Jun 23

Bike Takeout Basket Carries Beer, Burritos

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Today's Chili

The Takeout Basket is perfectly sized to carry a six-pack

If you live in Portland, you do everything on your bike. You take the kids to school. You do the weekly shop. You even bike down to the gas station to fill up a gas can and bring it home to juice your car. And of course you go to the liquor store to pick up some beer.

This last just got a little easier with Portland Design Works’s Takeout Basket, a small alloy rack that you clamp to your handlebars. The basket measures 155mm x 255mm x 105mm. That’s big enough for “a six pack of bottles, five burritos, three chinchillas or an extra layer of clothing,” according to the blurb. It weighs 500 grams, or 1.1 pounds.

The Takeout Basket also comes with a waterproof rolltop bag for times when you don’t need to carry a six-pack with you (those times will, of course, be rare), and clamps to any handlebar between 25.4 and 31.8mm in diameter. There’s even a slot at the front to hold a D-lock.

This is a nice, modern take on the handlebar basket, and the bag and lock holder are great additions. I’d totally put one of these onto the handlebars of my otherwise sparsely decorated single-speed bike. If only it came in a color other than black. $120.

Takeout Basket product page [Portland Design Works via EcoVelo]


No Comments | Tags: ,
Jun 20

Tern Folding Bike Company Breaks Away From Dahon

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

Tern’s folding bikes are clearly inspired by the founder’s former employer, Dahon

There’s a new folding-bike company in town, and it might look similar to one of the old ones, at least in terms of the faces you might see working there. Tern Bikes is a new startup by several ex-employees of Dahon, the maker of nicely designed and lightweight (if a little large when collapsed) folding bikes.

According to founder Joshua Hon (son of the founder of Dahon), Dahon has been having trouble with quality control, so he decided to go it alone. Well, kind of alone. Tern employs around 70 people, according to a report on the launch by Bike Hugger. And they have been busy. The 2012 lineup has 21 models running from $400 to $3,500.

The press release says that Tern is concentrating on comfort, convenience and portability, with an emphasis on getting around cities and carrying your shopping home. I love my Brompton folder for this, and it’s great for rolling around the market with its big front bag attached.

And of course, folders are great for traveling, whether locally or abroad. I’m looking forward to see what Tern has to offer, especially if the low-end models are good enough.

The lineup will be launched at Eurobike and Interbike this year.

Tern Bicycles Spreads Its Wings [Tern]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Jun 16

The Brooklyn Bicycle Brake Safety Light

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

Most drivers that have a near miss with a cyclist will just lean on the horn or shout obscenities. And if it happens in New York, then they’ll probably do both. But Orly Ramirez decided to do something more constructive. He built the Brooklyn Bicycle Brake Safety Light. He then went on to make the weirdest (and possibly best) Kickstarter video ever:

Orly’s invention is simple. It’s a brake light that activates when you pull on a cable that runs from the lamp housing. You don’t yank this yourself — instead the cable clamps to your brake cable, and is therefore pulled every time you slow down.

Unfortunately, the only thing Orly has to show us in return for our Kickstarter pledges is a hand-made prototype which doesn’t resemble his final design. The actual lamp, we are promised, will have the brake light in the center and flanked by a pair of regular lamps for safe night riding. Also, as the light is at the rear, it’ll only work when you use the rear brake, making it less than fully accurate.

Still, it’s worth watching Orly’s video to see his long and rambling pitch. Keep watching until the end, when you see his awesome son demoing the light in a pitch-black street. This section is like a cross between The Shining and the Blair Witch Project. Shiver.

Brooklyn Bicycle Brake Safety Light [Kickstarter]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Jun 13

BikeLits Replace ‘Hipster Cysts’ with Hanging ‘Hipster Cockscombs’

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

BikeLit lights hang like tiny hipster monkeys from saddles and cables

The problem: you want to use bike lights at night, but you don’t want to ruin the clean lines of your sweet minimalist ride with permanently attached lamps. The solution up until now, at least for fixed-gear riders, has been the “hipster cyst,” aka. the Knog Frog, a silicone creature that wraps itself around the nearest available tube.

Now there’s another option in the easy-to-toss-in-a-bag-and-forget category: the BikeLit, from NiteIze. The round, pendant-like lamp hangs monkey-like from the rails of your saddle by a pair of rubber arms and grabby claws. This — in theory, depending on what you are wearing — puts the light up and back as far as it can be on a bike, stopping it getting covered up by other bike parts.

