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It’s been difficult for tokyobike fans not living in Japan to get ahold of one of the company’s well respected city bikes, but on May 17th their London shop will officially open. To celebrate Dezeen is giving away a single-speed tokyobike worth $840. To enter, just show up to the opening party in Shoreditch this Thursday night. The winner will get to ride home on the bike that evening, and five runners up with get Gropes leather handlebar grips worth $40 apiece.
If you’re unfamiliar with tokyobike, it’s a small, independent bicycle manufacturer founded in 2002 in Yanaka, a suburb of Tokyo. The name references the bike’s purpose. “In the same way the mountain bike was designed for the mountains, so tokyobike was designed for Tokyo.”
So what makes a bike suited to zipping around the streets of a congested city like Tokyo? “Smaller 650mm wheels and slim, compact, steel frames make the bikes easy to handle and light to ride. More about slow than fast, tokyobike is as much about discovering your city and enjoying the ride as it is about the destination.” It might not be best choice for a bike messenger, but it will do quite nicely for the rest of us.
Before setting up shop in London, tokyobikes hit the streets of Milan for Salone del Mobile – watch a cute video of design week goers biking to events.
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On the 24th of April, the Dutch Company Tuk Factory, known for their taxis, launched a new vehicle, the e-Tuk Vendo. The e-Tuk Vendo is 100% electric vending van intended for mobile catering. The first customer, Toeti Froeti, will use the vehicle for selling fruit shakes and fruitcups. Chicago has been waiting for the food truck concept and in 2012 they are now legal but only as mobile vending and catering vehicles because cooking is not allowed per the Chicago Sanitation Department. So the news of an electric vending van seemed as hot as a habanero taco. Well, you won’t find Tuk Tuk taxis buzzing around Chicago and you probably won’t see the Vendo here either. The business end, the kitchen, appeals to the needs of the urban lunch crowd, but the single seat, three-season (glass half-full) cab rates one-half star. Tsk-tsk.
above] Here’s proof that the food truck concept is alive and well in Chicago, it’s first year. In this photo is the Pastymobile, a GEM ( global electric motorcar ) sandwiched in between the stinkpots, an endearing term sailors call motor boats. The GEM’s cab, three stars.
above] Here’s a GEM, that’s bigger than the Pastymobile. The soon-to-be introduced Bluebird electric commercial vehicle in the video below promises a gourmet electric food truck recipe. “Road chef’s! Start your electric ovens!”
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bluebird ] [
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milk float corner ] [
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In the context of ‘Belgium is Design’ and the exhibition Perspectives, Brussels Invest & Export is also organizing Insalata Belga: an event that highlights Brusselicious, the year-long gastronomy celebration that takes place in the Belgian capital throughout 2012. Bringing together the talents of Xavier Lust, renowned Belgian designer and Eric Boschman, sommelier and gastronomic writer, the project promises to be tasty.
From 16 –20 April a caravan customized by Lust and belonging to Visitbrussels, one of the partners of the project, will be permanently parked outside the entrance to the Triennale di Milano. After a long day on their stands, professional and public visitors to Design Week can enjoy an animated gastronomic experience, as each evening Boschman serves up a mix of Belgian local produce, organic ingredients and black-yellow-red delicacies. Moments of relaxation under the trees of the Viale Alemagna, with Brussels’ gastronomy and design on the same menu.
Lust is also responsible for logo ‘Insalta belga’, which is the Italian translation of ‘chicory’. The vegetable is a national Belgian dish and chicory forms the basis of all the appetizers on the daily evening menu. The food will be accompanied by a selection of Belgian alcoholic drinks (4cl) and served in Lust’s special take frozen shot glasses.
The color-of-the-day it seems is grey. You’re encouraged to throw the shot glass. Hence the wet sidewalk surrounding the truck.
As we are rushing to be somewhere else I’m sorry I couldn’t find out more about the truck itself. If anyone knows… [ insalata braga ]
A 45-foot long paper airplane flies 100 mph and soars to an altitude of 2,703 feet for 10 seconds before the crash landing. The world’s largest paper airplane is name Arturo’s Desert Eagle, named after a 12-year-old-boy who inspired the design.
The plane is made of layers of falcon board, which is described as a type of corrugated cardboard, similar to a pizza box. The plane was designed and built in Lancaster by Art Thompson, who helped design the B-2 stealth bomber, but the design was based on a paper airplane folded by 12-year-old Tucson resident Arturo Valdenegro—winner of a paper airplane fly-off sponsored by the Pima Air & Space Museum in January.
[ smart planet ]
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In just a few weeks the New York Auto Show will be upon us. We’ll see lots of new technology and many new products in the EV market, I suspect, but not all exhibitors are going the practical route. Terrafugia, an American transportation research and production organization will debut “Transition,” the first mass produced airplane that converts into a street legal car.
I suppose you could make the case that the Transition, which can reach a max speed of 115mph, is actually very practical in that it’s two modes of transportation in one. It seems remarkably easy to use. To take off from the road you need at least 26′ 6″ on the sides for the wings to unfold and about 1,700 feet of road to speed up on. With the push of a button, the wings automatically lower and after 30 seconds you’re clear for takeoff.
