Finding Its Way

So you thought all of the completely pointless high-tech innovations came from Silicon Valley types with too much time on their hands?

Well, here's one from Amsterdam.



As we all know, just about everything is legal there--including some mind-altering substances.  (The beer is pretty strong, too!) So, it's not hard to imagine someone coming up with a self-driving bicycle after inhaling.

Of course, as so often happens with such inventions, its creators didn't think about its target audience.  After all, who would have any use for a bicycle that doesn't need humans?

Still, I understand that sales are brisk...

Like A Pink Flamingo Needs A Bicycle

During my most recent trip to Florida, I spotted a long-legged pink bird.  It got away before I could fish my camera/phone out of my bag.  Later, I told a park ranger, who said that it was very unlikely I'd seen a flamingo, as they almost never venture further north than the Everglades--if indeed they make it that far up from the Yucatan.  Rather, this ranger explained, I most likely saw a Roseate Spoonbill, which is native to the Sunshine State.

I can't say I was disappointed, really:  the Roseate Spoonbill is actually quite beautiful if strange.  Still, seeing plastic pink flamingos in front of houses later that day seemed like some kind of bad joke.

Of course, if you ride through almost any area of single- or two-family homes, you're likely to see some of those pink flamingos.  But I doubt that you've ever seen this:

From The Barrel: How Does It Age?

The bicycle has a two-century history, if you regard the draisienne as its starting point.  During that time, two-wheeled machines operated by foot power have been made from all sorts of materials, including wood--as the draisenne was.

Every generation or so, someone or another "discovers" wood as a bike-building material.  Some advantages of the material are its relative light weight and stiffness.  They, of course, are the reasons why wooden bicycle rims were used, mainly on track bikes, for decades even when nearly all frames were made of steel.  They were banned because bicycle wheels, especially those on track bikes, are built with highly tensioned spokes and ridden with high-pressure tires.  The problem was that an impact or other problem that would cause a wheel with a metal rim to bend or fold, but remain intact, would cause a wooden rim to shatter and send sharp splinters flying about.

I imagine that wooden frames wouldn't have such problems, as the joints that hold them together wouldn't be as taut as bicycle spokes, or experience impact in the same way.  On the other hand, I have to wonder how a wooden frame would hold up in various weather conditions, especially extremes of wetness or dryness.

If nothing else, a wooden bike would have a "cool factor", as few other people have one.  That is probably the reason why it would be such a popular item at an event like the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, held in Sacramento two weeks ago.

This "Cooper Bicycle" was created by industrial designer and University of Kansas professor Lance Rake. To join the wooden beams, and for the dropouts, he cut pieces of steel with a waterjet.  The seat and headtubes were also steel, just like the ones found on a traditional frame.

What makes the bike unique--and inspired its name--is the source of its wood:  a wine barrel.  A barrel-maker was known as a cooper, and I don't doubt that more than a few of them made bikes, as blacksmiths and other artisans did.  

That bikes were made by such people, and from materials like the ones Rake used, is the inspiration for a vision of his.  He wants to sell Cooper bikes, he says, but he is also interested in making plans and patterns available to local artisans "so we can make bikes from local resources."

Does he have plans to use his machine on a wine-tasting bike tour in, say, California or France or Italy?  "I hate to admit it, but I'm more of beer and whisky drinker," he confesses, "but my wife is into Red Blends."  Could a tandem be in the works?