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Here it’s already been a month and I haven’t yet posted the presentation I made at the velomobile seminar.
The paper, Design and Development of the Turanga Velomobile, can be found at the seminar proceedings site here and locally here.
A hardcopy of the slide presentation in pdf form can be found here (8.3MB). As an added bonus, these slides are actually formatted correctly, as opposed to the exported-to-PowerPoint-and-very-mangled version that I used for the actual presentation. I figured that Keynote 5.0 would have perfected this feature by now but no such luck. I did the best I could under the circumstances though, so check out video of the presentation here.
I’ve never put much thought into getting around on a bike with a little one, but with the impending arrival of our own tiny passenger I’ve been taking a closer look at some of the ways parents take their kids along for the ride.
In Copenhagen, getting around on bikes is just what people do since it happens to be the most convenient, fastest and most flexible way to get around town, not to mention a great way to stay warm and fit. During a velomobile tour around the city the day after the seminar I noticed a very well-trimmed version of the typical kid carrier…
…another Leitra on the tour with a Burley-type kid trailer attached
…and finally this fantastic contraption:
Instead of packing the kids in the minivan to get to school or day care, it’s commonplace to see the kids being pedaled around by mom or dad in a family trike, a vehicle I had never heard of yet upon first sight thought it was the most handy bike ever invented. The design brings together substantial kid and cargo- carrying capability, the stability of a trike format, an upright riding position for mom or dad and the best seats in the house saved for the kids to watch the world go by under the watchful parent’s eye.
The most popular models are the Kangaroobike (pictured above) and the Mobii, both if which were ubiquitous around town. Both have seating for two kids and space for bags while keeping and rain and wind off of the valuable contents inside the bubble. They’re so sensible I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen them before. An email to the makers of Kangaroobike revealed that they are considering entering the US market but have to become comfotable with the product liability regulations here before that happens. I can only believe they’d be a hit here, even at $3000.
