Not only have people been rethinking the weight capacity of bicycles, but as with any reasonably useful invention, people have been modifying and redesigning bikes to more and more utilitarian ends. The above example (which is found here and designed by Kevin Cyr of Boston) is a painting (by Cyr) of a so-called camper bike, featuring an RV-like ambiance and boasting all the comforts of a pedal-powered mobile home.
I think its a neat idea in a "salt of the earth" sort of way; being at once poetic and laughably annoying to use. I doubt I would ever have the determination to ride one of these cross country, my personal belief being that I can travel further faster on an unencumbered bike, though perhaps forgoing the comforts of RV life.
Though many do not share my sentiments for lightness and efficiency (like the pointless bike-powered water purifier that I mentioned a last week) and aren't content riding unencased.
This fringe group of anti-social cyclists has existed for almost as long as cycling itself has and still people are coming up with new ways to tackle the relatively simple problems day-to-day cycling presents... Like today's rain, for instance. Typically cyclists aren't too chagrined to don rain-pants, fenders, or to just ride in the rain and deal with being wet later. However not all cyclists are typical and a recent entry in the James Dyson Foundation design competition is a case-in-point:
Bike tents are no new concept, but somehow people can't get it through their thick skulls that approaches to peripheral cycling devices like this create more problems for the commuting or recreational cyclist than it solves. Sure, you may be able to keep your torso out of the rain (which is reasonably fresh water, by the way) but the severely hindered movement of air within the vinyl enclosure essentially guarantees you will arrive at your destination drenched in sweat (which isn't the freshest) unless its really chilly outside.
To be sure, much of 'design' these days is concerned with the packaging of things; people, products, and ideas are wrapped in strange enclosures, rendered to elicit emotional responses such as shame, fear, or libidinous thoughts.
Though one of the best ways to sell shit to people is to pander to their manufactured desire for "green" crap. I recently came across this bizarre bike that has successfully jumped onto the sustainability bandwagon:
Though I do love wooden things as well as new material approaches to age-old problems, a hollow wooden frame might not be the best solution for a road bike. God forbid you accidentally crash because that elegantly curved top tube is going to pierce you right below the sternum when (not if) that frame breaks. Furthermore, the amount of teak oil one will have to buy to keep this ride from cracking and decaying is daunting, not to mention the three pounds of lacquer they surely used; and nevermind all of the off-the-shelf parts that this wood bike boasts.
Swing and a miss...
In this interview with the "senior manager of sustainable growth" Barbara Chung for FIJI bottled water, we can witness the skillful feints and parries of a seasoned PR mouthpiece.
The dumb, "gettin' to know ya" questions were answered with a long winded (and very obviously rehearsed) statistics-based arguments, while the important ones that got to the root of the problem of calling yourself green and then engaging in flagrantly not-green practices went totally unanswered and ignored.
Though bottled water companies aren't the only ones who like to paint their misdeeds as noble; car companies and energy companies are some of the worst offenders. But picking on them is simply too easy. What really earns my ire is when people congratulate themselves for hurting the environment less than other people do.
The US Green Building Council which oversees the LEED rating and "awards" for buildings is a perfect example of this blindness to reality. Though I can tell you from experience that encouraging clients to spend the extra buck to build with less impact is difficult, rewards such as this are like patting yourself on the back for littering a little as opposed to a lot; the point is your littering, it doesn't really matter how much you do it, it's still bad.
Again, bicycles are a perfect example of this spin-doctoring. Organizations like TA love to tout the bike as a perfectly green solution for commuting, running errands, and generally looking hip; but are bicycles really that green?
Sure, when you pedal from place to place, you aren't using fossil fuels or belching tons of noxious gasses into the air as cars do, but to say that bicycles are good for the environment is a complete misnomer. Think about what bikes are made out of: metal, plastic, carbon fiber, and rubber. While you may not personally hurt the environment in your day to day use of your bike, the manufacturing of it (esp. carbon fiber) and transportation of it to your LBS, as well as the packaging for all the accouterments one will surely be suckered into buying for it does do harm.
So its fine to ride a bike or walk instead of taking a car, bus, or train; but one must remember that they're not actually helping anything, they're merely not hurting as much as they could.
As far as I'm concerned, theres only one cyclist who can lay claim to the title of greenest.
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