Ninety-three entries
What better company to host a contest for new bicycle designs than Specialized, developer of the Stumpjumper in 1981, the first mass-produced mountain bike.
Entries for the Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest closed Saturday, and 93 can be viewed online as YouTube videos. Results will be released on Jan. 15.
The contest was supposed to “inspire innovation and environmental change by highlighting the benefits of cycling in an unprecedented way.” The result has been a creative tour de force, with inventors submitting everything from recumbent tricycles (above) to bike-powered blenders, tennis-ball launchers and water filtration systems.
According to Specialized:
“The challenge is to invent and build machines that transform zero-emission human energy into new and useful purposes, one pedal stroke at a time. Entries are self-documented and submitted in a video format detailing machine, function and purpose.”
Here's one entry, the Transformation Trike (above). It's a recumbent tricycle that can be configured for one, two, or three people. It can also be used for hauling big loads either on the trike itself, or with a trailer.
Also worth a look, especially in the snow-covered eastern US, is the bicycle snowplow. It's a four-wheeled recumbent with a V-shaped snowplow attached to the front.
Here's another invention that I stumbled across at Bike Forest. The developers intended to submit it, but I didn't see it among the entries at YouTube.
The Family Truckster is a quadricycle or two back to back recumbent tandems joined at the hips. Either way, the human-powered vehicle looks like a speedy ride for four people. It also look pretty safe on ice and snow; how can you tip over a four-wheeled bike?
It features four independent drive trains so the pedalers facing to the rear can either pedal backwards or flip the chain into a figure-8 and pedal forwards. Three-pin joined crosstubes enable the truckster to lean into turns; they can also be detached to create two recumbent tandems.
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