden upright, not hunched over, and you move at a safe, slow gait". Please! Moving at a "slow gait" on the streets of Manhattan is safe? Riding a bike to work, preoccupied with how I'm going to keep my two-thousand dollar Marc Jacobs suit from getting stained or ripped is safe? Not wearing a helmet because "..riding a bike should be normal, and you shouldn’t have to wear a funny Styrofoam hat” is safe?

"Real" cycle-commuters in the City have to deal with New York. The article pays lip service to the ever-present everyday problems of the commuter: the traffic, the fear of theft, the lack of secure bike parking. None of these are made any easier by being dressed fashionably. (Lugging and lifting bikes is a great way to rip tight-fitting pretty-boy suits. I think the look on the face of the model in this picture, dealing with the folding bike, says it all.)

The Times article, in the end, is kind of a mish-mash (or "mashup," the more popular contemporary term). It flits around, and touches on a wide variety of very valid and interesting issues, but doesn't stay with any of them long enough to make sense. Of course, that's not its point. Its point is to sell fashion, which it does admirably with its slide show.

This isn't the first recent intersection of bicycling and fashion that comes to mind. There are the $3000 cycling suits by Rapha, fresh from Savile Row, and the seriously sartorial Dashing Tweeds get-up that bike manufacturer Gary Fisher (right) recently was fitted for in London. The Dashing Tweeds suit is made of Lumatwill, a fabric whose pinstripes are reflective for night riding. Like Gore-tex it's a Teflon laminated fabric, so it's both breathable and waterproof. To me, this is a true bespoke ("custom" for those of you who don't speak the King's English) suit for a cyclist. It's truly forward-looking and (assuming as I must that it's cut for freedom of movement) represents something that could be seriously used by a commuter on those days when he just has to wear a suit.

David Colman of the Times has put up a visually interesting article, but ultimately it's about the conventional fashion trade. It seems ironic to me that there's a true story going on about cycling and cycle-clothing, however, and they're missing it.

PS: Hey, NYTimes, where are the female models? Is it just too hard to reconcile the way that real female cyclists look with the current uber-anorexic female fashion model?

Bicycle Lights are "Fashion", sez the NY Times

OK, the venerable Gray Lady has an online review about, of all things, bicycle lights. I say "bicycle lights" instead of "bicycle lighting systems" because all the lights (and they choose front-rear pairs) cost less than $60 total and have regular battery cells contained. None of that high-tech, rechargeable, exterior battery pack stuff (costing $150 and up) that is intended to either blind oncoming motorists or light up the Black Forest so you can find your way home without being waylaid by an evil witch who wants to put you in a puff pastry.

What bemuses me about this whole thing is where the review shows up online. Not in the Technology section next to David Pogue (who had a wonderful article about Twitter recently) but in the "Fashion and Style" section! The reviewer is this hunky young bike courier (pictured) named Hugo Giron (love that name!) I think this says a number of things:

1. Bicycling in urban settings is considered hip. Take heart, those of you (of us) out in unwashed suburbia, and remember that when you get a chance to move to the big city, you will be part of the elite.
   
2. There are a lot of young, good-looking kids out there cycling these days, and this invariably leads to thoughts of "fashion". The NYT is by no means alone on this. Look at London Cycle Chic, which is on my blogroll at right, or Copenhagen Cycle Chic. (Note: some images on these sites may be NSFW.)
3. The NYT is a quality tome, no matter what. The content of the reviews is really pretty good. I like the criteria the guy uses, and tend to agree with his ratings.
4. Nonetheless, I find it hard to consider bicycle night lighting "fashion", and therefore feel this review is misclassified. I would never have come across it if I hadn't seen a link in another blog. Which leads me to my conclusion:

I think it's time for the NYT to create a "Transportation" section for their media, where they can conglomerate articles about automobiles (also mislocated in the Sports section of the print edition), mass transit, air travel (they can keep the "Travel" section for "Destinations" (which I think they sometimes call their Travel section already), bicycling, and other various forms.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

In anticipation (dread?) of the upcoming Keanu Reeves movie, I got on Netflix and watched the original 1951 Michael Rennie TDTESS tonight (it can be streamed, along with a lot of other sci-fi classics). Although the special effects were weak (the flying saucer never changed perspective in any of the shots, which means it was probably a hand-painted cel), the sets were great (especially the saucer interior), and the Theremin music was probably state of the art for the time.

