Hasta La Gadget!

Matthias Ries has come up with an ingenious solution for carrying water bottles on bikes, especially for the accessory-phobic fixed-gear rider. The Bottleclip is a standard sized screw cap and a snap-on clip combined into one small plastic chunk. Screw in almost any normal PET water bottle and it hangs from the top-tube of the bike. It might not be quite as convenient as grabbing a bottle from a proper cage, but it is a lot easier to fit and won’t spoil your fixie’s lines when not being used.

It’s simple and cheap looking enough to find its way onto a counter-top display in your local bike shop. We’d like to see a version which could also hold a D-lock to the frame as you ride.

Matthias Ries: New Work [Design Boom]

The more cargo bikes I see, the more I want one. They’re immensely practical in any city, and can carry enough junk to make most car journeys pointless. But if you’re already used to a bike you likely think smaller — daily rather than weekly trips to the grocery store, for example. The cargo bike, then, may best be marketed at the guilt-ridden car user.

And this cargo bike might be just the one to pry you away from your gas-fuelled obsession. The Madsen Bucket Cargo Bike is a purpose built, long-wheelbase bicycle with a giant plastic bucket on the back. The $1300 bike comes with an eight-speed derailleur with trigger shifers to get things moving and a disk brake to stop when fully loaded. The bucket at the rear holds 40 gallons and can be swapped out with a supplied two-seater bench and seat-belts. There’s a bucket free version, too, for $1100. It’s not a steal, but compared to a car it looks very cheap, and you’ll be traveling in style.

In fact, one way to think of this is as a stretch limo with a pool in the back, for little people at least — just add hot water and cold champagne.

Product page [Madsen Bikes via Uncrate]
See Also:

• Electra Delivery Bike is an Old-School Cargo-Carrier
• Yuba Cargo Bike Coming to Europe and the US
• Photo: Incredible, Overloaded Cargo Bike
• Euro-Style Cargo Bikes Made in America
• Dump the Car for Kona’s Cargo Carrying Utility Bike

London, like many large, modern cities, is at a standstill. There are only so many cars and buses that will fit on the roads. The answer? Brand new concept designs of course!

London Garden is a hybrid bike/scooter which folds up to fit into specially designed buses and taxis. Designed by Marten Wallgreen and friends from the RCA, the multi-purpose vehicle is engineered to work in harmony with the city around it. You even pay for you bus ride with the energy stored in the bike, whereupon it becomes the actual seat you sit on inside the bus.

The problem is that the team’s design is complete after stage one: Shut off car access to Central London. Do that and regular bikes can peacefully exist alongside the buses and taxis (it’s London: You can’t ban taxis). Instead of trying to achieve the impossible task of selling everybody the same bike, convincing the bus company to retrofit its vehicles and telling cab-drivers they need to upgrade their cabs yet again, all you need is a pot of paint to make some bike-lanes in the now empty roads.

Still, not everyone agrees with us. The design won the prestigious SeymourPowell award for Future City Mobility. We still think our pot of paint is better, though.

WINNER! (SeymourPowell award) for… [MW Blog via Bicycle Design]

This movie was shot by (or at least for) Thomas Edison way back in 1899, and shows that the fixie-tricksters are doing nothing much that’s new. The rather dry description from the Library of Congress archive page describes the clip thusly:

“Neidert,” of national fame, does stunts on his wheel that are simply wonderful. Makes his bicycle rear up, and rides around the stage on his back wheel; besides a lot of other easy things, such as riding on one pedal and riding backward, seated on handlebar.

The second section is from 1901, and shows a fellow riding a bike in almost the exact manner that I do when coming home from a bar at weekends. Except for the bunny-hop / rope skipping part, that is.

Bicycle trick riding, no. 2 [Library of Congress via Bike Hugger]

If you have stripped down an old road bike and turned it into a fashionable’n’fun fixed-gear machine, you will have a bunch of parts left over. Once you have weighed them in your hands and laughed maniacally at the sheer weight of the gear cassettes and brake assemblies you no longer have to carry with every single revolution of the pedals, you might wonder if you can recycle them.

If so, you may consider a rather stylish clock, just like those made by Kenneth Armstrong. He has been tinkering with cogs, disk-brakes and even entire wheels for seven years, combining parts into these sculptural timepieces. There’s something of the steampunk about these, and if you check out Armstrong’s site, you’ll see he’s been rather busy, turning out locking posts made form old d-locks and tables fashioned from bike wheels and tubing. There’s even a rather uncomfortable but cool-looking chair welded from old handlebars. We love them.

Recycled Sculpture [A Portfolio Recycled via Urban Velo]