Watch the video here.
Seen first at the Freeman Transport blog.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Monocle and Bicycle design
Monocle recently released this short video on modern bicycle design. Personally, I think they really missed the mark and I disagree with pretty much everything that is said. I think the entire idea of beautiful bicycle design is that it is not designed as a piece of furniture would be, but rather as something dynamic and almost organic in it's origin. Designing a bicycle from an industrial perspective essentially eliminates the heart and soul of the bike that makes it desirable in the first place. And that is just aesthetics- all of the proprietary parts required when completely "rethinking" the bicycle makes maintenance and servicing them financially prohibitive if not impossible. But it's worth the watch regardless.
Watch the video here.
Seen first at the Freeman Transport blog.
Watch the video here.
Seen first at the Freeman Transport blog.
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3 comments:
Non-cyclists designing bikes will lead to some weird places...
What ever it takes to get people on bikes is okay I guess.. even if they buy them at the Ikea store. Bicycles are super marketable these days so we'd better get used to seeing this sort of thing.
Actually non cyclists designing cycles is the best possible thing that can happen to what is otherwise a closed pretty brain dead industry that somehow a group of enthusiants believe is actually progressive...which is pretty funny. It took Cannondale 20 years to make a 6000 belt drive bicycle...that is 20 years after Gates perfected a belt drive design for bicycles...electric bikes same brain dead approach.
Oh come on. "Closed pretty braindead"? Overgeneralize much? Sure there is a lot of silliness that goes on, but it's almost entirely motivated by the market and the ability to sell new products. Electric shifting has been around for 20 years. Shimano is just the first company to be "successful" at marketing it. Gates has FAR from perfected the belt drive design. There is a reason it's kind of dead in the water at the moment. It is wrought with complications and issues that make it impractical (i.e. frame breaks, chainline, hub compatibility, gearing versatility, etc). And I'm a fan of belt drives! Cannondale is not pushing forward design, they are pushing forward marketability. They thrive off of consumerism. The same with this new disc brake rule in the cross UCI scene. 99% of pros will not want to ride with them and the 1% that does, will be because brands like Cannondale will be pushing them onto their riders. All of that is for those enthusiasts you mention. No other reason. It moves products. It convinces people they need new things when they don't.
Remember, these aren't chairs, these are vehicles that people ride to work on. A poorly designed bicycle has the potentially fatal caveat of being designed "outside the box". Now I agree that is it important that outsiders help with design- it's great to get an outside perspective. But really, I wouldn't want to ride a Hans Wegner designed bike through NYC traffic, would you?
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