You all know the premise, so I won't rework it here. But in none of the shots of traffic tie-ups anywhere across the world was there even one bicycle! I guess it would have given the lie to, uh, "standing still". Hey, bicyclists don't need no stinkin' electricity, at least as long as it's daytime.

The trailers for the new TDTESS look a lot more destructive. And I'm getting the idea (wonder where from) that the new movie has a more "green" and less "anti-nuke" theme to it. So I'm betting that when things drag to a halt in the new movie, we in fact DO see cyclists moving around. Anybody want some action on this??

MOMA sez: Bikes are Hip

Continuing on our theme of New York City, bikes and urban hipness, mosey on over to the MOMA online store. On the front page of their Fall 2008 catalog is a Strida bike, a classic design which is now in its fifth generation. (At a long-legged 6' 6", I personally am too big for a Strida, and I think it would be tough to ride a Strida for more than a couple of miles, even for someone whom it fit. But a compelling modern minimalist design, nonetheless.) Bikes as expressions of urban hipness have officially arrived. We'll see how long this mania lasts, but my advice is to enjoy it while you can!

But wow, the MOMA catalog item that caught my eye (at a suggestion from my wife) was these pant-leg clips (pictured). They are called "Windriders" and designed by Gijs Bakker. They seem obvious, so obvious that I have a nagging feeling that I must have seen them before. I don't know if this is the case, or if my sense of déja vu is simply the subconscious recognition of a classic design, but in any case, hats off to Bakker and MOMA. (I don't wear long pants riding, and so don't have any practical use for them, but if they were given me, I'd wear them over my socks now and again just for fun.)

Byrne, Bike Racks, and Design

David Byrne is the paragon of the hip urban cyclist. If you don't believe me, look here. He's been doing bicycle activism in New York City, for which he is to be commended. When asked to be a judge in a bike rack design content, he instead turned in some (in my opinion) cutesy designs (that are, admittedly, very NYC-savvy) and expects to sell them as objets d'art later. I'm certain he'll find a willing market for this. (The finalists in the NYC bike rack design contest are here.)

If I had not recently been charged with doing bike-rack research for our office, perhaps I would be more impressed. But there has been a lot of really creative design work going into bike racks, design that often goes deeper than simple croquis imagery. Consider the Byrne coffee mug rack in fabrication (below right) vs. the custom Dero coffee mug rack (below left), several years old:


Let's start by asking the question, "What does a bike rack need to do?" I would submit that a bike rack should fulfill some or all of the following functional requirements:

• It should be identifiable as a place to park bicycles;
• It should allow bike parking at a reasonable density, while still keeping bikes from getting scratched or dinged up;
• It should allow secure locking of bikes (a very good design would make it hard to lock your bike incorrectly);
• It should accommodate all kinds of bicycles.
  

There are no doubt other requirements relating to budget, etc., and of course your mileage may vary, but for now, let's assume all other things equal and let the above requirements stand.

So, when researching a bike parking facility at our office, I did a fair amount of online research. There are many repetitions in the land of bike rack design, and where there are duplicates, I make an attempt to present the original designer (such as "Ribbon Racks" below, the originator as far as I know, of the undulating ribbon design). I was looking for group bike parking in the 6 to 12 bike range. Here in no particular order are the racks I found. Consider the following a survey of bicycle rack design in the current day. Although there are other designs to be sure, most all of them will be a variant of one of the following designs:

The Bike Rib, series 3: Available from Function First, Inc: This is a nice, clean design that is formed from simple round steel tubing and appears to be nicely optimized for bike density. I like the use of angles for functionality here. The design at right holds 8 bikes, two for each vertical loop. It looks like it would be sturdy.

Vintage Bike Rack: Available from Cycle Safe, Inc: This is a standard "inverted loop" design, but with decorative inlays. This would be very useful, I think, if you're an urban planner doing street-scape work in a historical district. There are 11 different designs, of which I show 4 at right. They seem to have taken some pains to make sure that the decor does not decrease the locking function.


