Irish Cycle Chic

Happy Christmas to all our readers – back in the New year

(c) Matteo Bazzi/EPA

Delivering a completely upright riding position, the Dursley Pedersen bike has a unique design and a unique history – one of the classic bike entrepreneur tales.

The bike’s full history, including their revived manufacture in the 1970’s is listed here

Those smart guys over at MIT SENSEable City lab have developed a wheel that can be retrofitted to a regular bike. The Copenhagen wheel is here

Acting in a similar way to hybrid energy drives in cars it stores the kinetic energy generated from cycling and braking and stores it for later use when you really need it. That’s smart, but really just an adaption of existing technology.

It is covered in the NY Times here What gets less attention is what I think is the really smart bit, the telematics, which gathers environmental and ride data for display to the user, or for aggregation by city planners to build spatial maps.

I’d ditch the drivetrain and provide just the sensor part allowing the unit to be much smaller and therefore less intrusive visually. If you want a motor, get a moped.

The mayors seem to like it.

MIT Mayors

Green gimmick or something useful ?

Civia from Minnesota, USA are a brand I’ve never seen this side of the pond, but have a nice relaxed range of bikes – flip-flop friendly as they say themselves. I know Minnesota has a large Scandinavian influence so perhaps some of the bike culture made its way over there too. In line with other US design led manufacturers such as Apple, they impose a style tax, so start at just under a grand.

The signature design element is their wooden sided branded front carrier, as in their Loring model.

The planned Midtown model due in May 2010 looks very like the Specialized Globe Live. I wonder who inspired who ?

While I have the magnetic Reelights I posted on before, I have also supplemented these with some regular LEDs lights as insurance.

Lovely bicycle has a great post on how to retrofit LED lights to a city bike.

I’ve also gone for Cateye EL530 upfront, but mounted high up on the front bar, since the reelights are already at wheel level. My main problem is actually side visability, as i have driver coming at me from the left on junctions and roundabouts who attack me side on.

I currently have this fantastically bright and cheap flashing red spotlight on the seat stem,

but having seen the shots in the post above, I’ll be adding two vertically mounted Cateye LD-610 lights, which provide drivers with a sense of the bikes width.

What do you use to light up your life ?

Bike stands tend to either be the standard C tube, or a variation on that theme, but as street furniture why can’t they blend in more in the case of these adapted plantdocks

or stand out more and function as public art, in the case of the David Byrne’s bike stands in New York City, whose form reflect the area or street in which they are located. A dollar sign for Wall Street and so on..

What do you prefer, your bike stands to blend into the streetscape or for them to announce themselves to the world ?

The bike is so common place in Copenhagen they even appear in the Climate conference protests.

source - Guardian.co.uk

One lies abandoned next to police lines, while two others are held by protesters who brought their wheels to the event.

Most irish cyclists tend to dress like they have been attacked by a highlighter pen, due to understandable concern over their visibility. So are style and safety mutually exclusive ? I don’t think so, it just takes a little bit of thought. While anything in your closet is grand for everyday cycling, when you do need to wear cycling gear, that doesn’t mean you can’t stay stylish…

Some stylish retro cycling gear for the man in your life at Rapha. If only they did some threads for the girls too, though at those prices, it may be just as well they don’t.

We have minx girl, which has a more sensible price tag and some good urban styles.

Where do you get your bike threads?

Batavus, the dutch maker have considerably glammed up their current brochure, though some of the shots are rather bizarre.

Are you really going to get down and dirty in some dark alleyway in your best frock. Me neither. That bike isn’t even locked up..

When a stylish red ladies bike, complete with basket and book is straddled by an attractive girl, or a fashionista, its cycle chic. When that same item belongs to those who struggle to survive in extreme poverty and hardship, it’s probably what keeps them alive.

source – feijeriemersma @ flickr

Without the bike they can’t make it to water, to medicine or to school. So next time you get a new bike, make sure the old goes to somewhere it is needed most. If not to Africa, perhaps to someone in your local community to whom its value will not be measured by style or chic.

In Ireland, Rothar would be a good place to start.