The best part is it runs off regular unleaded gas, using about 5 gallons per hour at 105mph in the air, and getting about 35 mpg on the road. The first models are scheduled for production in late 2012. About a hundred are already reserved, and the exposure of the Auto Show will, no doubt, bring in more orders. More technical specs are available on Terrafugia‘s site. [ an update! ]
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Four years ago I drove to New York from California with my faithful beach cruiser strapped to the roof of my car. I rode the hulking thing to work and play for three solid years, but after pedaling fifty pounds of steel up an extra steep bridge one hot, Summer day, I decided it was time to get a “real” bike, something lightweight and fast. I love my current bike, a speedy little Specialized, but whenever I see the classic, swooping lines a beach cruiser my California heart goes pitter-pat.
Today I discovered Public bikes, a light-weight beach cruiser-style bike. It’s about a year too late for me, but if you’re inclined to cruise these easy-shifting, seven-speeders are super affordable. Normally they’re $595, but for another week ( SALE ENDS 3/21 ) you can knock $100 off the normal retail price – just in time for the warm spell that’s sweeping the East coast.
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Anyone who uses their bike to commute to work or for more than just a leisurely Springtime spin knows that peddling away, even in the Winter, often means arriving to the office with a sweaty back and pits (and, let’s be honest here, sometimes a sweaty butt, too). It’s not the greatest way to start the day. But for many bikers, myself included, our road warriors are badges of honor, and replacing them with an electric or electric-enabled bike would be the ultimate ride of shame. Now, however, it looks like we can have our cake and eat it, too with DK City’s dbRevO, a wheel that automatically converts an ordinary bike to electric simply by replacing the front tire.
The wheel houses a motor, battery and controller that operates with a wireless console, allowing the rider to communicate with their bike and record information about their ride. It can go for 25 miles when fully charged, enough to take you from the southernmost tip of Manhattan to the top of Central Park and back again – and then back one more time. It comes in two sizes and a variety of colors with more options coming soon.
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There’s no shortage of great looking, new bikes being designed all the time now, and as more and more urban planners around the world design their cities with bikes in mind – and bike riding moves steadily from the realm of the leisurely weekend jaunt to actual transportation – you can expect designers are only going to crank out more lustable bikes and accessories. With that in mind, here’s the latest crop of two-wheeled wonders and other bike-related news.
Cannondale/Junk Food Clothing Collaboration: Don’t let the name Junk Food fool you. The LA-based clothing company teamed up with Cannondale to make some seriously luxe leather accessories, including a saddle, a convertible messenger bag (it snaps onto the frame and can be taken off and carried as a bag) and an itty-bitty saddle bag designed to carry a rolled up t-shirt so you can change your sweaty tee post ride and arrive fresh. (You can also enter to win a sweet Cannondale Bad Boy.)
Oregon Manigest Bicycle Design Challenge: You’ve probably seen pictures of the striking, orange and white, surfboard-carrying bike designed by Yves Behar’s Fuseproject in collaboration with Sycip, but that’s actually one of three collaborations designed outside of the competition, presumably to give it some some star power without imposing their celeb status on the decidedly less famous participants. I don’t plan on biking to the beach for a surf sesh any time soon, but I would love another alternative to my awkwardly front-heavy wire basket. The contest ended a few weeks ago; Check out some of the entries.
“Modus,” a Quirky bike: Though Quirky is better known for designing better corkscrew, dog leashes and other home goods, the NY-based community-sourced design powerhouse recently teamed up with Sony Pictures Entertainment on the Moneyball project, a 24-hour design challenge to reinvent the bike. They came up with an open frame structure that houses a clip-in, multi-purpose accessory that is a bike lock, boombox, battery and briefcase, all in one. And yeah, battery means it’s a hybrid, so it’s even more functional as a commuter bike.
“Hal” skateboard light: Do you know how many nights I bike home and almost collide with a skateboarder gliding through the bike lane dressed all in black? Okay, maybe almost collide is a but of an exaggeration, but seriously skateboarders: you guys (and gals) are hard to see at night! Go put one of these new Hal (Clever 2001: A Space Oddyssey reference, anyone?) safety lights under your board so I don’t mow you down on my PM commute.
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Chicago basketball follower here so we know these things. There’s the North Carolina-blue accent. The registration number is comprised of “6” and “23” referring to the NBA championships won and Jordan’s number. Oops, almost forgot the logo. This is a Gulfstream IV.
If you notice, more cyclists and inline skaters are wearing helmets. It’s taken awhile to get to this point. And with this increased usage we will probably see more safety testing and innovation to create a better helmet. Here’s one, Kranium, a bike helmet that is made from the same cardboard used for the boxes you find at the supermarket. The concept by design student Anirudha Surabhi was presented in October 2010 in London. The design has already been licensed to major manufacturers and may be available to buy soon.
There are questions like, “what if it rains?” The plan with the helmets is to size your head to be able to get the perfect fit. The helmet is then assembled and you pick an outer shell depending on the look you want. Pretty cool. Oops. That raises another question.
[ london cyclist ] [ nutcase helmets ]
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