..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

vélosophy

in the professionally cossetted world of velocipedinal bike racing, it is almost unconstitutional to consider the bicycle as a beast of burden. though many of us will consider placing a small zipped bag under the rear of the saddle to carry the bare necessities, that is often as far as it goes. having just finished watching the opening team time-trial at this year's giro, those wind-tunnel tested slivers of carbon fibre would scarcely be your first choice when it comes to nipping to the shops for an irn-bru ice lolly. nor would they provide much in the way of service for a bicycle tour of the outer hebrides.

in mitigation, that was hardly the descriptor atop the cad/cam package that brought those frames to three-dimensional life. in fact, if considering the life of the porteur bicycle in stark reality, neither computer-aided design nor wind tunnels likely feature highly. but a similar distinction inhabits the world of the motor car; formula one machinery, allegedly existing in order to further develop the family fiesta, would scarcely be the first choice for a weekend trip to chipping sodbury.

however, fortunately for the sanity of the bicycle itself, there are those who have other paths to travel than that which begins with the flamme rouge. while there is much informed and intellectual discussion regarding the formation of cities in which human beings would like to live, a portion of that consideration concerns the efficient transportation of those shiny, happy people. it doesn't take a nobel prize-winner to realise that the motor car in its current form is hardly the most efficient means of inner-city transport.

despite katie melua's contention that there are (or were) nine million bicycles in beijing, illustration of this still offered evidence that traffic snarls, if they existed at all, were hardly of the scale affecting motorised transport in many a developed world city. and for those who would gleefully point to the lack of appropriate load bearing capacity on behalf of the velocipede, you need only type "moving house by bicycle" into the search field on youtube to be visually informed otherwise.

however, most of us would do the sensible thing and hire a moving company, content to ride our bicycles in favour of the weekly or daily shop. there's no denying that prince bradley's paris-roubaix pinarello dogma might not be the most efficacious choice. and that's where vélosophy is keen to offer an alternative solution.

as is the modern way, the future existence of swede jimmy ostholm's brainchild is dependent on the almost ubiquitous kickstarter campaign. should the magic figure be reached by 6 june, his gps enabled city bike will become a reality, matching each individual sale with the provision of a bicycle to a school-age girl in ghana through the auspices of unicef.

while i would generally applaud such apparent altruism coupled with a desire to bring the functional bicycle into the 21st century, i'm none too sure that simply adding a variation on the porteur front rack to an ostensibly stylish, frill-less machine is substantially different from that which many individual builders have been doing for well over a decade. i'm very much in favour of the donation of bicycles to under-developed countries, but mtn qhubeka and world bicycle relief have also been providing such a service for quite some time, though admittedly dependent on donations rather than bicycle sales.

and as to the gps facility, the kickstarter page is somewhat vague on the implementation of such. "WhatÕs both important and interesting, is our ambition to connect the bike to a digital interface, great for many purposes like safety, security, navigation, communication and even community building! The challenge is to integrate these in serial production, and keep the price at a reasonable level. It's just the beginning but Vélosophy will be GPS traceable at launch.

however, though my cynicism is genuine enough, there's no doubt that technical development at the more mundane, yet pragmatic end of the bicycle world has scarcely kept pace with that more concerned with breaking hour records. sadly, the latter achievement (or even lack of) will usually guarantee more column inches than the ability to easily bring home a bedside table over the front wheel. vélosophy's projected bicycle will doubtless make more of a mark on the world than the art of riding in circles for an hour, without ever once gaining proximity to a banner headline. for that reason alone, perhaps it deserves every krone of funding it can acquire.

vélosophy kickstarter campaign

sunday 10 may 2015

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................