The white version clips to the brake cables, which is both ingenious and stupid. Ingenious because a proper hipster will have chopped his handlebars down to small nubbins, as dictated by the twin aims of fashion and discomfort, leaving little space for lights. Stupid because a “fixie” wont have any brake or gear cables to which the lamp can be clipped.

Perhaps it could instead be clipped to their septum piercings?

The BikeLits are available now, at $8 each or $14 for the pair.

BikeLits [NiteIze via Urban Velo]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Jun 06

Specialized Beats: Music Made with Bicycle Sounds

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, Music, Today's Chili

It’s not often that a musician’s list of instruments will include the Specialized Stumpjumper Pro FSR bicycle, but that’s just what you’ll find on the credits of Roger Lima’s Specialized Beats.

Lima’s track is made using only the sounds made by two Specialized Stumpjumpers, with an uncredited cameo by a Topeak track pump. He hit, tapped and stroked his samples out of the bikes with both traditional drumming tools and kitchen utensils, along with a cardboard box. The snippets remain un-manipulated save for “compressor, distortion, delay and EQ.”

While we clearly don’t recommend hitting your disk brakes with a carving fork just to make them sing, in the hands of a talented musician the results are worth the risk. Even the video is hypnotic to watch, and the credits tell another story of hacking: the footage was shot on a Canon Rebel T3i, but using a Nikon 50mm ƒ1.4 lens.

If you like the tune, and maybe want to listen to it on your next bike ride, you can grab the MP3 from Lima’s home on the web, White Noise Lab.

Specialized Beats [White Noise Lab via Core77]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Jun 03

Morphing Bike Trailer With ‘Plug-Ins’ Will Carry Pretty Much Anything

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

Leonard Rubin’s mighty morphin’ M.O.M is a bike trailer with a difference. Actually, it’s a bike trailer with lots of differences.

Like any good Portlander, Rubin shifts his stuff by bike. In fact, he has collected a whole fleet of specialized trailers over the years, and this is the problem. None of them is quite right for this Goldilocks of bike haulage. So Rubin came up with the M.O.M, or Multipurpose Overland Mover. The trailer is modular, and uses “plug-ins” to adapt to pretty much any purpose you like.

As you can see, the M.O.M is versatile. At its heart is a two-wheeled aluminum and plywood flatbed trailer with a third wheel in the shape of a castor for stability off the bike. This castor also turns the trailer into a shopping cart that you can wheel into the store with you. The basic trailer can carry up to 500 pounds in weight,

The basic design has square-section aluminum tubes open at each corner. These tubes accept more tubes from above, and this is the heart of the plug-in architecture. These plug-ins will include a shopping/utility cart, kayak carrier, child carrier, bike transporter (very recursive, this one), pet carrier, sheet goods transporter/panel dolly, garden cart and a Yakima rack trailer plug-in. Phew.

Rubin’s M.O.M is yet another Kickstarter project, and he’s looking for the curiously precise amount of $35,053 to get going. You can pledge $400 and get a basic trailer when production begins. The full price will be $500 for the trailer and $650 for the trailer with shopping cart plug-in. Further plug-in prices are to be announced.

M.O.M. — the magically morphing multi-use bicycle trailer! [Kickstarter]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Jun 01

Cheap Wooden Bike Basket Looks Curiously Familiar

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Today's Chili

The quality of the Urban Outfitters bike crate comes across perfectly in this over-zoomed image

When it’s not busy filling its shelves with cheap, crappy, fashion versions of bikes and record players, Urban Outfitters likes to spend its spare time courting controversy. This time the product of contention is the Classic Crate Wood Bike Basket.

I’ll leave you to Google “urban outfitters rip off,” but the short story is that many, many independent designers complain that the chain-store copies their creations without permission. Usually, though, these “homages” are simply very similar — and non-litiginous — takes on an obvious idea. And so it is with this bike basket.

Closely modeled on the hand-crafted Custom Porter Crates from Bates Crates, the basket is a wooden crate which mounts onto the front of your bike, fixed to the handlebars. Cole Bates invented his crates after waking up one morning wanting to surprise his girlfriend with pastries and coffee. Thus, the two models feature inbuilt cup holders to get the coffee back from the bakery without spilling.

