1HDC 08.01 - Theft Proof Bicycles Discussion

Doors open:
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
7 AM PST (2 GMT)
Doors close:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
1PM PST (8 GMT)

THEME:
Theft Proof Bicycles

BRIEF:
We all remember when our first Huffy was stolen. The realization that some lazy-eyed cretin had stripped away our freedom all for the purpose of a 15 minutes joy ride hit us like a ton of bricks. Maybe that was just me, but no one can argue that bike theft is rampant. A recent discussion on the Core77 Blog about a Biomega bike that attempts to turn the whole bike into the bike lock is the inspiration for our latest 1HDC incarnation. Can you design a better bike lock in one hour or less? Push aside that looming deadline and pick up your Sharpies….its 1HDC time again! What can you bring to the table to prevent more Huffy Heartache?

PRIZE:
A $200 gift certificate at Harris Cyclery:

Jury:
Winner will be selected by the Core77 Admin. Community discussion is encouraged to help ensure the best design wins.

This is what I’m doing for my thesis…damn you

Its only March. Plenty of time to change your Thesis :wink:

look at this as a ton of free research and inspiration. i would “kill” for this contest to have been on my thesis.

for the submission, do we upload directly to the blog?

Submit to the “Submissions” folder

Here: 1HDC 08.01 - Theft Proof Bike Submissions

Are we limited to just the Bike Lock (to fit on a variety of bikes) or are could we design a whole bike?

EDIT: I had a spare hour and quick idea so went for a Lock… It would be better to design a steal proof bike in terms of security… are we allowed to have a go at a few concepts in these comps or is it just the one?, also is the brief just a bike lock?

Have at more than one entry. That’s what makes the 1HDC nice…is that it allows for that.

This is not limited in any way to a lock or a whole bike solution. You’re free to come up with whatever hair-brained idea you can come up with.

a little inspiration…

remember when i caused all sorts outrage when i “objecttified” women…

I didnt notice the girl in the picture then for a min… i thought it was the classic shape on the italian bike in the picture that was inspiration… :wink:

…honest

I would like to add for bonus points consideration, my entry was done between the hour of 2am and 3am after 4 vodka tonics on a Tuesday night. A little extra challenge.

Yo, your social bike is a nice idea, but it dates back to 1965, Amsterdam.

http://www.iisg.nl/collections/provo/b24-706.php

It failed miserably.

EDIT:
also see: News from Amsterdam

heck should have drawn up the “up up and away” design…its a hummer…just think bunch of bikes dangling from all sorts of stuff…christmas all year round :laughing:

I want to say Michael Moore did an experiment in NYC. It may have just been one of the networks. They put out a bike rake in the middle of the city with a sign saying, “public bikes: take one, just bring it back”. No one touched the bikes all day. Then at about 2 in the morning, a large U-Haul pulled up and 3 guys start putting all of the bikes in the back! Luckily, it was all on video for the police.

That is funny and extremely disappointing at the same time.

I was in Barcelona recently and saw their “white bicycles” in use… very cool idea and lots of people using them, the rack systems where you rent/drop off the bike have a neat little locking mechanism and keypad input to type in/swipe your rental card. During the night a maintenance van comes round and checks up on them, lets hope this one works.

from what i remember reading there was a number of reasons almost uniquely inherent to the netherlands, that led to the failure of that scheme. not that there’s not problems everywhere whenever a change of infrastructure happens…
for a recent example of a another hugely sucessful project, google the “velib” scheme in paris, which seems to be running very smoothly. Vélib' - Wikipedia’
berlin also has some kind of automated rental system.
it’s a cool idea, but personally, i love having my own kickass bike, even if i have to use a lock

wha? she is too big for that that bike…she needs at least a 56 or 58…

mvisbeek_ The Netherlands attempt is what inspired this. Never claimed it was an original idea. The thing with competitions is I like to begin with what I would like to end up with. My end goal was to have a rendering of a cool bike, so I backpedaled (pun!) an idea that would leave me with that. I approach every competition with the primary goal being what I want to round out my portfolio.

Kinl_ I was not aware of the bikes in Barcelona. I think there are several ways a community could make it work, though most would be complicated and costly.

The other solution I thought of would be a bike so light and so foldable that it slips into a messenger bag… like a Jetson’s car… bit I’d need a lot more than an hour to work on that, not that great bike designers haven’t been tackling it for decades.

I think RBaid has it right on the money. An easy to access cable lock that’s only there when you need it. Doesn’t require you to buy a new specific bike, etc. That’s a very now solution.
I also like the net solution. That would be such a pain to try to cut through. As long as the closure is extremely secure then I think that’s also a very viable idea. You’d just need a good way of carrying a cable net since I’d imagine it would be kind of stiff and thus, bulky.
Also this solution is good since people don’t always try to steal the whole bike. They’ll take anything on a quick release just because they can so something that just wraps up the whole bike is a nice idea.