This is New York City’s rather poor new bike rack design. The circular rack was the winner of the CityRacks Design Competition, and was picked from 200 entrants, most of which were equally impractical. The nameless hoop was designed by Denmark-based Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve.
So, what’s wrong with this rack? It looks like it would last about five minutes on the NYC streets — that tiny, single-point mounting would probably be easier to break than most locks. We have no idea what is wrong with the standard bike rack that works everywhere else — the inverted, squared-off, U-shaped loop. Placed the correct distance apart, these racks are easy to use and take up hardly any space. Better still, they can’t be snapped off at the root.
It’s easy to see why New York went with a fancier design. After all, street furniture can define a city. But if the aim is to encourage bike use, then valuing aesthetics over practicality is probably a bad move. We’ll see how these do in practice — the new design will be the standard rack design in the city from now on.
And the Winners Are… [NY City Racks via Bicycle Design]
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