Amazingly, Urban Outfitters’ crate also has these cup holders. It also looks heavier and much less well made, right down to the fixing method. The Urban Outfitters version just straps onto the handlebar and hangs there. The Bates Crates have proper metal fixings which clamp the basket into place, along with rods that support them from beneath. Bate’s makes his baskets from various reclaimed woods. The chain-store version is pine, and you have to put it together yourself.

Th other difference is the price. Cole Bates hand-crafted designs cost $125. Urban Outfitters’ tat can be had for $40.

Custom Porter Crates [Bates]

Classic Crate Wood Bike Basket [Urban Outfitters via Urban Velo]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags: ,
May 16

YikeBike Mini-Farthing Gets Cheaper, Heavier Brother

Posted in: electric, Today's Chili, Transportation

Dude, check it out! Onlookers stare slack-jawed at the awesomeness of YikeBike. Photo YikeBike

You may remember the YikeBike, the little electric Penny-Farthing that looks like it should be carrying Tom from Tom & Jerry. And if you saw the fun, foldable commuter machine being “skillfully” “maneuvered” around the Wired.com car park Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney, it is likely burned into your brain forever.

The Yike bike is fun. It is also expensive, at $3,800. Around $1,800 of this is thanks to the carbon fiber body, which is the main reason the bike weighs just 10.8kg, or 24 pounds, the same weight as a medium-specced Brompton folding bike.

Thankfully, Yike has come up with the Fusion, a bike identical to the Yike except for the aluminum and composite used to build its body, and its price tag of $2,000. It still has the same 450-watt motor that will take you for six miles at 14mph, the same built-in LED lights and the same anti-skid regenerative brakes. The only real tradeoff is the added weight. The Fusion weighs 14kg, or 31 pounds, or around seven pounds extra.

Given the use-case for the Yike, which is for short point-to-point journeys (commuting), this probably isn’t a big deal. And you could always keep one in the trunk of the car, fully charged and ready for the day you finally flip and go on a gun-toting rampage. Think Michael Douglas in Falling Down — only on a nerdy little clown-bike — and you’re there.

The Yike Fusion is available now.

YikeBikes product page [YikeBike]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
May 05

Bike Cufflinks Link Cuffs, Look Awesome

Posted in: Apparel, Today's Chili

Cufflinks, or spares for a little bike ridden by a tiny monkey? You decide

The closest I come to wearing a shirt and tie is my blogging uniform, a t-shirt with Tuxedo printed on it. This (just) satisfies the strict Wired.com dress policy, which is enforced by my editor Dylan Tweney from the other side of the world on a daily basis, via Skype (we’re soon switching to FaceTime in our new iPad-centric workflow).

If I did own a shirt with cuffs, then I’d link those cuffs with these awesome Bicycle Cufflinks. What you get is a pair of right-side cranks, pedals and chainrings. They come in three finishes, and are actually 3-D printed from powdered steel and bronze.

They’re pretty cool, right? And if you’re wondering how many teeth there are on that chainring, there are 32. I counted them. That would probably count as the granny gear on a mountain bike, so these are probably a perfect for either your miniature BMX or your tiny bike-polo bike.

Available June, for $59.

Bicycle Cufflinks [GothamSmith via the Twitter]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags: ,
May 05

Gravity Bike Goes Downhill, Fast

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

Hill-bomb like a fearless child on Jeff Tiedeken’s Gravity Bike. Photo Kyle / Flickr

If you have ever been a kid (and as you are alive and reading this, I’m assuming you have) then you probably risked your life more than once when you were small. You probably stood or sat on something with wheels and pushed yourself down a hill, only to wobble or panic or scream when a gentle roll turned into a careening charge.

And you probably walked right back up the hill and did it again.

The Gravity Bike will give you the same experience as an adult, with one big addition: because you are no longer indestructible, the Gravity Bike has brakes.

Built by Jeff Tiedeken, The bike isn’t just a scary way to get to the bottom of a hill. It also packs in a lot of neat engineering tricks. Most noticeable is the low profile. Because you don’t need to pedal, the seat is right down over the rear wheel. The position is more like that of a motorbike.

The brakes are Avid Elixr hydraulic disc brakes, because you’ll probably want to stop, and the wheels are 26-inch Crossmax Lefties, which mount to the frame on one side only.

Finally, the crank is fixed and has both sides together, at the back, again like a motorcycle.

The Gravity Bike has reached 50mph on a downhill, and could probably get to 70 mph. The only thing you need is a steep enough hill, and a brave enough rider.

MLS Gravity Bike [Cycle EXIF]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags: