Welcome to Cozy Beehive, where technology and engineering are given their atypical status in the sport of cycling.
Relevant cycling topics are accumulated here and some of the material may not be my own, but thats what it takes to make an interesting read.There's so much to appreciate while you pedal those cranks, so step up your cycling craze and learn because it will never end.
Some months ago, (and perhaps still now) one of the buzzwords bringing good fortune in the bicycle industry was 'high gas prices'. While the automobile industry was faring badly, the bicycle business was booming. Most prayed for lower gas prices, but the diametrically opposite people in the bicycle business secretly wished that it kept increasing. That seems like a cunning way of thinking, but in the end, business is business.
Now a bigger calamity might put all that to rest. Of course, you all know what I'm talking about! Just open the front pages of your newspaper.
But there could be a fair share of you who are still clueless about the breadth and depth of this huge financial mess. For the uninitiated in financial knowledge, just read this funny Subprime Primer put in simple stick figure terms.
Getting back, in the midst of such an issue of global proportions, I find it awful that very few in online bicycling circles (that includes publications, websites and blogs) are talking about the more pressing current state of affairs. Let's put Interbike 2008, Lance Armstrong and Britney Spears aside for a moment here.
The cold fact is that like all businesses, the cycling trade also depends upon such a thing as credit. And when credit stops flowing from markets, to banks, to businesses and to consumers, almost everything begins slowly heading downhill.
Now I'm not involved in the bicycling trade in any major way. Strictly speaking, I'm an outsider and that's the way I like to stay for now. But I did manage to chalk out a schematic of how money and goods and services flow in the bicycle business.
If you find anything out of place or not making sense, please feel free to correct me.
My Simple Schematic on How the Global Bicycle Trade Works
I'm not going to go into immense detail on every aspect shown in the graphic above. But just check out the overwhelming role that credit plays, not just in business but also in our personal lives.
Since the credit markets are at great distress, I see a lot of weaker brand names and small businesses having the possibility of being affected.
And the other funny thing is .... oil prices are falling as well, not rising.
I understand there'll be a good percentage of readers here closely associated with the bicycling industry. Here are some questions from me to you and to all in general to ponder over, discuss and intelligently comment on. I think most of the questions, if not all, will be put forth from the perspective of those at the lower end of the supply chain.Bear with me on the train of thoughts.
How do you foresee the impact on the bicycling industry because of the global financial turmoil?
1. Will brick and mortar bike shops make enough money to sustain themselves? Will we see a lot of bikes selling for cheap just to get rid of excess inventory? And with lesser access to credit in order to get new line of bikes in, are we going to see some unusually empty bike shop floors early next year together with dwindling shoppers? 2. Will big brand names cut on the variety of lines of bicycles they offer to the public?
3. And what about the average consumer who won't be able to get a loan or credit with the same ease as in the past? With his buying power decreasing, what will the demand for bicycles be in the coming months? Don't you think the consumer mindset will be to hold onto money in these tough financial times? Shouldn't bicycle design itself change and strive to keep costs down instead of pushing for the high end bike sales.
4. And how on earth could we solve this? What can and should change in the way retail business is conducted today? Should the industry target more newcomers to cycling, as opposed to the ones who already have 400 bikes in the garage? Should bike shops focus more on service as opposed to emphasizing the selling of goods to make the margins? Should they charge higher prices on those services? And how will that decision affect the customer as a result.
5. Finally, as far as smaller brand names are concerned, how will they fare? Are consolidations of smaller bicycle companies by the bigger ones be the answer to saving them from possible collapse? The issue is in keeping the industry going, and maintaining people's jobs in these tough times.
Boys and girls, chew on this!A lot of pollinations today indeed!
1. NYC City Racks Competition Finalists : The 10 finalists (from 200 entries from all around the world) of the City Racks Competition was announced last month, news courtesy of Core 77 and NYT. Visually, they were all designed to stand out as street furniture but do they have the required functionality of a bike rack?
It appears that a common design point overlooked is the strength of the anchoring point to the ground. Frederico Otero's design was pretty weak in this respect, and some photos at the CyclingWMD blog showed one how easily it can be ripped apart from the ground.
So to me, that means that there are only 9 proper finalists as opposed to 10!
3. Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning Course (3 credits) : Now if you're in North Carolina and have free time to take higher classes, the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina is offering a new graduate course in pedestrian and bicycle planning this coming spring. This course brings experiences from professionals in many fields (both public and private) and researchers at the local and national level into the classroom to provide a comprehensive overview of best planning practices to support increased walking and bicycling.
I haven't heard of many institutions offering coursework such as this. Dang, I wish I were still in school! Click here for more information.
4. Bicycles : The Wood Wood X Vision Bicycle by Danish brand name Wood Wood (what?) weighs in at a svelte 10 pounds. Read more here.
Just in case you thought Museeuw was the only one in the Flax arena, a Schwinn Earth Flax Seed Bike was presented at Eurobike '08. Read more here.
