Students design freight bicycle
Here’s a fine Dutch example of necessity being the mother of invention. Two students from Delft University of Technology designed a delivery tricycle (‘bakfiets’) that acts as a moving van. It is powered by two people pedaling in front of the load carrying box as opposed to one person pedaling behind it. The idea is that it’s perfect to move students from one flat to another, couch and all, without having to use a car. “My parents had to drive 200 km to help me move a couch 2 km down the road,” explains Onno Sminia, one of the designers. In other words, very ineffective.
Onno Sminia and his friend Louis Pierre Geerinckx already found their first client: the City of Delft. The ‘vrachtfiets’ (‘freight bicycle’) was unveiled on 3 February and pedaled around town full of big furniture.
These lads are off to a good start when they finished their studies this summer.
(Link and image: idealize.nl)
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In Montréal, of all places, there actually *is* a moving firm that only uses bikes. And believe me, North-American fridges and washing machines are huge. They use normal bikes but made some special low trailers. No fancy design students were involved.
http://www.demenagementmyette.ca/home/
Comment by mare — February 4, 2010 @ 7:43 pm
believe me, if they are from Delft they are usually not fancy… more like solid. We leave fancy to design academies.
Comment by Walter Aprile — February 5, 2010 @ 1:19 am
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Pingback by Episode 64 Show Notes | VeloCast Cycling Podcast — February 10, 2010 @ 8:51 pm
Here’s a video showing how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Un1myoauA
Comment by Branko Collin — March 29, 2010 @ 7:51 pm