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?
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.
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.
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
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.
I love the net idea. I am worried about materials though. Even if money is no object, I think it would be difficult to find something light and flexible enough to do as the designer is proposing.
having some knowledge about how easy and quick it is to cut a cable lock with a decent pair of bolt cutters, i’m immediately skeptical of most designs that rely on cables for security. but i do appreciate the entries that try to make up for this shortcoming such as warrior24seven’s audio alarm and jesse daniel’s ink spraying lock. i can also imagine the compo-net being frustrating to thieves depending on its construction. it could become a tangled mess of sharp wires once enough spots are cut.