What’s your background in thebike trade?While I was a college designstudent in the late ‘80s and early‘90s I worked as a mechanic in abike shop.

Why did you start blogging?I started blogging on a whim inSeptember 2005. I had beencleaning out some old renderingsand models from college. I ranacross an old marker sketch of atrack bike that I did in the late‘80s and at that moment Idecided to make it my first post

I liked the idea of blogging,but I didn’t know what I couldadd to the hundreds of bikeblogs already out there. When Irediscovered that old sketch, itjust hit me that I could blogabout bikes and their designs.

How many unique visitors areyou getting per day?The blog gets around 1,200 to1,750 unique visitors a day. It surprises me that so manypeople read the content that Iwrite quickly during my lunchhour. If I have 15 minutes, I just

type quickly and hit the postbutton without editing at all. Atfirst, it was no big deal becausenobody was reading the bloganyway. As the readershipstarted growing, I started to

worry a little about some of thegrammar and spelling errors thatwere bound to occur in my posts.

What kind of articles get themost views?Posts with new designs for urbanor transportation-oriented bikes

tend to stay popular.Sometimes I post something

that I think will be big and noone links to it or comments onit at all. Other times, I justmention something in passing

and it gets linked to like crazy. Ilike the fact that I am oftensurprised by what content sparksa conversation.

I really enjoy the interactionwith readers and I think that iswhat keeps me going. I certainlydon’t know everything that is

going on in the field of bicycledesign, but I like the fact thatmy blog has become a forum foranyone who is interested in thesubject. A lot of my best postscome from reader tips or

submissions, so I consider theblog to be a two-way street. Ican pass along ideas that I likeand I can learn from the readersabout things that I probablywouldn’t have seen otherwise.

The reader comments iswhere you can find some of thebest content on my blog.

Who’s reading?I know that a lot of bicycleindustry people read the blog,because I see IP addresses fromnearly every major bike companythat I can think of in the stats.

High-profile designers includeChad Lockart, a senior industrialdesigner at Trek, TorgnyFjeldskaar, the director ofindustrial design at Cannondale,and Mark Sanders, theEnglishman who designed the

16 BIKEBIZ JUNE BIKEBIZ.COM

I am sure that an Apple iBike would look nice, but thenI would be stuck buying the expensive

proprietary Apple chain lube and tyre air!

Bike design blogger hits the spotUS blogger James Thomas gets up to 1,700 daily visitors to his bike design site, many from theindustry. Carlton Reid seeks his views on the future of bicycle design...

James Thomas is a Senior Industrial Designer at acompany that makes residential lighting fixtures. His

blog is at www.bicycledesign.blogspot.com

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Strida, plus many other notablefolding bikes.

I know from emails that Ireceive that a lot of designstudents read the blog too. Still, Ibelieve the vast majority of myreaders are not designers orpeople who work in the bicycleindustry. For the most part, theyare just people who are reallyinterested in all types of bicycles.

I really appreciate the freshperspective that individualsoutside the bike industry or thedesign profession can bring tothe conversation. Designers andindustry marketing people shouldbe listening, because thesepeople who are so interested inthe design of bicycles are someof their core customers.

What do you say to thecomment ‘Bicycle design wasperfected by 1890, everythingsince then has been tinkering’?I would probably snicker at thatcomment at first, but Iunderstand where it is comingfrom. I enjoy looking thoughArchibald Sharp’s 1896 bookBicycles and Tricycles and Imention it every once and awhile on the blog. I stronglyrecommend that book.

The late 1800s were thegolden age of bicycle design anda lot of the bicycle innovationsthat we think of as fairly new(full suspension frames, cliplesspedals, clamp-on stems, indexedshifting etc.) had their origins inthe latter half of the 19thcentury. Material advances havemade some ideas that flopped inthe 1890s but are feasible today;many of the ideas from thatdecade were ahead of their time.

Part of the reason why bikeslook basically the same today asthey did 100-plus years ago, hasto do with the UCI’s draconianrestrictions on frame design andrider position for racing. I wouldlike to see some of the arbitraryregulations that retard theevolution of the racing bicyclerevised. Many interesting designswere showing up in the early tomid nineties before the UCI’s1996 Lugano Charter.

Who is your bike design hero?The first name that comes tomind is Mike Burrows. I really likethe diversity of his machines.From the Windcheetah andRatcatcher recumbents to theLotus bikes for Boardman andthe early monocoque GiantMCRs, his designs have all beenimportant. He also popularisedcompact frame geometry atGiant in the ‘90s and that one

idea influenced almost everyroad bike you see today.

How much do you think ‘design’has to play in getting consumersinterested in bicycles?The role design plays in gettingnew people interested in anyproduct is huge. If price, productquality, and performance areseen as equal or close to equal,design is the differentiator. Rightnow, there are lots of bikes onthe market that are really quitesimilar in all those aspects.Cyclists may say that theychoose products based onperformance factors, but inreality most chose one bike overanother based on less rationalfactors like feelings about form,colour and brand perception. Toreach new customers,manufacturers need to be able tocreate products that peopleconnect with emotionally andare drawn to.

What could the AppleCorporation do for the bike? I am sure an iBike would looknice, but then I would be stuckbuying expensive proprietaryApple chain lube and tyre air!

I would love to see JonathanIve’s take on the bicycle. I thinkBiomega is one company thathas successfully used designersfrom outside the bike industry tocreate products that can

potentially appeal to non-cyclists. Most of the people whowork in the bicycle industry,designers included, are in theindustry because they really lovebikes. Familiarity with theproduct is a good thing, but ifyou want to reach new markets,a different way of thinking maybe required and sometimes adesigner from a totally differentindustry can provide a freshperspective.

What are your views on designcompetitions which featurefuturistic bikes that, in reality,will never see the light of day?People in the industry who eat,breath, and sleep bicycles mayhave a harder time picturing adifferent form factor for a bike. Itis a pretty conservative industry.

A design student, on the otherhand, may go into the projectwithout preconceptions aboutthe way a bike should look. Thefuturistic student design may notnecessarily be a better solution,but it might contain one ideathat is worth exploring further.

Cannondale plans to releasethe ON urban bike, which isbased on the Jackknife studentconcept by Philippe Holthuizenand Rodrigo Clavel. The pairdesigned it as part of aCannondale-sponsoredcompetition while they weregraduate students of

transportation design at theElisava Design School inBarcelona.

What are your views on theSRAM Smart Bar, an idea aheadof its time or a component withno natural home? I thought it was a beautiful andwell-designed product when itfirst came out and I wasn’t theonly one; the design won an IDEAaward soon after it was released.Maybe as integrated lights oncommuter bikes become morecommon, a product like theSmartBar can find a home.

The timing probably wasn’tright since the market, in the USat least, wasn’t as strong forurban bikes then as it is today.

SRAM may have notexperienced the success theywished for with the SmartBar, butthe product’s launch five-plusyears ago points to the fact thatthey are a company that valuesinnovation. In order to be amarket leader, you have to takesome calculated risks with yourproduct development. Sometimesan innovative product may fail tomeet sales expectations, but it isimportant to stay focused onleading and innovating.

It is easy to introduce a line ofsafe ‘me too’ products that will dookay in the short term, but to bea design leader you have to bewilling to break new ground from

time to time. Sometimes greatproducts just don’t hit at the righttime. Clipless pedals didn’t exactlytake off when they were inventedin 1895.

How about new materials?We have all heard that the priceof carbon fibre is going tocontinue to rise.

I think that composites madefrom renewable materials likebamboo and flax are quiteinteresting. The sleek bamboocomposite frame that BranoMeres showed at NAHBS caughtmy attention. The technologymight not be ready yet, but it isworth watching.

A little further out, futuretechnologies like paint thatcontains self-luminous particlesthat generate light could be greatfor use on bicycle frames, wheels,and components.

Microfibre nanogenerators,which will generate power fromthe movement of fibers in textiles,could be great for powering lightsand on board electronics.

It is always worth looking atmaterials used in other industriestoo. Obviously the automotiveand aerospace industries caninfluence the materials used inbikes, but really ideas can comefrom anywhere.

SRAM and Shimano both havehub dynamo lighting systemsthat affect efficiency very little.Going forward, there willprobably be very little reason toever ride around town withoutlights, powered by the bike’smotion. More bikes with lights,even in the daytime, couldprobably prevent a lot ofaccidents and save lives. The keyis to make lights something thatpeople want to use.

What are major advances forbicycle design in the future?Racing and recreational bikes willcontinue to get lighter and morespecialised. At the same timecompanies will put more designresources into transportationoriented bikes and products.

In the US, racing technologyhas traditionally driven theindustry. Even low-end bikes areinspired by the manufacturer’stop-of-the-line racing machines.

I am glad to see more bikedesigns that are truly designed fortransportation, the new longtailcargo bikes on the market forinstance. I bet we will see evenbetter hub gears and less use ofderailleurs on bikes that are usedto get around town. Derailleurs aregreat for racing, but they are oftena weak point on commuting bikes.

For futuristic bike designs, attend the Taipei Cycle Show, where theresults of the International Bicycle Design competition are announced

The reason why bikes look basically the same todayas they did 100 years ago, has to do with

the UCI’s draconian restrictions on frame design

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