6. Asian Manufacturing Expertise - Its perhaps time to ditch our prejudices against Asian bicycle manufacturing. Today, they're clearly a leader in it. Carlton Reid examines the relationship between European manufacturing and Asian expertise in this article in the CNBC European Business.
Says the designer : "In normal mode, the device shows the current speed, time and date. When you press the ? button, you can see the distance and the amount of money earned that day. Pressing the T (total) button shows the total data of how many days and how much you have earned. The data is reset when you collect your earnings. " So does this mean I can be a pro cyclist? Hey, where do I sign up?!
But the highlights of the report are : 1. Mass-production, the age-old belief is now being replaced by mass-customization. 2. Growth is expected to arise from the increasing popularity of electric bicycles. China is the largest market for electric bicycles in the world and is expected to be the leader in the foreseeable future. 3. The world's major manufacturing centers are shifting to Southeast Asia. Many North American brands and European brands are now being assembled in the Far East.
10. The Bike Industry, The Economy And You : Last but not the least, in a very well written article for the relavant and dire economic times of today (See : The Bike Industry, The Economy And You), Robb Sutton describes how all this can affect the average Joe who rides. From rise in raw material and fuel prices, cost of frames and parts, and slimming down of product lines, Robb makes a good case for buying stuff immediately before retail price increases slam the market, yet at the same time (and better still), being cautious and SAVING MONEY instead of buying all the uber bling componentry you're lusting after seeing Interbike!!!
I've often read that some of the most creative ideas that turned into winning products were first sketched out on table napkins. The iBike Power Computer was no exception either back in 2004, according to John Hamann, CEO/engineer of Velocomp LLP - a sports technology company based in Ennis, Montana.
The iBike computer is quite different from others. Affording portability and lighter weight to its user, it churns out an impressive array of readings from power, wind speed, road inclination, aerodynamic drag and even frictional losses in your bicycle's drive train by applying Newton's Third Law with the help of two inexpensive solid state sensors - an accelerometer and a wind speed sensor (also called an anemometer).
Velocomp consulted Protomold, a company specializing in automated Rapid Injection Molding for prototypes and commercial products.
Plastic injection molding uses plastic in the form of resin pellets that are loaded into the hopper of an injection-molding machine. A heated barrel on the machine melts the material and a large screw forces the melt into the mold. The material cools and solidifies. The machine then opens the mold at its parting line and ejector pins push out the part.
Rapid Injection Molding automates the design and manufacturing of molds based on 3D CAD models that have been uploaded online. This automation typically cuts lead times for initial parts to one-third that of conventional methods. Naturally, cost savings vary with the number of parts being produced, but rapid injection molding can have a substantial cost advantage in runs of up to thousands of parts.
Protomold produces quality molds using advanced aluminum alloys and precise, high-speed CNC machining. Parts can be molded in almost any engineering grade resin, at substantial cost savings compared to conventional prototyping and production methods.
Protomold provides us a case study of the design challenges faced by Velocomp and how they went about assisting them in creating a finanically feasable solution. One of the highlights of this partnership is the following statement from the case study:
"Protomold has been an important part not just of the iBike?s success, but of the business venture as well. With a partner like Protomold, we don?t just offer a better product; we can also change the way we do business as well. We may be small, but we?re doing the same thing that some of the best companies do: turning raw materials into cash faster than the raw material bills come due. We could wait 12 weeks for large orders of parts to ship from China, but instead, we keep a very small inventory and get parts as we need them from Protomold and our other US suppliers, which lets us be both fast to market and cash flow positive at a very early stage.?
Read the case study here or for actual PDFs, click here, and here (all courtesy of Protomold):
Readers may recall, through a post of mine [Kurt Kinetic Releasing 911 Trainer], that I had shared a tip-off from the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal that Kurt is coming out with an energy storing trainer system. Details were vague as Kurt, I believe, didn't have anything official even on their website.
After some hunting through several Interbike stories, separating the junk from sensible, I found this via Tyler's Bike Rumor.
Black & Decker Power pack with a 12V AC/DC car cable
This is somewhat catching up with me, since the idea seems to be around storing power for powering small appliances and for emergency purposes (see where the '911' comes from?) like you find in a typical camping trip.
But the green paint seems a little obnoxious to me, especially after my line of thinking that there appears to be a solid conspiracy in the bicycle industry to make everything look like frogs [Read Invasion Of the Frogs : Rrrriibike].
Note that they have given an average figure of .5kwh for a 3 hour ride, which implies that the potential is more. It seems that in tests (as referenced in my past post), they found that 2 hours of constant riding generated 1000 watts of power, which equals 2 kilowatt-hour. The claims from Kurt were that this is sufficient to power an average home for half a day, which sounded like an exaggeration (especially if we're talking about American homes).
Nevertheless, I'm sure one can sit down and do some number crunching to determine at what point in the future he/she can receive a possible return on their investment. Right now, the complete unit's MSRP is placed at approx. 500 dollars.
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