Campus Racks: Available from Peak Racks: This is an alternating-height rack with a separate locking bar. Looks to be very high density, and moderate security (certainly good for campuses and other controlled environments, probably not sturdy enough for hard-core or overnight urban settings.) This is a difficult design to photograph, but it looks like it has lots of applications, particularly on (as the name suggests) campuses.

Cora Expo: Available from Cora: This looks like it would work in a setting where high security was not required. Those "coat hangers", while allowing good density, don't make it obvious how to lock up the bike and frankly, they look a little lightweight. I'm afraid a pair of bolt-cutters would go through them.


Wallrack: Available from Cycle Safe, Inc: This looks like a sturdy alternative to the ubiquitous wall hook, with the advantage that the angled brace provides a lock point, although it's not clear that this brace will work with any standard U-lock unless you have a cable. These are staggered on the wall (see photo) to allow handlebar clearance with standard 16" stud spacing. Unlike most of the other designs, which tend to be embedded in pavement, these would require a sturdy attachment to the supporting wall to prevent a thief from just ripping the whole thing away.

Grid Style Bike Rack: Available from Saris: This is the familiar, mass-market style of bike rack that you've seen on a hundred college campuses. Not terribly convenient, but no doubt economical. You can usually find a way to securely lock your bike if you don't get one of the coveted end spots, but you have to work at it.

Bikeeper: Available from Bikeeper: This Dutch company is easily my personal pick for the best new design I've seen in this area (even if they do have a Flash website.. ugh). It's not surprising that the Dutch, who are bicycle-oriented in the extreme, would come up with a simple and clever design such as this. You roll your bike into the trough, and the trough pivots to present obvious locking tangs to hook your U-lock into. (See the animation at their website.) Gosh, I love good design ideas. The only fault I can find with this design is, it may interfere with (or, rather, be obstructed by) down-tube bottle cages. Or if you have a bike (like a Montague) that doesn't have a down-tube. (I'd take my down-tube cage off if we had one of these at work.)

Commuter Bike Rack: Available from Huntco: This is a high-security "clamshell" design. Very safe, difficult to make dense, probably has a learning curve to use well. No nonsense aesthetics. Although Huntco has some more highly-designed stuff similar to Dero and Ribbon Rack (below), this particular model seems to be unique to them. This is what I'd want in the inner city (along with a Kryptonite New York City lock.)


Ribbon Rack: Available from RibbonRack: This is the classic design that has been widely copied, perhaps because the designers didn't pursue appropriate protections, or perhaps because they wanted to design and not spend their time in court. Or maybe, just maybe, they've been successful in protecting it and this is what everyone sells. (I hope so, but I somehow doubt it.) In any case, this brilliant design came out in (I think) the late '70s or the early '80s. Simple, beautiful, economical, classic.

Dero "Bike" Bike Rack: Available from Dero: It seems to me that Dero has been doing for years what many of the New York City designers have just started, and that is, iconic bike racks. They are in my opinion the leaders in commercial bike-rack design and execution. If you look at the NYC designers stuff (including Byrne) above, and then go look at the Dero site, you'll see a lot of similarities, and where there are duplicate themes, the Dero design is usually better. (Dero has the advantage of having done this for years and subjected their designs to a manufacturing discipline, so it's natural that they would be convincing when it comes to quality.) Dero has many different designs on their site (including an intriguing "stag" design) but I especially like the Bike Bike Rack. It can park up to 4 bikes and simply, iconically, announces what it is.


BikeTree: Available from BikeTree: On rare occasions, you come across something that is so stunningly over- engineered while being under- considered, it just takes your breath away. The BikeTree is one such item, a fantastic example of a solution hunting for a problem. Neither "bike parking" nor fully-realized "integrated bike sharing sytem", the BikeTree is an over-the top design exercise for parking bikes that employs Wi-Fi, Smart Cards, solar panels, lithium ion batteries, and lots and lots of polycarbonate plastic, all in the service of solving the awful problem of (wait for it).. having to carry a bike lock. Yes! Freedom from bike locks! Except, er, if you go on your bike to the grocery or hardware store, you'll have to carry a lock anyway. Nevermind. On their website, it says, "Bike Tree products emphasize simplicity, efficiency and convenience." I don't know what they're smoking over there at BikeTree, but I want some.